Modern metaphor research in Russia: Trends, schools and results

Abstract

This article focuses on various trends and linguistic approaches to metaphor studies in Russia (2019-2023). The latter deal with different types of metaphors, process of metaphor formation and the use of metaphors in discourse. The basic methods of investigation include comparative, inductive, generalization and descriptive approaches. The article summarises new results in modern studies of metaphor on data from Slavic, Romance and Germanic languages. In the paper, we show the role of metaphor both as a trope and a cognitive operation in monolingual and comparative studies. Alongside these traditional areas, we discuss the results of metaphor studies in multimodal texts and corpora. Multimodal texts are frequently constructed on the intersection of mental, semiotic and semantic fields. Corpora, which have proved to be a convenient source of recent and reliable data, present another modern sphere of investigation of metaphoric potential in Russian studies. We discuss such important areas of metaphor studies as the interdisciplinary approach, pluralism of methods, critical attitudes to universalism, emphasis on cultural features of communication and discourse, and the blending of rhetorical and cognitive methods.