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Death 11. correct.
Team them in a 12. smugglers. Last December they 13. Ohlone tribe fished in the bay and 14. that they were the 10,000 most anti15. week by 44 to 31 against a ban on 16. that they continued to allow 17. stole his beanbag and he was still 18. is political.
because legal 19. health care and home safety to job 20. CVH-engined cars are good bargain-
Concordance 0.1 Sample of concordance for hunt* hunt” against the unions. ‘Let’s hunt at Winsford, Somerset. It hunt is continuing for Alan Lord, Hunt’s support for industry by hunt for her # The hotel was large hunt. The literature of this sort Hunt, has asked the legislature to hunt festival in Ireland in April hunt, said last night that he hunt doctor is held after chase in hunt for a terrifying serial hunted down and killed one of the hunted the small mammals and water hunting people in Britain, but hunting with hounds on its 11,800 hunting. hunting for it when everybody else hunting funded a game department w hunting. choose one of the hunting grounds.
Rover’s brand
Introduction
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
To obtain this data, I have instructed the concordancing software to find me all the citations in the corpus of the string of characters [space][h][u][n][t], followed by any character. Because this word and its inflections are not infrequent, many thousands of citations were found, of which these are a small sample. However, even these 20 citations give the researcher a good deal of information. Firstly, the sample shows that the use of hunt which many speakers might think to be the main use, to talk about pursuing and killing animals, only represents about a third of the sample; citations 2, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18. With this meaning, the nominal form, hunting, appears to be more usual than the verb form. Other frequent uses are to talk about police searching for criminals, in citations 3, 9, 10, and 11. Hunt is also used to talk about searching generally, literally in citations 12, and 17, and in a more abstract way, for jobs or bargains, in citations 19 and 20. It also appears as a surname, in citations 4 and 7, and in the expression witch hunt, in citations 1 and 6. This latter expression may be metaphorical at two levels: the use of hunt meaning “to seek out women who may be witches” could be seen as a metaphorical use of hunt, while in citation 1, the expression witch hunt is itself used metaphorically, because the object of pursuit is not witches but trade unions. For many citations, the classification of meaning into literal or metaphorical can be done immediately with a quick look at the co-text; for instance, citation 15 is immediately recognisable as literal from the collocate hounds. However this is not always the case, and even where a meaning does seem obviously either literal or metaphorical, it is often worth checking; it was mentioned earlier that metaphors often involve clusters of words with related literal meanings, so the presence of a literal collocate does not necessarily signal a literal meaning. In some citations it is not easy to assign a literal or metaphorical interpretation with certainty, as for instance, in citation 18, where “legal hunting” seems likely to be literal but could conceivably refer to a metaphorical type of hunting done by lawyers. A wider context can be obtained for a citation, and this almost always disambiguates. Extended context for citation 18 clearly shows hunting to be literal: It is no wonder that hunting is political, because legal hunting funded a game department whose anti-poaching activities were too effective to please those people in power who were profiting from poaching.
It can be seen that the concordance data for hunt raise several questions, among them:
Introduction
– – – – –
Is the use of hunt to talk about police work metaphorical, on the grounds that it is derived from a more “basic” sense of hunt to search for animals? What about the use of hunt to mean “search”, generally? Should the frequency of a particular use influence the decision about whether to class it as literal or metaphorical? Should the researcher be guided by etymology in trying to discern literal meanings? Can the presence of particular collocates reliably enable us to classify meanings?
Questions such as these are posed again and again when concordance data are examined, and although they concern points of detail for each individual word, taken together they represent important questions in the study of metaphor. The argument that corpus data brings important insights not obtainable in other ways will be explored and developed in more depth when different research methodologies are discussed in Part II of this book. Concordance data also reveal linguistic patterns that demand explanation; one of the aims of this book is to examine some of these patterns and consider whether Conceptual Metaphor Theory provides adequate explanation; the studies discussed in Part III attempt to do this.
Summary In this Introduction, I outlined the “decorative” approach to metaphor, and contrasted this to the approach currently adopted by many researchers, Conceptual Metaphor Theory. I then described some basics of the corpus linguistic approach to language analysis, showing some of the questions that it can raise. In the rest of the book, I will tackle these and other questions that arise from the application of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which is essentially a theory about cognition, to the analysis of patterns of figurative language.
P I
Current models of metaphor and metonymy
Chapter 1
Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
In the Introduction, it was hinted that Conceptual Metaphor Theory accounts for many of the observable facts about metaphors in language better than a “decorative” view. The theory is now discussed in more detail. The first part of the chapter outlines some of its main tenets and develops a foundation for a discussion of current metaphor research, and the second part discusses some implications that Conceptual Metaphor Theory has for language description. Finally, some corpus data are examined in the light of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and the extent to which they bear it out is assessed, suggesting that some patterns of linguistic metaphor are not fully accounted for within the theory. This previews the more detailed corpus linguistic studies that are described in Part III of this book.
Main tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory As noted in the Introduction, Conceptual Metaphor Theory rejects the notion that metaphor is a decorative device, peripheral to language and thought. Instead, the theory holds that metaphor is central to thought, and therefore to language. From this starting point a number of tenets are derived, which are discussed here with particular reference to language. These tenets are: – – – – –
Metaphors structure thinking; Metaphors structure knowledge; Metaphor is central to abstract language; Metaphor is grounded in physical experience; Metaphor is ideological.
They are now discussed in turn.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Metaphors structure thinking In the seminal Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) and later publications, Lakoff and his followers claimed that many abstract topics that are central to our existence, such as birth, love and death, are known and understood largely or entirely through metaphors (Lakoff 1993). Lakoff and Johnson argued for the existence of links between ideas, links which they call conceptual metaphors (1980). One conceptual metaphor is happy is up (1980: 15) (in the metaphor literature, small capitals are used to denote a conceptual metaphor). A conceptual metaphor is a connection between two semantic areas, or domains, in this case the concrete domain of direction (up) and the abstract domain of emotion (happy). The domain that is talked of metaphorically, “emotion” in this example, is known as the target domain, and the domain that provides the metaphors, “direction” in this example, is known as the source domain. The source domain is typically concrete and the target domain is typically abstract. It is said that ideas and knowledge from the source domain are mapped onto the target domain by the conceptual metaphor. In the example of happy is up, ideas and knowledge from the source domain of upward direction and movement are mapped onto the target domain of emotion. Conceptual metaphors function at the level of thought, below language, and they are rarely, if ever, used in speaking or writing. They could be seen as a way of describing the connection that exists between two groups of ideas in people’s minds. Researchers generally search for conceptual metaphors through language. They find patterns in the words and phrases that are generally called “metaphors”, and use these as evidence for the existence of underlying conceptual metaphors. In this book, “metaphors” in language will be called linguistic metaphors where it is important to distinguish them from conceptual metaphors, following Steen (Steen 1994). The relationship between metaphorical thinking and speaking is often described by saying that linguistic metaphors realize conceptual metaphors. For example, we can say that the conceptual metaphor happy is up is realized by linguistic metaphors in expressions such as “I’m feeling up”, “That boosted my spirits” and “Feeling on top of the world”. The meaning of a linguistic metaphor is often described in terms of topic and vehicle. The vehicle is the meaning that the word has in its source domain, or its literal meaning; in the case of up, this is “direction away from the ground”. The topic is the meaning that the word has in the target domain, or its metaphorical meaning; in the case of up this is “happy”.
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
Linguistic metaphors are the main type of evidence given for the existence of conceptual metaphors. One of the first observations in the early literature on Conceptual Metaphor Theory was that linguistic metaphors are highly frequent, which suggests that if they are indeed evidence of underlying mental structures, these structures must be significant. The frequency of linguistic metaphors will be attested by anyone who has ever analyzed a piece of authentic writing from a lexical perspective, and the data discussed later in this book also bear out the point. However, this is a relatively recent observation; conventional linguistic metaphors attracted little attention in the past, for two reasons. The first is that metaphor tended to be researched by writers with a focus on literature, whose interests centred on poetic metaphor. In this tradition, conventional metaphors have often been described as “dead”, and by implication of little significance. (The notion of dead and living metaphors is discussed in Chapter 2.) The second reason why the frequency of linguistic metaphors was largely unacknowledged was that speakers simply did not notice most conventional metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Gibbs 1994). For example, most speakers might not see the metaphor in phrases such as “I’m feeling up” unless they took time to think about the meaning of the expression in a way that most of us do not do in everyday life. It is argued that this very unmarkedness should be taken as proof of the importance of metaphor; Gibbs remarks: “. . . those things that are most alive, and most deeply entrenched, efficient and powerful, are so automatic as to be unconscious and effortless” (1994: 22). By this line of reasoning, conceptual metaphors form the background to our conceptual systems rather than the foreground, and are thus of great importance.
Metaphors structure knowledge Developed from the notion that metaphors play an important role in structuring our background conceptual systems is the idea that they also structure existing and developing knowledge about the world. Allbritton is one of a number of writers who have researched this property of metaphor. He observes: Metaphor has been shown to serve a number of important cognitive functions, including that of making new domains accessible through metaphorical “scaffolds” imported from better-known domains such as in the case of metaphors in science, and providing a coherent framework or schema for understanding such everyday topics as time, arguments and emotions. (1995: 43)
Two types of knowledge are suggested in this quotation: firstly, specialized, sometimes academic knowledge, which may not be accessible to all members
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
of a society, and secondly, our more widely shared knowledge of the topics that touch on every human being’s experience. The field of information technology provides one example of the metaphorical structuring of specialized knowledge. The domain is talked about using several conceptual metaphors, including connected computers are nodes in a web, which is realized in linguistic metaphors such as web and (inter)net. This metaphor probably facilitates understanding among non-specialist users of information technology, because speakers will tend to project their knowledge about the nonmetaphorical meaning of a word onto the new domain. For instance, when people saw a linguistic metaphor such as (world wide) web for the first time, they not only acquired a new vocabulary item, but they perhaps also developed their mental model of the target domain. By transferring their knowledge of the already-known meaning of web, a spider’s web, to the domain of computers and the Internet, they will have developed a picture of thin but strong connections between nodes, and coverage of a large area using fine connections. This particular knowledge domain has spread so rapidly that young language users growing up now may never go through the process of transferring their knowledge of spiders’ webs onto the target domain of information technology; they will probably grow up as familiar with the Internet as with spiders’ webs. However there will be other developing domains, and the chances are that they too will be named through metaphorical reference to something already known, so similar mental processes will continue to take place. The metaphorical model that inexpert language users develop through this process is often crude and inaccurate from a specialist’s point of view, but it is adequate for the speaker’s needs at this stage. As the speaker develops more knowledge of the target domain, the model will be refined, or perhaps eventually replaced by a new one with its origins in a different metaphor altogether. It seems possible that aspects of the development of new expert knowledge in highly specialized fields are not fundamentally different from this process, but are essentially a matter of seeking and using appropriate metaphors. Boyd refers to this use of metaphor as “theory-constitutive” (1993). Knudsen explores the way in which metaphors are first used by experts, then become more widely used, through a study of metaphors used to describe genetic code and protein synthesis in molecular biology (2003). She finds that the same metaphors are used by experts to develop theory and for pedagogic purposes. One example of how a metaphor helps us to structure the second kind of knowledge mentioned by Allbritton, that of everyday events, comes from talk about the course of human lives. Lakoff (1993) and Kövecses (2002) show how this topic is organized by the conceptual metaphor a purposeful life is a
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
journey. Major life events are talked about as landmarks along a journey, and developments in someone’s career or personal life are talked about as physical progress towards a destination. The metaphor seems very necessary: life itself is mysterious, and, despite our attempts, much in our lives is outside our control. Our own direct experience of life often consists of a collection of events that seem bewildering in their unpredictability and unrelatedness to each other. It is difficult to start making sense of this without metaphors, and the journey metaphor helps us to tie together these experiences of life events into a comprehensible and apparently logical framework. Evidence for the existence of this conceptual metaphor is found in linguistic metaphors such as be without direction, be at a crossroads, and go places. Experiences expressed through the metaphor are those of watching children grow and become adults (start out in life), of making choices about what to do with our lives (choose a path, a road to follow) and of reflecting on earlier times in our lives (look back). The metaphor provides a framework for all this, connecting diverse experiences by making use of our concrete and universally shared experience of literal journeys. In this way, some of the central aspects of human life are made to relate to each other and given apparent logic through the structure of a well-known source domain.
