Much recent research on figurative language and conceptual metaphor theory derives from corpus examination, and analysts are increasingly focused on the development of quantificational tools to reveal co-occurrence patterns indicative of source and target domain associations. Some mappings between source and target are transparent and appear in collocation patterns in natural language data. However, other metaphors, especially those that structure abstract processes, are more complex because the target domain is lexically divorced from the source. Using economic discourse as a case study, this paper introduces new techniques directed at the quantitative evaluation of metaphorical occurrence when target and source relationships are nonobvious. Constellations of source-domain triggers are identified in the data and shown to disproportionately emerge in topic-specific discourse.
This article explores the metaphorical models English speakers employ in their understanding of transgenderism. Transgender is the term ascribed to those who have begun or completed a change in their sex characteristics from male to female or female to male. Using both qualitative and quantitative measures, I examine an archive of narrative data and a transition-specific corpus to show how spoken and written narrative support a spatially based representation of gender identity and transition. Two robust models are revealed in the data, each carrying a set of suppositions consequential to how speakers understand their lived experience. I show how metaphor-evoking trigger lexemes relate to each model and can be used jointly to demonstrate conceptual salience. This investigation should be seen as part of an ever-growing body of research directed at revealing the unconscious assumptions, which organize speakers' comprehension of complex topics with political relevance (cf.
Some metaphorical mappings between source and target are obvious and appear in collocation patterns in natural language data. However, other metaphors that structure abstract processes or complex topics are trickier to investigate because the target domain is lexically divorced from the source. Using metaphors for the economy as a case study, this paper introduces new techniques to find metaphorical tokens when target and source relationships are nonobvious. Through novel methods, constellations of source-domain triggers are identified in the data and evaluated for metaphoricity and keyness and then grouped according to trigger potency.
This study concerns the distribution of metaphorical lexis in discrete syntactic constructions. Source and target seed language from established conceptual metaphors in economic discourse is used to catalogue the specific patterns of how metaphorical pairs align in five syntactic constructions: A-NP, N-N, NP-of-NP, V-NP, and X is Y. Utilizing the Corpus of Contemporary American English (Davies, Mark. 2008–present. The corpus of contemporary American English: 450 million words, 1990–present [Online Corpus]), the examination includes 12 frequent metaphorical target triggers combined with 84 source triggers to produce 2,016 ordered collocations, i.e. investment freeze and turbulent market. Through detailed type and token counts, results confirm that source domains function as conceptual material used to structure the target domain and disproportionally fill syntactic positions associated with predication (cf. Sullivan, Karen. 2009. Grammatical constructions in metaphoric language. In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & K. Dziwirek (eds.), Studies in cognitive corpus linguistics. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishers; Sullivan, Karen. 2013. Frames and constructions in metaphoric language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing). Given a lexeme’s origin – source or target – when used in source-target metaphors, syntactic alignment can be predicted, market climate is metaphorical, climate market is not. Exceptions to these strong tendencies are explained through genre-specific lexicalization processes in which predicate denoting terms like bubble (market bubble) establish themselves as domain modifiers (bubble market) in economic jargon. Through quantitative techniques to gage metaphorical conventionality and lexical versatility, corpus methodology is used to define and inform the value of frequency effects in cataloguing and understanding metaphorical lexicalization.
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