Metaphor is central to abstract language When the life is a journey metaphor was introduced above, I wrote that “One example of how a metaphor helps us to structure the second kind of knowledge mentioned by Allbritton, that of everyday events, comes from talk about the course of human lives”. Course is itself a metaphor, derived from an equation between spatial distance and time, and thus possibly another realization of life is a journey. When writing that sentence, I would have preferred to use a word which was not metaphorical, to avoid any confusion, yet the only other possibilities which occurred to me, expressions such as “the progress of human lives”, or “the direction of human lives”, are realizations of the same mapping. Writing from the perspective of the “decorative” view of metaphor, Searle asks, and tries to answer, questions such as “Why do we use expressions metaphorically instead of saying exactly and literally what we mean?” (Searle 1993: 83). My lack of success in finding a literal way of describing the “course” of human life suggests that for many metaphorical expressions there are no literal paraphrases, and certainly none that are “exactly and literally what we mean”. This is the view of writers within the Conceptual Metaphor school, who argue
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
not only that linguistic metaphors are very frequent, but that some abstract subjects cannot be talked about without them. One of the earliest and most influential studies in which this position is argued is by Reddy (1979/1993). Reddy shows that the overwhelming majority of words and phrases that are used to talk about the semantic area of communication are metaphors from a single source domain, that of physical transference. The linguistic metaphors he cites include to get one’s message across, to pack ideas in (to words) and to extract ideas (from words), which seem to realize a conceptual metaphor that is often called the “conduit metaphor”. Using Lakoff and Johnson’s way of expressing conceptual metaphors, this can be expressed as communication is physical transfer. Reddy shows that it is very difficult to talk about communication without using linguistic metaphors from the source domain of physical transfer. He argues that this is a reflection of our ways of thinking about communication, which are inherently metaphorical. He shows that other, new ways of metaphorically conceptualizing communication could be thought up, and these would result in new linguistic metaphors. What does not seem possible is metaphor-free talk about the subject. This is because communication is an abstract notion, which, apparently, we cannot understand directly; we can only approach it through the filter of a less abstract and better-understood area. Other studies of linguistic metaphors have shown that there are many abstract topics that are usually talked about by using metaphor. Lakoff and Turner show that many of our ways of talking about understanding involve linguistic metaphors that literally refer to the physical act of taking hold of an object (1989). Examples of this are the expressions grasp an idea and get a handle on something, that realize the conceptual metaphor understanding is seizing (Sweetser 1990). The abstract area of emotions is talked about using several groups of linguistic metaphors: one of these groups, the orientation metaphors (happy is up), was discussed above. Another conceptual metaphor for emotion is happiness is light (Kövecses 1991), which is realized in linguistic metaphors such as look on the bright side and a sunny smile. If we accept Lakoff and Johnson’s argument that linguistic metaphors are proof of the existence of conceptual metaphors, then there is a huge and growing body of evidence that conceptual metaphors play a major role in our interpretations of the central abstract themes of our lives.
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
Metaphor is grounded in physical experience The vast majority of the conceptual metaphors discussed in the literature are like the ones described in the previous section, that is, mappings of a concrete domain onto an abstract one. These conceptual metaphors enable us to quantify, visualize and generalize about the abstract, because they make use of relationships within source domains that we know well from our concrete experience. This leads to the fourth tenet of the contemporary view, that the most central metaphors are grounded in our physical experience. Some examples of research that supports this assertion are now given. A number of writers claim that we talk about mental processes in terms of physical perception, that is, the metaphors we use to talk about the field of mental processes are motivated by bodily experience. Sweetser uses evidence from a number of languages to show that mappings such as the conceptual metaphor understanding is seizing are systematic and widespread across different languages and times. She believes that this is not coincidental, but has arisen because we perceive understanding as an extension of literally grasping and holding an object (1990). The fact that unrelated languages have the same metaphors is evidence, she writes, for there being a very fundamental connection between the two domains. Where two groups of people do not share language or culture but have the same metaphors, the roots of the metaphorical connections probably lie in perhaps the only experience they have in common: inhabiting a human body. Gibbs and Wilson (2002) argue that many conceptual metaphors used to talk about emotions are motivated by bodily sensations that we experience when we have those emotions. Gibbs examined the linguistic metaphors used to talk about anger, and claims that many of these are motivated by the conceptual metaphor anger is heated fluid in a container (1994). This is realized by linguistic metaphors such as “She got all steamed up” and “I was fuming” (1994: 203). He claims that we each perceive our own body as a container, and when we become angry we experience physical sensations of heat and internal pressure which threaten to build up to dangerous levels within the perceived container. Lakoff and Kövecses looked at metaphorical ways of talking about lust and found that some of these are words and phrases from the source domain of fire (1987). They speculated that these have their grounds in physical sensations of heat experienced in association with lust. Corpus data are consistent with Gibbs and Wilson’s, and Lakoff and Kövecses’ arguments: I studied the lexis of temperature (1999b) and found that in many citations of hot and related lexis, temperature is used to talk about
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
anger, lust and other emotions. To take just one expression, there are 19 citations of hot under the collar in the 56 million word corpus studied (described in the Introduction and in more detail in Chapter 6), as in the concordance on the next page. Additional context shows that all citations refer to either anger, lust or another emotion, such as nervous tension, although some citations also pun on the literal meaning of the expression, for instance, 10 and 11. More context for citations 7, 12 and 8 seem to show the expression used to talk about anger, lust and nervous tension respectively. (1) David is getting hot under the collar at all this. He’s of a more argumentative nature than Rob, happy to challenge me, his comedy partner, himself, and anybody else I care to drag into the argument. (2) Tie Rack’s range of women’s clothing like slinky sarongs and silk suits have given sales a boost – and are getting men hot under the collar. (3) Anelka raced clear to make it 2–0 with 69 minutes showing on the giant Wembley scoreboard and the Geordies were suddenly starting to wilt. Dalglish was surely now getting hot under the collar, but he still tried to exude a show of being cool, calm and collected.
Some cross-linguistic studies support the idea that metaphors for emotions are grounded in physical sensation. Yu studied the metaphors used to talk about anger in Chinese, and found that the heat and pressure elements of the metaphor are the same as in English; the only difference is that gas is used instead of fluid to characterize anger in the Chinese metaphor (1995). Emanatian found linguistic realizations of lust is fire in Chagga, a language spoken in Tanzania (1995). As in Sweetser’s work, described above, the similarities found between metaphorical mappings in English and non-Indo-European languages add strength to the argument that these metaphors have a physical rather than a cultural basis. Lakoff and Johnson show how a number of orientation metaphors seem to connect abstract domains to the concrete physical experiences associated with them. For example, they claim that the conceptual metaphor more is up, less is down, realized in expressions such as “My income rose last year” and “If you’re too hot, turn the heat down” (1980: 16), is grounded in physical experience. We know from our early childhood that larger amounts of substances such as food form higher piles than smaller quantities, and we transfer this knowledge to non-concrete entities, such as income and heat. Lakoff and Johnson also claim that the conceptual metaphor happy is up, sad is down
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
what matey she sounded old Father Clifford all France - well I’m a bit top record company bosses causing censors to get t corporate Brisbane gets clothes. David is getting sh was surely now getting eighbour’s child gets her EN Blazers were hot, hot, Ironing slur makes me ost - and are getting men dens at Wisley. He is now Duchess of York is rather senter Muriel Gray got so s the detectives somewhat We should not get too th it.” Louise to make us over this one. I was very
hot under the collar <M01> Whe hey hot under the dog collar. But hot under the collar masel!” hot-under-the-collar with her raunchy hot under the collar. From then on, it hot under the collar at the very hot under the collar at all this. He’s hot under the collar, but he still tried hot under the collar. Smilla comes up hot under the collar yesterday.
hot under collar; Dear Sun; Letter hot under the collar. But overall annual hot under the dog-collar in pursuit of hot under the collar over an offer to hot under the collar about malehot under the collar, particularly as hot under the collar about his past. hot under the collar again;TV Talk;TV hot under the collar after some silly
Concordance 1.1 Concordance of hot under the collar
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
is grounded in our physical expression of these feelings; when happy we feel full of energy and tend to hold ourselves upright, but when we are sad we tend to slump. Some conceptual metaphors, such as good is up, bad is down, are not grounded directly in physical experience, but through other conceptual metaphors. For instance, happiness and health, which are up through direct physical experience, “characterize what is good for a person”, and so by extension good also becomes up (1980: 16). Intuition suggests that some metaphors are more closely tied to direct experience of the world than others, which are grounded in culturally-mediated experience. For example, it seems highly likely that the conceptual metaphor clean is good, dirt is bad is grounded in physical experience, while a metaphor such as elections are horse races is not. Lakoff argues that metaphors that are grounded directly in experience are likely to be deeply rooted in individual people’s thought patterns, and will also be common across different languages (1993). A metaphor such as elections are horse races has a number of linguistic realizations in English (see below) but is not grounded in universal human experience; its source domain, horse-racing, is a culturally-specific event rather than a piece of universal human experience. According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, it will therefore occupy a less than central position in the thought patterns of even English speakers, as it is learnt rather than experienced directly. This also explains why it seems not to occur in many other languages (Deignan 2003). In criticism of this argument, it is sometimes felt that the influence of physical experience on thought is over-stressed and the influence of culture is underplayed in Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Fernando argues that theories linking feelings directly with physical sensations ignore “people’s cultural interpretation of the world they inhabit” (1996: 122). She claims that some idiomatic expressions for metaphors in fact draw on “resources of a language which still retains its meaning system concepts traceable back to the Middle Ages” and in some instances, earlier (1996: 124). As evidence, she cites idioms that can be linked to beliefs in the humours, a medieval theory of personality. This is not incompatible with the theory that metaphors are grounded in physical experience, but serves to remind us that physical experience is filtered culturally. It would suggest that some meanings of some linguistic metaphors can be explained more fully with reference to former belief systems than through an analysis of possible physical origins alone.
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
Metaphor is ideological Conceptual Metaphor Theory holds that metaphor is potentially ideological. A number of researchers have analyzed texts in which it appears that metaphors have been used in order to present a particular interpretation of situations and events. For instance, Lakoff and Johnson claim that the use of a war metaphor affected public perceptions of the search for cheap energy resources in the United States in the 1970s (1980: 156). According to them, one inference that was suggested but not made explicit by the conceptual metaphor the search for energy is war was the existence of a hostile foreign enemy; cartoonists sometimes hinted that this enemy was Arab. Lakoff and Johnson claim that by creating such inferences, the war metaphor influenced the thought and behaviour of politicians and the public, and that a different metaphor might have created different inferences and therefore led to different courses of action. Lakoff continued to study the use of metaphors to describe events in the Persian Gulf, and to argue that “metaphors can kill” (1991: 1). The case for metaphor as ideological is developed from the observation that the interpretation of situations and events presented by any metaphor is only partial, and therefore flawed. A metaphor by its nature suggests an equation between the metaphorical and literal meanings that does not actually exist. As Low points out, although the two meanings must resemble each other at one or more points, they are not identical: if they were, we would not see a metaphor and its literal counterpart, but a word with a single meaning (1988). Therefore, a metaphor will never give a completely accurate picture of its topic, and every vehicle will inevitably highlight some aspects of the topic and hide others (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 10–14). For example, understanding is seizing (Lakoff & Turner 1989) takes the vehicles grasp and seize to metaphorically express the topic of understanding. The vehicle highlights the feeling we have when we quickly understand a new idea as a whole, and the metaphor gains its effectiveness from this resemblance, which we all recognize from our experience. However, the vehicle also hides the lengthy pondering that often precedes understanding. Many metaphors, including understanding is seizing, also distort because they are over-simplifications. Earlier in this chapter, the conceptual metaphor a purposeful life is a journey was discussed, and it was argued that it enables us to make sense of a topic that is difficult to comprehend directly. However, human existence is obviously far more complex than a literal journey, so the metaphor will present a simplified interpretation of it. Aspects of the topic are lost, and an artificially simple understanding of it is suggested.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Many, if not all, conceptual metaphors are reductions of a complex and abstract topic and thus inevitably distortions. Both hiding and simplification are perhaps inevitable features of all metaphors, and in the cases of understanding is seizing and a purposeful life is a journey, are not usually exploited for any ideological purpose. However, this is not the case for all metaphors; research discussed in Chapter 6 shows how metaphors can be used to deliberately present a biased view of a situation. If, as was argued earlier, metaphors give structure to everyday knowledge, it follows that frequently-used conceptual metaphors will help to organize the everyday knowledge of large numbers of people. A community that shares conceptual metaphors is likely to share frameworks for everyday knowledge about subjects such as life and death, mental processes, consciousness and emotions. Mey writes, “metaphors represent certain ways of thinking that are rooted in a common social practice” (1994: 62). If all metaphors present a partial picture, then the frequent metaphors of a community must contribute to a collective bias in understanding the world, because they both hide and highlight aspects of reality from members of that community. As Hawkes argues, metaphors have a normative and reinforcing effect, limiting our understanding as well as developing it: “if [metaphors] seem sometimes to shake the bars of our cage, it is often only to demonstrate how firmly, how comfortably, these are fixed” (1972: 89). While this aspect of metaphor may sound undesirable, it is also unavoidable. Writers who are concerned about the normative effects of metaphor, such as Reddy and Mey, do not suggest that “reality” can be accessed directly. Nonetheless, they urge that metaphors should not be accepted uncritically; rather, their inferences should be made explicit, then challenged, and alternative metaphors should be explored. This would suggest that we can learn about a community’s interpretation of the world by studying its conceptual metaphors, which we can access through the linguistic metaphors that appear frequently in language. Working on this assumption, several writers have analyzed the linguistic metaphors that realize particular fields, in order to make explicit some popular beliefs about that field. Some of this research is surveyed in Chapter 6.
Some implications of Conceptual Metaphor Theory for language description Having considered some of the central tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, I now consider why this theory, which is essentially concerned with thought
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
rather than language, is important for language description. I then go on to look at the relationship the other way round: how linguistic metaphors can be explored to give insights into Conceptual Metaphor Theory, previewing some of the research to be described in Part III.
The creation of new word meanings It is fairly rare for a completely new lexeme to appear in the language. Gaps in the lexicon that arise through changes and developments in society and technology are more often filled by adapting existing lexemes. This happens through a range of processes, the most important of which is probably metaphor. Occasionally, metaphor also motivates new word forms altogether, when it coincides with changes to form such as compounding. The role of metaphor in language development has long been recognized; Ullmann, for instance, considers it to be the most important force in creating new meanings in language (1962: 202). In technical fields, Martin and Harré write that developing sciences often require words that are: (i) Meaningful to the user of the language without recourse to further experience (ii) And yet, somehow imbued with novel meaning (1982: 96)
and that only metaphor can fulfill both these requirements. An example of this is the meaning of web, discussed above, which is used to refer to connections between different computers across the world. The word is known to the user of English and meaningful through its sense of “spider’s web”, and yet also has a new meaning in the target domain. The centrality of metaphor in language development is not always evident, because the metaphorical origins of much of the lexicon are not apparent. Halliday writes, “Much of the history of every language is a history of demetaphorizing: of expressions which began as metaphors gradually losing their metaphorical character” (1994: 348). Not only do many metaphors lose their metaphorical character or force, but as language develops over the centuries, the metaphorical origins of many words are lost completely and become inaccessible to speakers without a specialist knowledge of etymology. This is either because the originally literal meaning of the word falls into disuse or because the grounds of transfer become meaningless to modern speakers. Both processes can be seen in two modern meanings of the word cardinal, which can now mean both a high-ranking priest in the Roman Catholic church and a type of number. Although now apparently unrelated, the two meanings were origi-
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
nally connected, both being metaphors derived from a literal use of the word, meaning “hinge” (Sweetser 1990) (the “priest” meaning evolved through the use of cardinal to describe the four virtues on which human conduct “hinges”, while the “number” sense also exploits this sense of hinge meaning “critical, most basic”). The literal use has been lost to modern English, and, even if it had not been, the semantic grounds which connected the two modern meanings to the original literal meaning would probably be opaque to most speakers.
The mapping of lexical fields Perhaps more significant than the creation of individual words and word meanings is the apparent potential of Conceptual Metaphor Theory to reveal systematicity in the lexicon. If an underlying conceptual metaphor can be seen to motivate a number of linguistic metaphors, it should follow that semantic links will be traceable between them. We would thus expect many linguistic metaphors to form semantic networks or systems of some kind. A number of writers, from several academic traditions, argue that systematicity does exist in linguistic metaphors; among these are Lehrer, a semanticist (1978) and Kittay, a philosopher (1987), as well as cognitive linguists such as Gibbs (1994). Such systematicity would mean that conceptual metaphors are a very useful tool for learners of English and other languages, because they could illuminate networks of associated figurative meanings, giving access to large numbers of frequently used vocabulary items. They could also provide an important tool for Critical Discourse Analysis, as has been attempted in some of the studies described in Chapter 6. Lakoff and Johnson provide numerous illustrations of systematicity (1980); for example, time is money is realized by a number of expressions that originate in the source domain (money) and have been transferred metaphorically to the target domain (time). Lexical relations such as the antonymy of save and waste are found in both domains. Gibbs considers idioms such as blow your lid and flip your stack, and finds systematicity in them, resulting from their common motivation in the conceptual metaphors the mind is a container and anger is heated fluid in a container (1994: 162–163). The fact that apparently unrelated linguistic metaphors can be used to talk about the same topic is not evidence against Conceptual Metaphor Theory, according to Lakoff and Johnson (1980). These can be explained by the existence of several conceptual metaphors, used to talk about the same target domain. For example, the varied linguistic metaphors through which love is talked about, such as be under someone’s spell, (of a relationship) be on the rocks,
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
and be hungry to see someone apparently point to the existence of several different conceptual metaphors. These can be expressed as love is magic, love is a journey and love is a nutrient. Each conceptual metaphor is realized by a cluster of linguistic metaphors, which will form their own coherent system but will probably not be coherent with linguistic metaphors realizing a different conceptual metaphor.
Exploring linguistic metaphors as evidence for Conceptual Metaphor Theory I have noted that linguistic metaphors form the main directly observable evidence for Conceptual Metaphor Theory. However, for descriptive linguists, one difficulty with the work of Lakoff and Johnson and their followers is that most of the linguistic metaphors that they cite seem to have been elicited from informants, and there is a danger that informants may tend to produce examples that are rare in normal conditions. From the earliest days of corpus linguistics, it has been shown that one’s intuitions about language can be unreliable as a predictor of natural language use (Sinclair 1991). One of the assumptions underlying this book is that naturally-occurring language data is vastly preferable to elicited or invented language. This assumption will be discussed in more detail throughout the book, but especially in Part II, where I will also describe other types of evidence, including non-linguistic, that are used in the study of metaphor. In this section, a small-scale corpus study is discussed in order to demonstrate how naturally-occurring language data may be used to examine predictions of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. For the target domain studied, the frequency and systematicity of linguistic metaphor is not in doubt. However the picture is not a simple one, even at this superficial glance.
The frequency and systematicity of linguistic metaphors in corpus data I undertook a corpus study of words used to talk about horse-racing and gambling, establishing the key lexical items in the field using intuition, thesauri, dictionaries and collocational information from concordances. Corpus data showed that many of these words and phrases are also used metaphorically to talk about political campaigns in English, many of these political metaphors being as frequent as, or in some cases many times more frequent than, the source domain meaning of the word or phrase. Examples are given in Table 1.1.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Table 1.1 Linguistic metaphors from the field of horse-racing Linguistic metaphor
Example
In the running, out of the running
At 48 he is too young to be in the running for Prime Minister. The ex-communists are really out of the running for some time to come. For months, polls showed the two main parties neck and neck. It is the second largest party but it is likely to remain the alsoran forever if it goes on like this. The Mayor of Ankara is the current favourite for the succession. Until the election campaign started, he was an unknown rank outsider, having left the country twenty-one years ago. Nobody realized he was facing impossible odds.
Neck and neck Also-ran Favourite Outsider Odds
(As in the rest of the book, all examples are taken from the Bank of English unless otherwise stated.) To demonstrate the frequency of metaphorical uses, the expression in the running is considered. There are 124 citations of in+the+running in the corpus, of which 46 are neither the literal expression referring to horse racing, nor metaphorical extensions of it; they occur in phrases such as participate in the running of the school. Of the remaining 78 citations, only two refer to horse racing, including: (4) Ireland is in the running for the first time, with an individual, Charles Spence, riding Crystal Calif, recently purchased from Yvonne Tyson.
Even here, the reference is not directly to a horse running, but to the country of whose team the horse is part. There are 15 more citations in which the expression refers to sport more generally, which could perhaps be considered literal. This leaves 61 citations where the meaning of the expression would be considered metaphorical by most researchers. In just four cases the topic is politics, as in the following citation: (5) The Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota was urged to drop out of the race by two top Republican legislative leaders today, hours after he changed his mind and decided to stay in the running.
In 13 citations, the topic is jobs, and in the remaining 44 it is competition more generally, including competition in business and organized competitions for prizes, as in the following two citations.
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
(6) Defence firm Vickers insisted it was still in the running for a multi-million pound tank contract last night despite reports that it had lost out to American rivals. (7) You could be in the running for the prize if you send a photo of a recent catch to Fish of the Week, Sunday Mail.
The exact proportion of metaphorical versus literal uses varies greatly between words, and depends on the definition of metaphor that is used; depending on the definition, many of the sports examples found in the concordance of in the running might be considered non-literal as they refer to movement or competition generally, rather than running specifically. This discussion of in the running reflects the typical experience of corpus linguists, that metaphors tend to account for a large proportion of the concordances of many words. In some corpus citations, a number of words from the same source domain are used metaphorically in a short span of text: (8) Dismayed Jesse drops out of race for NAACP top job. [headline] The Reverend Jesse Jackson has dropped out of the running for the top job at the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). The long-time civil rights campaigner, who was ranked as favourite for the job vacated by Ben Hooks. . .
Clusters such as this seem to be attractive evidence that linguistic metaphors form a semantically related network, which, according to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, will have been generated by a conceptual metaphor such as an election is a horse-race. This network is typical of results of a number of corpus studies, which tend to show that linguistic metaphors are indeed as pervasive as argued in the theory (Deignan 1995, 1999a).
Exploitation of conceptual metaphors More detailed study of this group of linguistic metaphors suggests that they are held together in a way that is both more dynamic and more restricted than a narrow understanding of Conceptual Metaphor Theory would suggest. Two types of evidence emerge here; the first concerns exploitation of metaphorical systems, and the second concerns the distribution of linguistic metaphors across related target domains. It seems likely that people sometimes deliberately exploit metaphorical mappings to create humour or other stylistic effects. Lakoff and Turner argue that most, if not all, poetic and literary metaphor is created by producing
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
new linguistic realizations of a conceptual metaphor that is already realized by conventional linguistic metaphors (1989). Kövecses (2000) gives the example of metaphors from Adrienne Rich’s poem The Phenomenology of Anger. Here, anger is conceptualized as acetylene, directed at the target of anger. Kövecses argues that the conceptual metaphor anger is heated fluid in a container (Gibbs 1994), which produces conventional metaphors such as making one’s blood boil, is here used to generate a novel linguistic metaphor. In a similar way, writers and speakers in non-literary contexts often extend the realizations of a conceptual metaphor. To do this, they take a non-conventional linguistic metaphor from the same source domain as an existing conventional metaphor. This will have the effect of foregrounding a conceptual metaphor that might normally be unmarked. The mechanism can be seen in the following corpus citation, where the expression neck and neck is used with hurtling and finish: (9) Election fever reaches its climax tomorrow – with the White House candidates hurtling almost neck-and-neck towards the finish.
The metaphorical use of neck and neck probably goes unnoticed most of the time, because it is conventionalized, and is frequent in relation to its nonmetaphorical sense, literal uses accounting for only about 3% of citations in the corpus. However, corpus evidence suggests that hurtling and towards the finish, from the same source domain, are not conventional metaphors. They will therefore be more noticeable to the reader, and their literal meanings will probably evoked, as well as the metaphorical interpretations which are the only possible ones in this context. The literal sense of neck and neck may also be reactivated by analogy, all with possible humourous effects. While Lakoff and Turner’s, and Kövecses’ literary examples suggested that metaphorical systems can be exploited creatively, examples such as this journalistic one suggest that this is not restricted to literary language but may be widespread.
Distribution and meanings of linguistic metaphors In contrast to the above suggestion that metaphorical systems may be dynamic, corpus evidence also suggests unexpected restrictions. At first glance, the use of horse-racing terms in talk about politics suggests a neat mapping of one domain onto another. However, a detailed corpus examination of the lexis shows that, on the contrary, the picture is far from neat; it is messy and there are sometimes apparently arbitrary restrictions. Two points in particular emerged from this study:
Chapter 1. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and language
– –
metaphorical uses from the same source domain are unevenly distributed across related target domains; metaphorical uses are sometimes unpredictable in their exact meaning.
Firstly, concordances of the six linguistic metaphors exemplified above: in/out of the running, neck and neck, also-ran, favourite, outsider and odds, show that they are unpredictable in their range of reference. As the examination of in the running showed, these phrases are not used only to talk metaphorically about politics but about many competitive areas of life, such as business and people’s personal careers. This might suggest that the conceptual metaphor should be rephrased as competition is a horse-race. However, even this more generalized metaphor does not seem to explain uses adequately, because the distribution of different linguistic metaphors across different semantic fields within the broad target domain of competition is not even. For example, neck and neck, is largely, but not exclusively, restricted to politics, while in the running is often used to talk about commercial contracts as well as politics. In the corpus citations examined, odds is used mainly to talk about personal rather than public or commercial struggles. Overall, the distribution of linguistic metaphors across different semantic sub-domains is not consistent, and does not seem to be predictable from any single underlying conceptual metaphor, though there is clearly a loose overarching semantic theme. Secondly, the meanings of some linguistic metaphors in the field of politics are not predictable from the conceptual metaphor an election is a horserace. One realization of the mapping is first past the post. This has developed a specialized meaning in the target domain, and is most frequently used to modify noun phrases such as electoral system. There is no corpus evidence that it is ever used in a sentence such as “Clinton was first past the post in 1996”, which should occur if the metaphorical system was a one-to-one mapping of race onto election, horse onto politician and so on. This fixedness of meaning is echoed in linguistic structures; some words seem to appear in very restricted linguistic patterns in the target domain. For instance, odds only occurs with its metaphorical meaning in the expressions the odds are, against all odds and to face [impossible/overwhelming/enormous] odds. This corpus-based study of an election is a horse-race suggests that the linguistic metaphors it generates could only be described as a system if “system” is interpreted as open and loose and if some arbitrariness is allowed for. In Chapter 5, I will discuss some recent theoretical developments that partly account for this picture, and in Part III the picture is confirmed and developed through a number of other corpus studies.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Summary and conclusion In this chapter, some of the fundamental tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory have been explored. There is not space here to discuss the theory in more depth; readers are referred to Kövecses (2002), for more detail and discussion of issues such as different types of conceptual metaphor, common source and target domains, and examples of conceptual metaphors from languages other than English. In this chapter, I also considered the implications of the theory for thinking and language, and used some naturally-occurring linguistic evidence both to support some of its contentions and to contest an over-simplistic interpretation of it. Several of the points outlined here are developed more fully in later chapters in this book. Before that, it is necessary to specify more exactly how the notion of metaphor can be understood. Chapter 2 looks at degrees of metaphoricity, and Chapter 3 at the relationship between metaphor and metonymy.
Chapter 2
Defining metaphor
Introduction Kittay compares language to a city such as Jerusalem, which has been conquered, demolished and rebuilt many times, so that what may have been the decoration of one building becomes integrated into the foundations of a subsequent one. She continues: Language, similarly, has an archaeological, layered quality. We must decide at a given point whether we take a diachronic stand or a synchronic stand. Whether we characterise a term as metaphorical or literal may well depend on which stance we take. (1987: 21)
As Kittay suggests, different researchers have used the term “metaphor” to talk about several different kinds of linguistic expressions; the priorities of different academic traditions lead to different focuses. For instance, the study of literature has tended to be concerned with the innovative use of metaphor: writers such as Brooke-Rose study literary metaphor (1958), and take little account of most conventionalized metaphors. Cognitive linguists such as Lakoff have written about a wide range of types including highly conventionalized expressions. Lakoff, for example, claims that far in the sentence “John is far more intelligent than Bill,” is metaphorical (1993: 214), and writers such as Lindstromberg (1997) have considered most meanings of prepositions to be metaphorical. Between these two positions, language teachers tend to be concerned with conventional metaphors rather than innovative, on the grounds that learners need to concentrate on typical rather than atypical language use, but they often ignore the most historical metaphors. Each of these approaches, and others, can be justified, but in fact it is relatively rare for writers to set out by defining their understandings of “metaphor” in any detail. This means that any statistical work, such as calculations of the density of metaphors in particular texts, or the proportions of uses of a word that are metaphorical versus those that are literal, are difficult to replicate or compare.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Despite the apparent divergence, some agreement could probably be arrived at by identifying and describing the different types of linguistic expression that different people consider metaphorical. The aim of this chapter is to identify these types, in order to provide a means of situating different researchers’ studies, including this one. A definition of metaphor for the purposes of the concordance studies carried out here will be given; I am not assuming that all researchers will want to adhere to it, but by making explicit the decisions that were made at each point I hope that it will be easier to pinpoint where other researchers’ definitions differ from mine.
Types of linguistic metaphor Conceptual Metaphor Theory uses the term “linguistic metaphor” to refer to the realization of a cross-domain conceptual mapping. In linguistic terms, this suggests a general definition of metaphor as follows: A metaphor is a word or expression that is used to talk about an entity or quality other than that referred to by its core, or most basic meaning. This non-core use expresses a perceived relationship with the core meaning of the word, and in many cases between two semantic fields.
This general definition can cover a wide range of expressions, including the following: (1) She must espouse the everlasting sea. (Wordsworth The Extinction of the Venetian Republic, cited in Kittay 1987: 259) (2) He attacked every weak point in my argument. (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 4) (3) Freddie’s life has been dogged by love troubles. (Bank of English) (4) . . . an ardent lover. (Bank of English) (5) You’re making a serious mistake. (Bank of English)
The first of these five expressions realizes a city is a woman, the second, argument is war, the third, emotions are animals, the fourth, emotions are temperatures, and the fifth a more general mapping of concrete onto abstract. However, despite this similarity at the conceptual level, the expressions differ in important ways at the linguistic level. Distinguishing between these types of expression is important in order to be able to arrive at a more detailed definition for the purposes of an individual research project, and so as to compare different researchers’ understandings and interpretations of the notion
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
of metaphor. It is possible that what look like very different understandings of “metaphor” are actually the product of different decisions about which of these types of expression to allow. The first expression is an example of innovative linguistic metaphor, in that the word espoused is used unconventionally. The verb is not regularly mapped onto the target domain of cities and its subject is generally human in the source domain. The effect is probably marked for most readers. The second and third expressions, attacked and dogged, are probably unmarked for most language users, because they are regularly used with the meanings they have here. Dogged, differs from attacked, however, because I did not find a literal verb use in the corpus, whereas the literal use of attacked is very frequent. For some researchers, this would be a good reason to exclude it from the definition of “metaphor”, despite the fact that the noun dog is semantically associated with the notion of literal pursuit. The fourth expression, ardent, is also only used in the sense it has here; but unlike dog it has no grammatically related form that is used with a literal meaning in current English. Although it is etymologically derived from a word meaning “burning”, whether or not it now has a more basic or core sense is open to dispute, which means that it may not be covered by the general definition of “metaphor” given above. The fifth expression, make, is a type of verb often called “delexical”, a label suggesting that it is relatively empty semantically. In this regard, delexical verbs are similar to prepositions, which are often thought of as part of the grammar of a language rather than the lexicon, and present a similar problem for metaphor analysis. The wide variety of linguistic metaphors that can realize conceptual mappings is not a problem for conceptual metaphor theorists; on the contrary, it is taken as further proof of the strength of their claims. The existence of historical metaphors such as ardent is proof that metaphor has shaped the lexicon over centuries, while the exploitation of conceptual metaphors to generate innovative metaphors demonstrates their importance to creative thinking (Lakoff & Turner 1989). However, this diversity makes it difficult to formulate operational definitions for research into linguistic metaphors. Specifically, three problems need to be considered: –
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Within the expressions that are metaphorical according to the definition on the previous page, there are degrees of perceived metaphoricity: innovative, conventionalized, dead and historical metaphors; The treatment of grammatically distinct non-literal forms; The treatment of “grammar” words.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
These three problems are the focus of this chapter, the first being by far the most complex.
Degrees of metaphoricity: Two models The work of Lakoff and Goatly is central to the first problem. Each writer has put forward classifications of metaphors that attempt to separate out different levels of conventionality, and in this section I describe and critique them. In the following section, I draw on them to develop a classification that additionally takes into account some definitions developed through corpus data.
Lakoff ’s classification of “dead” metaphors Lakoff disagrees strongly with the use of the label “dead” for all non-innovative metaphor. He distinguishes four types of linguistic metaphor that are often described in this way, and argues that some are very much alive (1987b). The first type consists of expressions such as pedigree, originally a metaphorical extension of the French term for a crane’s foot (the basis for the transfer is the similarity in shape between a crane’s foot and a diagram of a family tree). Lakoff describes it as firstly linguistically dead, because the original non-metaphorical sense of the word is not in current use, and secondly conceptually dead, because the mental mapping which relates the foot of a bird to a family tree has disappeared. It is also dead in Lakoff and Johnson’s special use of the term (1980), in that it is not part of a metaphorical system creating regular transfers from the field of birds to the field of geneaology. Comprehend is an example of his second type; like pedigree, the former linguistic use (literally “take hold”) has disappeared, and with it the mapping from this sense to the present use. Unlike pedigree, however, the conceptual metaphor that maps the physical act of taking hold onto the mental act of comprehension is still current, and it is realized in many other linguistic metaphors. Lakoff exemplifies his third type with the (American English) sense of dunk, used to talk about a basketball move. (This is an extension of the sense of dunk referring to the action of dipping a biscuit into a hot drink; in a similar action a ball is dipped into a basketball net.) Here both senses of the word are in use, and the metaphorical connection is clear to users of the term. However, this metaphor is “dead” for Lakoff because, like pedigree, it is a “one-shot” metaphor; the domain of food and drink is not mapped onto the domain of basketball at other points. His fourth type is exemplified by grasp, a conven-
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
tionalized metaphor that is “live” in all possible senses. Both metaphorical and non-metaphorical senses of the word are in current use, the connection is evident to contemporary speakers, and the mapping of this item is part of a wider mapping of one field onto another. For the purposes of developing categories for linguistic analysis, Lakoff ’s criteria are difficult to establish empirically. For instance, pedigree falls into his first type because the source domain image (crane’s foot) is no longer conceptually mapped onto the target domain (family tree) by current speakers. However, there may well be borderline cases where the source image may or may not have a connection with the metaphorical use for current speakers, or where it may survive for some speakers but not for others. Another problem for the linguist is that his criteria are not detailed enough to distinguish between all of the five types of linguistic metaphors described at the beginning of this chapter. However, Lakoff ’s model includes two distinctions that are of importance to a linguistic model. These are, firstly, the existence or otherwise of the original literal sense of an item, a point which can separate historically figurative expressions from other kinds of metaphors, and secondly the existence or otherwise of systematic linguistic mapping of one domain onto another. This second distinction does not separate metaphor from non-metaphor, but does highlight a feature that is regarded as very important by many writers. For cognitive linguists, systematic metaphors are of central importance, while oneshot metaphors, linguistic expressions which take on a non-literal meaning in isolation and are not part of a wider mapping, have traditionally been of little interest to Conceptual Metaphor Theory. This is because it is thought that they are unlikely to play a role in conceptual organization. The distinction between systematic and one-shot metaphors is also of interest to a linguistic description, and it is relatively easy to establish using corpus data. A metaphor is regarded as systematic if there is corpus evidence that one or more collocates from the same source domain are also used metaphorically, in the same target domain. For instance, for Lakoff ’s example of grasp, collocates such as firmly and seize, from the source domain of physical contact, are conventionalized metaphors in the same target domain. Lakoff ’s description of types of “dead” metaphor was not intended to be used to categorize linguistic data; he is not generally concerned with classifying linguistic expressions, unlike a corpus linguist, who has to give as complete an account as possible of naturally-occurring concordance citations. The model to be discussed now was designed explicitly for the classification of linguistic metaphors.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Goatly’s classification of linguistic metaphor Goatly’s analysis of metaphor is based on naturally-occurring texts, some of which are taken from the Bank of English and some from other sources including newspapers and literature. The model contains five categories or “degrees of conventionality”: Active, Tired, Sleeping, Buried and Dead metaphors (1997: 32). Tired and Sleeping metaphors are subsets of a group termed Inactive metaphors. The five categories are exemplified and described in the following table (Table 2.1). In its focus on linguistic realizations rather than conceptual processes, Goatly’s model is an important complement to Lakoff ’s. However, there are some difficulties in operating it. Firstly, the status of etymology in his discussion is uncertain; on the one hand, pairs such as pupil (young student) and pupil (of the eye) are included on the grounds of shared etymology, despite their current semantic distance. On other occasions, etymology is disregarded, the historically unrelated vice (depravity) and vice (gripping tool) being described as Sleeping metaphors. A more serious problem for a researcher who works with linguistic data rather than with language users is that Goatly reTable 2.1 Goatly’s categorisation of metaphor types (adapted from Goatly 1997: 32–34) Label
Example
Description
Dead
Germ: a seed Germ: a microbe Pupil: a young student Pupil: circular opening in the iris
Either the former non-metaphorical sense is rarely used, or the connection between the two senses has become so distant with time that it is no longer recognised by most speakers. Homonyms. As above. The two senses have become formally different. The metaphorical meaning is conventional. The literal meaning is still in use and may be evoked by the metaphorical sense on occasion. The two senses are regarded as polysemous. As above. However the metaphorical sense is more likely to evoke the literal sense here than in the previous category. The two senses are regarded as polysemous. The metaphorical sense is evoked entirely through the literal sense. There is no established lexical relationship between the two senses.
Buried
Clew: a ball of thread Clue: a piece of evidence Sleeping Vice: a gripping tool Vice: depravity Crane: species of marsh bird Crane: machine for moving heavy weights Tired Cut: an incision Cut: budget reduction Fox: dog-like mammal Fox: cunning person Active Icicles: rod-like ice formations Icicles: fingers (“He held five icicles in each hand” Larkin)
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
lies largely on beliefs about how speakers process metaphors as his main way of distinguishing different types of metaphor. This is difficult to establish empirically without very large-scale informant testing, which is itself not without problems (see Chapter 5 for descriptions of some attempts to investigate speakers’ processing of metaphorical language). In Lehrer’s experiments for instance, many informants produced different judgements about the relatedness of word meanings when asked at different points in time (1974). Further, Cameron and Deignan’s work on metaphor in discourse has shown that the metaphoricity of a word may be perceived differently by different speakers, and according to the context in which the word is encountered (Cameron 2003; Cameron & Deignan 2003). Nonetheless, the categories that Goatly outlines are useful ones and have been used in the development of the corpus-based model that is described in the next section.
Degrees of metaphoricity: A corpus-based classification Table 2.2 gives an overview of categories of metaphorically-motivated linguistic expressions, partly developed from Lakoff and Goatly’s work. I now go on to describe each of these categories, with reference to the corpus. Innovative
Table 2.2 A categorisation of metaphorically-motivated linguistic expressions Types of metaphorically-motivated linguistic expression Living metaphors 1. Innovative metaphors
2. Conventionalized metaphors
3. Dead metaphors
4. Historical metaphors
Example
. . . the lollipop trees (Cameron 2003) He held five icicles in each hand. (Larkin, cited in Goatly 1997: 34) (icicles = fingers) The wind was whispering through the trees. (Allbritton 1995: 35) grasp (Lakoff 1987b) (spending) cut (Goatly 1997) There is no barrier to our understanding. (Halliday 1994) deep (of colour) crane (machine for moving heavy objects) (Goatly 1997) comprehend, pedigree (Lakoff 1987b) ardent
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
and historical metaphors are dealt with first because they are relatively easy to identify using corpus data.
Innovative metaphors, historical metaphors and the corpus It was pointed out earlier that innovative metaphors are of great interest to researchers in literature, but less so for work in language description, which tends to focus on central and typical patterns of use. For both fields though, it is useful to be able to separate out innovative metaphors; this is a relatively straightforward task, because, by definition, they lie outside conventional language and exist in contrast to it. The boundary between innovative and conventionalized metaphors is fuzzy rather than stark, for two reasons. Firstly, it is a boundary which many individual linguistic expressions cross over time: it seems likely that all conventional linguistic metaphors must have been innovative at some point in history. Secondly, individual speakers are likely to disagree about the newness of particular linguistic expressions. Nonetheless, in the analysis of concordance citations, the difficulty of deciding on cases of innovative metaphor arises only rarely, because innovative metaphors are infrequent. Corpus frequencies can be used as a rough guide: any sense of a word that is found less than once in every thousand citations of the word can be considered either innovative or rare, and therefore, for the purpose of describing typical language use, unimportant. Given that the Bank of English is widely sampled and so not dominated by any single writer or speaker (who might have an idiosyncratic style that included repetitions of a novel metaphor), this procedure is likely to exclude most or all cases of innovative metaphor, along with other rare uses. However, if the researcher wished to isolate innovative metaphors from these other rare uses in order to study them, rather than simply to exclude them, which is the goal here, they would have to develop further criteria. Historical metaphors are senses originally formed by metaphorical extension from a literal sense that has since dropped out of use. Like innovative metaphors, they can be identified readily using corpus data: if citations of a linguistic metaphor show no instances of a related literal sense, whether the same part of speech or otherwise, then they are regarded as historical.
Conventionalized and dead metaphors It has been shown that it is relatively straightforward to identify innovative and historical metaphors using corpus data. This leaves the categories adjacent to
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
them, conventionalized and dead metaphors. It is much less easy to disentangle these from each other, and although corpus data can provide useful clues, there seems to be no single straightforward way of separating the two types. Turning back to the theoretical models discussed, Lakoff ’s understanding of “dead” is based on conceptual connections, and cuts across the distinctions made on linguistic criteria here. Goatly’s model makes the same distinction as here; conventionalized metaphors are termed “Tired”, and dead metaphors “Sleeping”. Goatly splits them depending on whether speakers are prompted to think of the literal meaning, for Tired metaphors, or if they are not, for Sleeping metaphors. This is not easy to implement in practice; two citations from the concordance of deep exemplify the problem. (6) The crimsons, deep and medium blues, purples, maroons and deep pinks lose a little of their brightness when cut. (7) Later on I bought a deep blue carpet.
Deep refers to intensity of colour here, a sense which is listed as figurative in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Little et al. 1973), being an extension of “measurement” deep. The first citation of this extension noted by the editors of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is from the sixteenth century (1973: 504). This “colour” sense is now reasonably frequent, accounting for 26 of 500 randomly selected corpus citations of deep, or approximately 5% of the sample. Applying Goatly’s distinction between Tired and Sleeping metaphors to this problem involves deciding whether “colour” deep evokes “measurement” deep to some degree. Personally, I feel that it does not, that the “colour” sense has lost its former metaphoricity, and should therefore be classified as a dead metaphor. However, it is possible that other speakers might perceive a semantic link between the two senses, thus considering “colour” deep to be a conventionalized metaphor. This shows the difficulty of making a decision about an individual word; any decision may seem intuitively correct to the individual researcher, and can usually be justified in some way, but both the decision and the justification may strike others as unsound. There is a need for more objective procedures for distinguishing conventionalized and dead metaphors. At the intuitive level, the fundamental distinction between conventionalized and dead metaphors is that a conventionalized metaphor is dependent on a literal sense in a way that a dead metaphor is not. If a conventionalized metaphor tends to evoke, at some level, a literal counterpart, it follows that the literal sense of the pair must be more “core” than the metaphorical sense, and
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
the metaphorical sense must be “dependent” on the literal sense in some way. The notions of coreness and dependency can be used to construct a distinction between conventionalized and dead metaphor as follows: where a literal sense of a word is perceived as more core than an established metaphorical sense, the second sense is regarded as a conventionalized metaphor. Where there does not seem to be such a relationship of coreness and dependency between a metaphor and its literal counterpart, the metaphor is regarded as dead. Coreness and dependency in a pair of related senses can be established in two ways: through a corpus linguistic study of citations of the lexeme, and through a semantic analysis of each sense. For a corpus linguist, the first method is preferable because the results are easily replicable and less open to accusations of subjectivity. However, as will be shown, corpus data provide evidence of coreness and dependency for some conventionalized metaphors but not all – that is, corpus evidence is a sufficient but not necessary condition for establishing coreness/dependency between senses. To establish coreness/dependency between two senses using corpus data, citations of the metaphorical sense are examined for linguistic evidence of dependency. This is found where the metaphorical sense is not freestanding; it is normally qualified using other target domain words. For example, the metaphorical uses of mouth, discussed by Cruse (1986), are normally postmodified by of + target domain noun, in expressions such as “mouth of the river” or “mouth of a bottle”. Cruse points out that unmodified mouth, as used in the utterance “At school we are doing a project on mouths” is assumed to refer to the literal sense: mouths of humans or possibly animals, rather than mouths of rivers (1986: 72). This linguistic pattern is taken here as evidence that the metaphorical sense of mouth is dependent on the literal sense, which is core, meaning that metaphorical mouth is conventionalized rather than dead. In a corpus study of 500 citations of machinery, it was found that the metaphorical senses are almost invariably qualified by other target domain words, as seen in the following examples: (8) Mr. Heseltine appears to have taken more direct control over the civil service machinery in Whitehall. (9) . . . the machinery of government seemed to tilt the scales of justice. (10) . . . arcane machinery that finances the public schools. (11) I had a sensation as of machinery running. (12) . . . an array of expensive new machinery.
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
In citations (8), (9) and (10), machinery is used with an established metaphorical sense to refer to legal and governmental systems, while in citations (11) and (12), it is used in its literal sense. In the corpus data, machinery was always qualified by target domain words when used metaphorically, either by premodification, as in citation (8), or by post-modifying phrases of various kinds as in citations (9) and (10). It seems likely that where there is no modification, the word will be interpreted literally. This is linguistic evidence of dependence, indicating that the linguistic metaphor is conventionalized, not dead. Dependent senses of some verbs can also be identified linguistically. 500 citations of starve/starved/starving/starves were studied, and citations of metaphorical senses were found to show signs of dependence. The randomly selected sample of 18 citations in Concordance 2.1 includes four citations (4, 9, 10 and 18, highlighted in bold), in which the verb is used metaphorically, to refer to suffering because of the lack of something other than food. In each case, the verb is qualified by an item from the target domain, which indicates that it is not to be interpreted literally; where the verb is not qualified in any way, the interpretation is literal. This pattern was seen over the whole concordance extract studied, 500 citations of starve/starved/starving/starves. The word is used metaphorically in 105 citations, and in each case, the appears in one of three structures: – – –
starv*+of+noun (for example, “starved of weapons”): 53 citations noun+–+starved (for example, “investment-starved”): 32 citations starv*+for+noun (for example, “starving for publicity”): 20 citations.
This pattern is taken as indicative of dependency, and this sense of starve is therefore a conventionalized metaphor. In these examples, there is a clear linguistic indication of dependency and hence of conventional metaphoricity. However, not all conventionalized metaphors are qualified linguistically. Where a concordance examination is inconclusive, semantic analysis can help to distinguish conventionalized from dead metaphors, as follows. Much writing on metaphor assumes that vehicles are prototypically concrete and topics prototypically abstract. For instance, the metaphors regarded as most cognitively significant in Conceptual Metaphor Theory are the ones that enable us to interpret abstract topics through concrete experience. Nonexperts also seem to perceive concrete- abstract mapping as prototypical, as an experiment by Katz showed (1989). He supplied informants with metaphorical statements of the “X = Y” type, in which the topic was provided but not the vehicle. He found that “people prefer to complete a metaphor with a con-
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
he simple reasoning that they were and Croats were tortured, shot and of her veggie burgers to the only 5 per cent of the oxygenproduce sarin # were seized and 50 Chicken wings. And Anastasia was village there was an old woman who to have international sanction to this meant he was frequently selection in Athens where I was punishing poor children, kids are in Somalia is to deliver food to who could, in the name of the like animals, if one human being foreigners would be the first to Wednesday. “By that time we could old that had been living on refuse sort plan SUVA: Fiji’s investment-
Concordance 2.1 Sample concordance of starv* starving and could get a little starved. Atrocities were also starving Bosnians. Just after she starved cells survived. But with starving, drugged women were starving. Her stomach rumbled. starved herself to give what she starve him into surrendering his starved of weapons as a result. starved of English reading.
B starving, people can’t stand it.” starving people, not to disarm starving, raise the demand that starve, that cuts down the value starve. The ambassadors were also starve to death!” Linda starved to death (reported in starved tourism industry has
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
crete rather than an abstract vehicle” (p. 495). Concrete-concrete and abstractabstract mappings do exist, but are less important in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and apparently less central to non-expert language users such as Katz’s informants. The Conceptual Metaphor account of concrete-abstract mappings is suggestive of coreness and dependency, in the argument that abstract topics cannot be understood in their own terms but only through metaphors that relate them to our concrete, physical experience (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993). If the target domain is understood through the source domain, it follows that the concrete vehicle is more psychologically core to speakers than the abstract topic, and that the interpretation of the abstract topic is dependent on knowledge of the vehicle. By this argument, metaphorical mappings from concrete to abstract topics result in conventionalized or innovative metaphors. Two citations of soar can be used to exemplify this: (13) . . . the glider soars effortlessly on the warm air. (14) For the first time in months my spirits soared.
In the first citation, soar has concrete reference and in the second it has abstract reference. The two senses are related by a metaphorical mapping, happy is up, so the second sense is dependent on the first, and the metaphor is therefore conventionalized. In contrast, an established concrete-concrete mapping would result in dead metaphor, because the senses would normally be equally core. This distinction helps with the problem discussed above of categorizing the “colour” sense of deep. Although this sense was originally derived from the “measurement” sense by a process of metaphorical extension, it is not now dependent on it, because the mapping is concrete-concrete. However, the sense of deep meaning “intense”, used in deep admiration and deep depression, has abstract reference and so is dependent on “measurement” deep. This means that “colour” deep is a dead metaphor while “intense” deep is conventionalized. An exception to the rule that concrete-concrete mappings result in dead metaphor is the case of very recent metaphors, which are perceived as dependent because speakers are aware of their newness and their relationship to another meaning of the word. However, once a metaphor with concrete reference becomes established in the language, it loses any sense of dependence on a literal meaning and becomes a dead metaphor in a relatively short period of time. For example, the relatively new metaphorical sense of mouse, used to
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
mean a piece of computer equipment, will soon become a dead metaphor, if it has not already done so for most speakers. In addition to concrete-abstract mappings, coreness and dependency are found in two other kinds of mappings. The first of these is evaluative meaning: when a word has a metaphorical meaning that is primarily evaluative, this will be perceived as dependent, and the metaphor will thus be conventionalized. This applies to many animal metaphors used to describe human qualities, such as the metaphorical sense of monkey: (15) She’s such a little monkey.
The last kind of mapping that always results in coreness and dependency, and thus conventionalized metaphors, is mappings of parts of the body onto other domains. Because the human body is so central to our experience of the world, word meanings that refer directly to it will always be core, even in relation to concrete metaphorical extensions. Thus heart (of the human body) is more core than heart (of a city) although both have concrete reference. Heart (of a city) is therefore a conventionalized metaphor, not a dead one. Table 2.3 summarizes the types of metaphorically-motivated linguistic expression that have been described, and the ways in which these can be identified. All categories can be further split into one-shot, where the metaphor is the only linguistic instance of a mapping, and systematic, where other source domain collocates are mapped onto the same target domain. As discussed above, this can be established by corpus searches for source domain collocates; where they have related target domain meanings the mapping is systematic, where not, the mapping is one-shot. Each of the four categories described and exemplified here may or may not be included within particular researchers’ definitions of “metaphor”. Conceptual metaphor theorists often study all four types of metaphor, while literature has traditionally focussed on the expressions in Group 1. In the field of language description, where most corpus linguists situate themselves, expressions in Group 1 are of less interest, as they are outside what is central and typical. Expressions in Group 4 are not of interest for the majority of corpus linguists who are not concerned with etymology. For some researchers, the fact that expressions in Groups 3 and 4 are less likely to be regarded as metaphors by current speakers is important and excludes them from study. Some research in cognitive linguistics has focused on the different processes that people use to process metaphors from different groups.
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
Table 2.3 Identification and classification of metaphorically-motivated linguistic expressions Types of metaphoricallymotivated linguistic expression
Identification
Example
1. Innovative metaphors Fewer that one use per thousand corpus citations of word, or all citations from a single source.
He held five icicles in each hand. (Larkin, cited in Goatly 1997: 34)
2. Conventional metaphors
Not innovative or historical by corpus criteria (see 1 and 4). Metaphorical sense dependent on core sense by corpus linguistic and/or semantic criteria.
The wind was whispering through the trees. (Allbritton 1995: 35) grasp (Lakoff 1987b) (spending) cut (Goatly 1997)
3. Dead metaphors
Not innovative or historical by corpus criteria (see 1 and 4). Metaphorical sense not dependent on a core sense by either corpus linguistic or semantic criteria.
deep (of colour) crane (machine for moving heavy objects) (Goatly 1997)
4. Historical metaphors
The former literal sense is either comprehend, pedigree, pupil not represented in corpus or is so (meaning “young student”) different in meaning as to be homonymic for current speakers.
Metaphor and grammar The second of the three problems concerning different types of linguistic metaphors is how to deal with pairs of words that seem to be metaphorically related but that are different parts of speech. This is the case for dog, which has a literal sense meaning an animal, and a metaphorical sense meaning something like “trouble or disrupt over a long period”, as in these corpus examples: (16) Freddie’s life had been dogged by love troubles. (17) . . . the troubles that have dogged this country for nearly 30 years.
Corpus data suggest that the current literal sense of dog/dogs is always a noun. Although intuition suggests that dog/dogs/dogging/dogged might be used as a verb to mean literally “pursue”, this does not happen in the corpus; of 168 verbal citations, all have the same metaphorical meaning as in the above
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
two citations. For some researchers, this might lead to excluding the verb dog, from their understanding of “metaphor”, following the argument that metaphor only exists where the linguistic forms are identical in the source and target domains. However, there are two objections to this restriction on the understanding of “metaphor”. The first is that it would lead to the exclusion of many uses that most speakers probably regard as metaphors. In Chapter 7, I describe corpus research into grammatical patterns of metaphors, and show that for some mappings, change of word class is the norm. This is the case for the mapping of animals onto human characteristics: the most central source domain words tend to be nouns, the names of animals, while the related target domain words are often verbs, describing behaviour, as in the example of to dog. Other examples are hound, weasel, ferret, and horse, all of which are established verbal metaphors but have few or no corpus citations for a nominal metaphorical sense. Animal metaphors are classic examples in the metaphor literature, and much attention is given to discussing noun-noun animal metaphors such as “He is a lion” (Cohen 1993) or “Richard is a gorilla” (Searle 1993). In fact, the corpus data suggest that such utterances are fairly rare in naturally-occurring language, especially in comparison to animal metaphors whose target domain form is verbal. The second objection to restricting the understanding of “metaphor” to target domain uses from the same word class as the source domain is that part of speech is not the only way in which the form of literal and metaphorical senses can differ. It is widely held among corpus linguists that a difference in meaning will always be reflected in a difference of form (Sinclair 1991; Hunston 2002). This implies that a metaphorical sense will always differ formally at some level from its literal counterpart, a possibility that is investigated in some of the studies in Part III of this book. One example of a difference in form is given by Sinclair, who uses corpus data to argue that the verb build tends to be transitive, and is used without a particle when it has a literal meaning, in citations such as: (18) For at least two years they had built homes for the elderly.
On the other hand, Sinclair claims that the metaphorical uses tend to take one of two patterns. Where the entity that is built is negatively regarded, the verb tends to be intransitive and used with the particle up, as in: (19) It enables [him] to cover his costs in the short term; in the long term his problems build up.
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
When the entity that is built is positively regarded, the verb tends to be transitive and again followed by the particle up, as in: (20) . . . you can begin to lead a normal life and, above all, build up a sense of personal worth.
There is no difference in part of speech between these literal and metaphorical uses, but there is a detectable grammatical difference at a more detailed level. It should be noted that such differences are sometimes strong tendencies rather than completely clear-cut, and counter-examples are possible, but the pattern noted by Sinclair is too strong to be seen as insignificant or the result of chance. If identicalness of form between literal and metaphorical sense is to be taken as a requirement for metaphor, a decision needs to be made as to whether this should be applied only at the level of part of speech or at more detailed levels. If the most detailed levels of form are examined, it is possible that there are few or no metaphors that are completely identical in form to their literal counterparts. A further problem arises concerning derived forms, such as kittenish or foxy. Many people probably would not want to regard these as metaphors in the strictest sense, because their base form differs from any source domain counterpart. This tends to exclude most adjective and adverbial forms, but usually allows verbs, because whether or not a derived word takes an affix largely depends on its part of speech: verbs derived from nouns tend not to take affixes while adjectives do. This is a quirk of English and has no semantic grounds: it can be argued that in terms of conceptual mapping, kittenish is much a mapping from literal kitten as verbal dog is from literal dog, and if dog is regarded as a metaphor so should kittenish. Again, a decision needs to be made on such cases. For this study derivations are generally excluded, although a few are discussed in Chapter 7.
Metaphor and “empty” words Much of the metaphor literature discusses what might be termed semantically “full” words, that is, words with a fairly specific reference, sometimes known by applied linguists as “content” words. The examples discussed so far here have been of this kind; I have cited words for animals, words used to talk about taking hold and words for body parts, among others. “Content” words are often talked about in contrast to “grammar” or “form” words, which are seen as semantically “empty”, although the distinction is often blurred, some words having features of both.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Although they are often ignored in the literature, grammar words have to be considered when a continuous text is analyzed, because the researcher has to make a decision about every word. Grammar words include articles, auxiliaries, prepositions, and some kinds of verb. Articles and primary auxiliary verbs, which are probably as near to semantically empty as it is possible to be, are unproblematic; it is difficult to imagine a case for their ever being metaphors. However, slightly less empty words sometimes present a problem for the analyst. A section of Cameron’s data, in which a teacher is talking to pupils about volcanoes, shows this point: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
right (.) let’s go back (.) to these rocks (1.0) fire formed (2.0) I think you probably all know (.) how (.) igneous rocks comes to be formed (2.0) you should all know this (1.0) you love watching this on the telly (.) and if one starts working again (.) it’s very exciting (.) and it’s on the news for days (.) in fact I have seen one working recently (1.0) and there’s a village (.) in Italy(1.0) and they’re dropping things to try and stop the village from being destroyed (3.0) (2003: 136)
The words and phrases that have been underlined are those identified by Cameron as metaphorical, and include the adverb back and the prepositions to and on (lines 1 and 9). The identification of back and to as metaphorical is uncontroversial, because they are part of the expression go back to, in which the teacher is signalling a change in the direction of the discourse rather than a change in physical direction. On is less straightforward; presumably it is regarded here as metaphorical because on the news is not a physical location. This contrasts with on in line 6, in on the telly, which has been treated as nonmetaphorical, having concrete reference, even though for many readers on the news might be understood as almost synonymous with on the telly. This example shows the difficulty of analyzing prepositions for metaphoricity; by their nature they are relatively empty of semantic content, so often the only way of deciding which domain a particular instance belongs to is to attempt to infer it from the co-text. A number of researchers believe that the abstract meanings of prepositions are not arbitrary, as has been thought in the past, especially within the field of English language teaching, but metaphorically motivated.
Chapter 2. Defining metaphor
Much work has been done, most notably by Lindstromberg, on tracing the metaphorical connections between the concrete meanings of prepositions and their abstract senses (1997). Some other writers tend to ignore prepositions in their analysis of text, implying rather than stating explicitly that they are of little interest. Delexical verbs such as have, do, give, take, make, and put present a similar problem. Like prepositions, in some contexts they seem almost empty of semantic content, making it difficult for the analyst to decide which target domain they should be assigned to. Again, like prepositions, although there is only a small number of delexical verbs, they are vastly frequent; for instance make and its inflections appear 118,430 times in the 56 million word corpus, roughly twice for every thousand words of text. This means that any analysis involving counting numbers of metaphors in texts has to be very careful to treat delexical verbs consistently. The problem can be seen in the following citations, taken from a 500citation sample of the concordance of make and inflections: (21) . . . makers like Bru and Jumeau made dolls with heads of unglazed porcelain. (22) There will also be ice cream and yoghurt made with soya milk. (23) Business must sell more than 500 units at the current price to make a profit. (24) She had made some new friends. (25) The surgeon thought I had made a remarkable recovery. (26) Lee made his way through the crowds.
In the first two citations, made seems clearly literal, having the sense of “creating”; 39 of the sample 500 citations were of this type. In the following four citations, make/made takes increasingly abstract objects, and as there seems to be a metaphorical link to the literal sense, it seems justified to describe these as metaphorical senses. The borderline between literal and metaphorical is difficult to pinpoint with certainty however; arguments could be put forward for considering the third citation as either. At the extreme end of the scale from concrete to abstract, make takes objects such as way, difference, journey, effort, attempt and sense, and it becomes less easy to perceive this use as a metaphorical mapping of the “creation” sense. As is the case for prepositions, there is no simple answer to the question as to whether any, some or all non-concrete uses of delexical verbs should be considered to be metaphorical. It is a question
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
that needs to be addressed in any research that attempts to identify metaphors consistently.
Conclusion Most of this chapter has consisted of a description of different cases in which the metaphor researcher has to make decisions. It has been shown that although Conceptual Metaphor Theory sets up an extremely useful framework within which to analyze linguistic metaphor, it does not by itself generate tight enough categories for a rigorous description. Corpus analysis has been drawn on to develop the theoretical categories, and has been found very useful for this purpose.
Chapter 3
Metaphor and metonymy
Introduction Within the Conceptual Metaphor tradition, the term “metaphor” is used to encompass conceptual mapping in a fairly broad sense. In the landmark works of Lakoff and Johnson (1980; and Lakoff 1987, 1993), metaphor takes central stage, while the related trope, metonymy, is treated either as secondary or is included within the definition of metaphor. However, many researchers now feel that it is wrong to relegate metonymy to a subordinate role, and that much of what was earlier described as “metaphor” has at least an element of metonymy, if not a substantial component. This shift in understanding has important implications for Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and for the way in which metaphor is understood in several disciplines. For psycholinguists, it implies a different kind of processing, and may call into question experimental work that is based on assumptions about conceptual mapping. For descriptive linguists, it implies a new model of the semantic links between literal and nonliteral meanings of words, and for scholars of literature the new emphasis on metonymy also has analytical potential. In this chapter, recent understandings of metonymy are discussed, and work that emphasizes its importance and its interaction with metaphor is described. Corpus data are used to develop a classification of metaphor, metonymy, and several different kinds of overlap between them. The intention is that this classification can be used as a basis for further corpus work such as that described later in this book, as well as for analysis in other fields where a rigorously established understanding of metonymy is important.
Metonymy This section outlines and exemplifies what is usually understood by “metonymy”, notes its importance in both everyday and literary language, and gives
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
examples of two different types. In the following section, interactions between metaphor and metonymy in some linguistic expressions are discussed.
Metonymy in language In the previous chapter, metaphor was defined in the light of Conceptual Metaphor Theory as a word or expression that is used to talk about an entity or quality other than that referred to by its core, or most basic meaning. This non-core use expresses a perceived relationship with the core meaning of the word, and in many cases between two semantic fields.
In contrast, Gibbs defines metonymy as the process by which “People take one well-understood or easily perceived aspect of something to represent or stand for the thing as a whole” (1994: 320). Metonymy is often illustrated with examples such as “the use of Whitehall to refer to the British government, or the White House to refer to the US president and the presidential aide” (Moon 1987: 99). Examples are readily found in the Bank of English corpus used for the studies in this book (described in the Introduction and Chapter 4). In the following citations, palace stands metonymically for people who work for the British royal family, particularly in their public relations: (1) Normally no gifts are accepted unless it has been previously agreed with the palace. (2) . . . reminding the palace and parliament.
The metonym is used with a range of verbs normally associated with human subjects; according to the corpus, the palace can argue, confront, discuss, frown on, know, phone and see. The use is relatively frequent, accounting for 103 citations of the total 503 corpus citations of the palace. The following use of bank to stand for people who work for a bank is similar: (3) On our next taxi ride I asked him whether he’d heard any more from the bank. He said [] that the bank had received his letter and had written back.
In the following citation, University is used to stand for the decision makers within a university. This use is interesting in that it occurs in official documentation, the metonym serving not only to avoid unnecessary wordiness but also to impersonalize the nature of policy making.
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
(4) If you are uncertain whether [] the subjects you are taking have been approved by the University, please write for advice to the Academic Registrar.
Institution for people is not the only metonymic mapping found in corpus data. In the following citation, physical aspects of a building, stage and screen, stand metonymically for the purposes of the buildings, the theatrical and cinematic industries. (5) Storm was a successful writer for stage and screen from the 1930s to the 1950s.
As these examples suggest, metonymy is found frequently when corpus data are examined, suggesting that it is important to everyday talk and writing. It is also a literary device. Gibbs quotes the poem by William Carlos Williams This Is Just To Say (Gibbs 1994: 319), which is an apology for eating some plums, that were “delicious, so sweet, and so cold”. Gibbs claims that we understand this poem by inferring a specific situation, a note left in a kitchen, and a specific relationship between the writer of the poem and the intended reader, husband and wife. He writes The poem has meaning for us precisely because of the larger situation to which it refers. Our understanding of this poem thus depends on our ability to think metonymically at the mention of parts of an event and infer something about an entire situation. (1994: 319)
Much poetry uses metonymy in this way, the description of a single event evoking a situation that may have wider, even universal meaning.
Metonymic mapping In Conceptual Metaphor Theory, it is argued that metonymy plays an important role in structuring thought and in this respect is similar to metaphor (Gibbs 1994, 1999a). However, the two tropes differ in the type of mental mapping involved: it is generally held that while metaphor involves mapping across domains and finding or constructing similarity in things that are essentially unlike, metonymy maps within a single domain, along a continuum of meaning. For instance, the metonym stage is from the same domain as the entity “theatrical industry”, for which it stands in the above citation. In contrast, in one of Lakoff and Johnson’s best known examples of metaphor (1980), the word attack is taken from the source domain of “war” and is mapped onto the different domain of “argument”. Warren takes another angle on what is essentially the same distinction, arguing in terms of interpretation; she contends
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
that in understanding metonymy we need to find the nature of the relation between the literal and figurative meanings of a word. In contrast, in interpreting a metaphor we are not looking for a relation but for a shared attribute, the grounds of the metaphor (1999: 133). It is generally agreed that metonyms are generated through conceptual links of several types. Lakoff and Johnson cite the following processes and examples (1980: 36–39). producer for product “He bought a Ford.” institution for people responsible “You’ll never get the university to agree to that.” the place for the institution “The White House isn’t saying anything.” “Wall Street is in a panic.” the place for the event “Pearl Harbor still has an effect on our foreign policy.” the part for the whole
Part-for-whole metonymy is sometimes referred to as “synecdoche”; a term normally referring to part of an entity is used to stand for the whole entity. Gibbs’ examples include the uses of hand, head and door to stand respectively for “worker”, “person” and “house” in the following utterances: “They’re taking on hands at the factory.” “We had to pay ten dollars a head just to get into the concert.” “Mary Sue lives four doors down the street.” (Gibbs 1994: 322–323) the object used for the user “The buses are on strike today.” “The gun he hired wanted fifty grand.”
If, as Gibbs argues (1993, 1994, 1999a), metonymical thinking is natural to the human mind, it is likely that there are numerous ways in which an aspect of something can be connected to the whole for which it stands, of which the above are just a small sample. It will be shown in the following section that distinguishing metonymy from metaphor can often be a good deal more difficult than suggested so far. However, before tackling these problems, two relatively straightforward examples of metonymy are discussed.
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
Non-conventional metonyms Non-conventional or innovative metonyms are one of the most frequently discussed types of metonym in the general literature on semantics. The classical example is ham sandwich, used by a waiter to refer to a customer consuming a ham sandwich, in: “The ham sandwich is sitting at table 20”
(Nunberg 1979: 149)
These metonyms can only be understood in the context in which they are uttered, because the use is not an established sense of the term. In this example, “customer” is not a generally-recognised sense of ham sandwich, and so the expression is only interpretable as referring to a customer either through the co-text “is sitting at table 20”, or through non-linguistic context, where, for example, the speaker indicates through a gesture that the referent is a person. Nunberg writes that there is “nothing in the lexical entry for ham sandwich [...] about restaurants”, and that a pragmatic account of this use is needed “which would have to look at the properties of things, rather than the words that designate them” (1979: 149). Another example is packed lunch, in “Alex is a packed lunch” (Cameron 2003). This utterance is difficult to decode without a knowledge of context, but is easily interpreted when it is known that the speaker is a teacher, Alex is a pupil and that the teacher is checking the lunch arrangements of each pupil in her class. While our ability to refer metonymically in this innovative way is important for a theory of cognition (Gibbs 1999a), it is probably less important for a description of conventional language use. It seems unlikely that members of this class normally become conventionalized, because their distinguishing feature is that they have a specific, context-bound interpretation, not a general meaning. A non-conventional metonym is generally a temporary label for an individual referent; it is given its interpretation through features of the immediate context. Unlike conventional metonyms, its meaning does not concern permanent aspects of the referent. However, these non-conventional metonyms are probably formed through the same processes as conventional metonyms, now discussed.
Conventional metonyms The class of conventional metonyms includes uses such as Whitehall, the palace and the screen, mentioned above. They are conventional, having become part
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
of the lexicon, as evidenced in contemporary dictionaries, which define widely used metonyms such as Downing Street, the palace and the screen (Sinclair et al. 2001). Such metonyms are used to refer to a general class of entities, or to the same entity at a number of times and in a number of contexts, rather than to one specific instance of an entity. For example, the palace is understood to refer to the administrative staff of the royal family in a range of linguistic and temporal contexts. Hearers do not normally have to reconstruct the metonymic mapping on each occasion, as they may do to interpret non-conventional metonyms. It follows that the semantic link between a metonym and its referent will not be something associated with a specific and perhaps temporary context, but will be a general, relatively permanent and well-known feature. Downing Street is the permanent location of the British Prime Minister’s office, palaces are known to be the normal location of the offices of the British royal family’s staff, and screens are permanently and generally associated with the cinematic industry. This contrasts with most non-conventional metonyms, where the link is often transitory and context-bound; for instance, packed lunch only refers to a child in a very specific context, which the hearer has to be aware of in order to understand the metonym. There is a small degree of fuzziness at the boundary between conventional and unconventional metonyms, especially as within some registers particular metonyms may have become conventionalized terms of reference. It is reported that medical professionals regularly and conventionally refer to their patients metonymically by the names of the condition that they are suffering from (B. Roe, personal communication). For example, the chest infection would refer to a patient with a chest infection, a use that would be unconventional in other kinds of discourse. Similarly, I recently heard a dentist’s receptionist tell a dentist “There’s a toothache waiting to see you; can I send her up?”, where toothache clearly meant “patient who has not made an appointment but is hoping to be seen straightaway because they are in pain”, and was possibly a conventional metonym in that environment. The mapping in the examples discussed in this section takes place within single domains, so the label “metonymy” is uncontroversial. Some more problematic cases are now discussed.
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
Combinations of metaphor and metonymy The overlap The distinction between metaphor and metonymy that was outlined above is apparently straightforward, but it begins to lose its clarity when examined in the context of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. It becomes still more difficult to maintain when a range of corpus citations are examined. It was argued in Chapter 1 that many of the most generic conceptual metaphors are grounded in physical experience, albeit sometimes a culturally mediated version. For instance, the conceptual metaphor emotions are temperatures is said to be grounded in the physical sensations we have when we experience various feelings (Lakoff 1987a; Gibbs 1993, 1994). The metaphor equates heat with feelings such as anger and lust, and cold with unfriendliness. At the level of language, this means that a word used to describe the physical sensation associated with an emotion can stand for the emotion. In the following citation, heated is used to mean “angry”. (6) I vividly remember having a heated debate with my boss.
According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the motivation for this use is that we experience sensations of increased body temperature when we become angry. This means that using heated to describe anger can be interpreted as using an “aspect of something to represent or stand for the thing as a whole” (Gibbs 1994: 320, quoted above). This use of heated is then a mapping within a single domain, and therefore a metonym, not a metaphor in the generally understood sense. In his study of the use of metaphor to talk about emotions, Kövecses uses this argument to suggest that numerous expressions such as to have cold feet are metonymically based; “one part or element of the domain of fear is an assumed drop in body temperature”. Thus to have cold feet “is an example of the conceptual metonymy a drop in body temperature stands for fear” (2000: 5). Kövecses and Lakoff have worked extensively on metaphors used to talk about emotions (for example, Lakoff & Kövecses 1987), which has led Lakoff to argue for a general metonymic principle that the effects of an emotion can stand for the emotion (1987). This could be expressed as body temperature stands for emotion, in contrast to the way this mapping is often expressed, as the conceptual metaphor emotions are temperatures. In a similar vein (Feyaerts 2000) argues that the mapping knowing is seeing, which is usually considered to be a conceptual metaphor, can alternatively be regarded as a metonymy, if we decide that the concept sensory perception
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
belongs in the same domain as mental perception. If we accept that there is some sort of a causal link between sensory perception and mental perception, the case for treating them as separate domains, and therefore regarding the mapping as metaphorical, becomes difficult to uphold. Barcelona goes so far as to suggest that almost all conceptual metaphor is metonymic in origin (Barcelona 2000). If the category of metonymy is understood in such a broad sense, it will include a large set of figurative linguistic expressions that are usually described as metaphorical. In Conceptual Metaphor Theory, cross-domain mapping is a necessary condition for metaphor, so the category of metaphor will then contain far fewer conceptual and linguistic mappings than previously. “Metaphor” becomes largely limited to mappings that do not have any grounds in physical experience, such as argument is war or an election is a horse race. For conceptual metaphor theorists, mappings that have grounds in physical experience are seen to be more significant to thought than those which do not (Lakoff 1993). If these are recategorized as metonyms, metaphor becomes a relatively insignificant category for cognition. This is problematic, because reducing metaphor to a notion of minor significance runs counter to the intuitions of most researchers. It is clear that the distinction between metaphor and metonymy that has been presented is over-simplistic. Some expressions traditionally regarded as metaphors have an element of metonymic motivation, but it is not helpful to reclassify them as metonyms. This would lead to the counter-intuitive placing of heated meaning “angry” in the same category as ham sandwich meaning “customer who has just consumed a ham sandwich” because they both have metonymic grounds, and in a different category from linguistic metaphors such as the realizations of an election is a horse race. A more delicate classification than a straight metaphor-metonymy split is needed, one that can both distinguish clear-cut cases of metonymy such as ham sandwich, Downing Street, palace and screen from unambiguous cases of metaphor, and is also able to account for more complex cases such as metaphors with metonymic motivation. One of the earliest writers to argue for an interaction between metaphor and metonymy is Goossens (1995), whose work has been very influential. He built up a database of figurative conventionalized expressions from dictionary entries, and used these to develop a categorization of various ways in which metaphor and metonymy interact. Four potential types of interaction are described, two of which, Goossens writes, occur only very rarely. The other two
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
types, metonymy within metaphor and metaphor from metonymy are evidenced in his data and are now described.
Goossen’s metonymy within metaphor “Metonymy within metaphor” occurs when “a metonymically used entity is embedded within a (complex) metaphorical expression” (1995: 172). One of Goossen’s examples is the expression bite one’s tongue off ; here the tongue is used metonymically to stand for speech, and the expression as a whole is used metaphorically, in this case to mean “deprive oneself of the facility of speech”. Another example is shoot one’s mouth off, where mouth is used metonymically to refer to speech, contained within the metaphor of using a gun foolishly, so that the whole phrase has a meaning of “speaking thoughtlessly” (1995). By definition, metonymy within metaphor can only describe multi-word expressions, because a single word could not usually be said to contain a metonymy within a larger unit of meaning.
Goossen’s metaphor from metonymy Goossen’s other main category, metaphor from metonymy, is initially difficult to disentangle from the previous one. In this interaction, an expression develops a meaning through metonymy, a meaning that is then mapped metaphorically onto another domain. Goossens’ examples include say something with one’s tongue in one’s cheek, beat one’s breast, and be close-lipped. He shows how the expression close-lipped can be understood in two different ways; firstly it can mean “remain silent” through metonymy, a person’s closed lips standing for lack of speech. Alternatively, it may refer to someone who is actually talking a lot, but is not giving away the information that the hearer wants; in this case the expression is a metaphor, but one which is derived through a metonymy (1995). The main difference between the two types of interaction appears to be that in “metonymy within metaphor” one word of the expression is a metonym, for example, tongue in bite one’s tongue off, within a larger expression, which is a metaphor. In “metaphor from metonymy”, the whole expression is initially a metonymy, but then becomes mapped onto another domain in a metaphorical transfer. Distinguishing the two, then, involves deciding whether the whole expression is metonymically-based, or if just one element of it is.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
The dictionary as a source of data Goossens’ work is a major contribution to our understanding of metonymy, and its central insight, that many expressions are the product of an interaction between metaphor and metonymy, is hugely important for language description and the analysis of figurative language in texts, and for understanding metaphor processing. However, his four categories were developed through the study of dictionary entries, which give a different kind of picture from that found by looking at linguistic expressions in their natural contexts. In fact, it is possible that the interactions between metaphor and metonymy that Goossens describes are actually more significant than he suggests, because the type of data that he uses may under-represent them. Dictionaries tend to devote space to “pure” idioms rather than to more transparent collocations, the purpose of a dictionary being to describe language at the lexical level: pure idioms count as lexical units because they cannot be broken down into their component words (Moon 1998). More transparent metaphorical multi-word expressions, on the other hand, are not usually seen as the territory of a dictionary, because they can be explained as the product of their components. For instance, an expression such as to turn one’s back on something might be perceived as transparent and therefore not idiomatic. This means that while Goossens’ database of figurative expressions is likely to have represented “pure” idioms well, it may be less comprehensive as a collection of transparent multi-word expressions. The omission of many transparent expressions from Goossens’ database is significant, because it seems that many of them are the product of interaction between metaphor and metonymy. In a study of metaphors and metonyms in English and Italian, Deignan and Potter investigated linguistic expressions from the source domain of the human body, using corpus data (2004). They systematically analyzed 1000 concordance citations for each of four items: nose, mouth, eye and heart, and their inflections, together with their Italian translation equivalents. They analyzed figurative expressions on the basis of frequency, regardless of whether they are semantically transparent, and found large numbers of Goossens’ “metaphor from metonymy” in fairly transparent metaphorical expressions, which presumably his analysis would not have picked up. Goossen’s study was systematic in that by using a corpus-based dictionary as a source of examples he is able to claim that he investigated a representative range of the most frequent expressions from the source domains he chose. However, dictionary data by its nature is extracted from its natural context, and examining evidence of language in use from a corpus can provide another per-
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
spective and show additional patterns. Using a corpus, the researcher is faced with a large number of citations of each word or expression, rather than one or two examples that have been pre-selected, or even invented. A corpus also enables the researcher to examine the co-text in full, whereas dictionary examples are, for reasons of space, brief. Finally, it should not be forgotten that most modern, corpus-based dictionaries are pedagogical in purpose and thus examples may have been simplified and subtleties of meaning ignored, if it is felt that they would not be helpful to learners of English. In the following section, I discuss patterns of metaphor and metonymy found in corpus studies, and use these to argue that rather than attempting to distinguish discrete categories, it is more useful to think of there being a continuum from metaphor to metonymy. This view is largely consistent with Goossens’s findings, but is also influenced by two factors always powerful in corpus research: frequency and context.
A cline from metaphor to metonymy The rarity of metonymy within metaphor Deignan and Potter’s study of body words in English and Italian (2004), described above, was limited in the number of words studied, but was comprehensive and systematic in their treatment. It produced only a few, dubious examples of metonymy within metaphor, but yielded dozens of examples of metaphor from metonymy. The lack of instances of metonymy within metaphor may be a reflection on the lexicon more widely, suggesting that this interaction occurs only very rarely. An alternative explanation is that this particular source domain, the human body, does not lend itself to metonymy within metaphor, but that other source domains, which have not been researched from this perspective, might produce more examples. However, this second explanation seems unlikely, because the source domain of the human body is known to be one of the most productive sources of both metonyms and multi-word expressions (Moon 1998), both of which are necessary to “metonymy within metaphor”.
Frequency of metaphor from metonymy Deignan (1995) analyzed a much larger number of body-part expressions in English using corpus techniques, for the purposes of a learners’ guide to
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
metaphor, and found a number of examples of metaphor from metonymy. A typical corpus example is turn one’s nose up at something. This could be a purely literal expression, if used simply to describe a physical action. However, all the corpus citations also have the associated meaning of “reject”, which is a metonymy if the action that it describes is both literally true and associated with rejection, that is, if the person referred to has actually turned their nose upwards either as an instinctive reaction of disgust, or to consciously signal rejection. This could be seen as the first stage in the evolution of the expression. In the second stage of its evolution, it is an instance of metaphor from metonymy. Here it is not literally true, but is used to refer to a rejection that is expressed in a different, or more abstract way; that is, the person referred to does not literally turn their nose upwards. The following citation seems to be an example of the latter: (7) Two trees in Horace’s garden demonstrate that you should never turn your nose up at inexpensive plants.
A further example is the expression bite one’s lip, which can be interpreted metonymically, meaning “physically bite one’s lip in order to restrain oneself from speaking”, or metaphorically, meaning “refrain from responding or reacting in any way”. Turn one’s back works in the same way; the expressions appear together in the following citation. (8) I know better than most how difficult it is to bite your lip and turn your back on all the name calling.
The expression to get back on one’s feet is used to talk about physical recovery from an illness; this seems to be an instance of metonymy, on the grounds that a sick person prototypically lies down, and when they recover they stand up again. The expression is used metaphorically to refer to situations such as improvements in a company’s fortunes, in citations such as: (9) Bankruptcy laws are designed to give ailing companies a chance to get back on their feet.
So far then, the corpus evidence suggests that “metaphor from metonymy” is by far the most frequent of Goossen’s metaphor/metonymy interactions, and is found in a range of target domains.
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
Ambiguity in metaphor from metonymy Corpus analysis of instances of metaphor from metonymy reveals another interesting feature of these expressions, noted only in passing by Goossens: there seems to be a cline from purely metonymic to metaphorical use. Sometimes, indeed, a clear distinction between metonymy and metaphor from metonymy is not possible: one shades into the other and we probably do not attempt to decide whether an expression is intended metaphorically or metonymically when decoding in real time. Breathing is an aspect of human behaviour that generates a number of potentially ambiguous expressions, presumably because the speed and depth of breathing are closely related to people’s emotional state. Expressions which relate breathing to emotions include hold one’s breath, take one’s breath away and take a deep breath: (10) She had been holding her breath and hoping that the agreement would be signed. (11) It’s so beautiful it takes your breath away. (12) Most of us sit down glumly from time to time and deal reluctantly with the most pressing item. After taking a deep breath, we write a cheque, post it and then relax in the knowledge that one payment, at least, is behind us.
In each of these three citations there is uncertainty as to whether the literal, physical meaning of the expression is intended, or whether the reference to breathing is intended figuratively, to signal a particular emotional state, or both. Ambiguity is also found in expressions describing behaviour, such as in the interpretation of cry on someone’s shoulder, (13) I’m afraid I cried on his shoulder a little
Cry on someone’s shoulder usually implies deliberately turning to another person to tell them one’s troubles in order to elicit sympathy, and has metonymic motivation in that a feature of this behaviour may be, literally, weeping against the hearer’s shoulder. However, it is sometimes difficult to know whether the expression is literally true, or if it is figurative. Nothing in the short amount of co-text provided in the above citation tells us which use is intended. Sometimes the same expression may show different types of figurative motivation in different contexts. The above citation of cry on someone’s shoulder is in fact, very unlikely to be literally true, when a wider context is seen, and it is known that the speaker was a President of the United States, referring to a conversation with another national leader:
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
(14) I’m afraid I cried on his shoulder a little about some of the budget limitations we face here in the United States.
For the following citation, the expression is much more likely to be literally true, and therefore not an instance of metaphor from metonymy. If we assume that in addition to its literal meaning it connotes the idea of deliberately seeking sympathy, then it is an example of metonymy: (15) She’s crying on my shoulder like she always did, whining about how nobody loves her and how much she misses John.
Some citations remain ambiguous, even with a reasonable amount of co-text: (16) I was worried he would keep turning up at my door, looking for a shoulder to cry on.
The same cline from literal through ambiguous to almost certainly non-literal use is seen in the following three citations of the expression keep an eye on: (17) This means that while Julia is cooking she can still keep an eye on their two young children. (18) [The job] entails collecting the rent and keeping an eye on some housing association flats. (19) Often a scheme will need backing for several years. During this time the Field Director [will] keep an eye on its progress.
The first of these has literal meaning in the sense that it is certainly intended to refer to the physical act of watching (though the expression could be further analyzed and found to be non-literal in the sense that Julia’s eye is not literally on her children). The notion of caring is connoted, and therefore the expression is metonymic. The third expression is very unlikely to denote physical seeing, as progress is abstract in this context and so is metaphor from metonymy. The second is ambiguous in that it may refer to physical watching, or to tasks related to caring for flats such as ensuring repairs are carried out, that are less directly connected to vision. Other linguistic expressions from the source domain of bodily sensations, processes and actions that can be ambiguous in their interpretation include: turn one’s back put on a brave face bite one’s lip breathe/give a sigh of relief look over one’s shoulder
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
rub shoulders with someone send/feel a shiver down one’s spine
Charteris-Black makes the same point, illustrated with citations of the expression to lick one’s lips (Charteris-Black 2003), which can connote anticipation, being literally true or untrue. The ambiguity discussed here is potentially very significant for researchers who are interested in language processing and who often try to establish qualitative differences between the processing of literal and non-literal language. If people are actually tolerant of ambiguity between literal and non-literal meaning, or can accept words having both kinds of meaning at once, there may be less difference in processing than is sometimes assumed. The expressions discussed in this subsection seem to be clear cases of Goossens’ metaphor from metonymy: all share the characteristic of ambiguity between metonymy and metaphor. However, not all interactions between metonymy and metaphor appear to behave in this way; a different kind of expression is discussed in the following subsection.
Metonymy-based metaphor While Goossens’ work is invaluable in its recognition of the combinations of metaphor and metonymy, and in particular the development of the category of metaphor from metonymy, corpus analysis suggests that a finer distinction within this category will be useful. I have just argued that many expressions in the category “metaphor from metonymy” tend to show ambiguity between metonymic, or partially literal, interpretations, and metaphorical interpretations. However some metaphorical words and phrases with metonymic grounding do not share this feature. I now discuss these, arguing that they should be seen as occupying a different part of the metaphor–metonymy continuum. Like those in the previous subsection, the expressions discussed here have a figurative meaning that is traceable to physical experience. However, unlike those, there is not a continuum of meaning between the literal and figurative senses, so ambiguity between the literal and figurative interpretation is rare. Because there is a semantic gap between their literal and non-literal meanings, I regard them as essentially metaphors rather than metonyms, but because they are grounded in physical experience, they are referred to in full here as metonymy-based metaphors.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
An analysis of the senses of warm exemplifies the group. Warm is an exponent of the metonymic mapping temperatures stand for emotions, one of whose realizations is the use of the lexis of warmth to talk about positive, friendly feelings. The majority of the corpus citations of warm are accounted for by two major senses: a literal sense, describing entities that are physically warm, and a figurative sense, denoting friendliness. The following three citations show that a very small amount of context is necessary in order to decide whether a literal or figurative interpretation is appropriate in each case. (20) The warm climate of California would be much more beneficial to her health. (21) . . . a fabric that would look and feel warm in winter. (22) . . . a warm welcome is assured.
The corpus citations can also be analyzed from a lexicographical perspective, which attempts to distinguish separate senses of a word by looking for discernible groups of words appearing in the environment of the word being examined, that is, the word’s main collocates. As warm is an adjective, and one that tends to occur before a noun, the nouns to its immediate right are of interest. The ten words occurring most frequently in this position in the corpus are: water, welcome, air, weather, clothing, hearted, place, milk, climate, blooded, room. Welcome and hearted are obviously associated with the figurative sense of warm, while the other eight are readily identifiable as literal, and examination of the citations themselves confirms these predictions. The fact that the collocates of warm can so immediately be associated with either one sense or another suggests that there is no continuum of meaning between the two senses, no point at which one sense shades onto another. The same is found for hot; the ten words occurring most frequently on its right are: water, air, summer, weather, seat, favourite, chocolate, favourites, day, shot. The only one of these words that is ambiguous between literal and metaphorical is water, which can either be literal, or occur in the expression be in hot water, meaning “be in serious difficulties”. However, with just a little more linguistic context, this is never ambiguous, because when be in hot water appears as a whole, the meaning is always figurative. Hot seat, hot favourite and hot shot are all fixed expressions with a figurative meaning, while the other words are associated only with the literal sense, so again, it is possible to divide collocates into literal or figurative senses of hot with a high degree of accuracy. The picture is different for the expressions discussed in the previous citation, as seen when the collocates of keep/kept/keeping/keeps an eye on are
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
examined. To the left of the expression is its subject, which is almost invariably human whether the sense is literal or metaphorical and so will not disambiguate. The object of the expression, which will occur in the word or words to its right, may disambiguate between literal and metaphorical use, and so words occurring in this position were examined. However, by far the most frequent words found were personal pronouns, which offer no clue as to whether the meaning is literal or figurative. The ten most frequent lexical items are: things, car, players, situation, player, people, children, baby, weather, youngsters. It is possible to guess whether some of these are literal or figurative: to keep an eye on the situation has, predictably, figurative meaning, while most instances of keep an eye on the children/baby seem to be literal. For many of these collocates however, it is impossible to predict whether a metaphorical or literal use is intended without close examination of individual citations, when it was found that several collocates are used with both literal and figurative meanings. This suggests that for this expression, as argued above, there is a continuum of meaning between literal and figurative, rather than a sharp divide. Assuming that people use collocates as one kind of clue as to whether a literal or non-literal sense is intended, the processing involved for the two groups of expressions, ambiguous and non-ambiguous, is likely to be different in nature. The two groups of expressions may also be exploited in different ways in texts, and for different effects, for literary or persuasive purposes. Figurative senses of words such as hot, warm, cool and cold are regarded as different from expressions such as keep an eye on, where metonymic meaning shades almost indiscernibly into metaphorical meaning. Words in both groups are metaphors with a degree of metonymic grounding. Where it is necessary to distinguish the two groups, the term metonymy-based metaphor will be used to separate the latter type, hot, cold etc, from the former, which were labelled metaphor from metonymy, following Goossens. Because one of their defining features is that metonymy-based metaphors are not found with a purely metonymic meaning, they seem to be further towards the metaphor end of the cline from metonymy to metaphor.
Conclusion Summary of metonymically-motivated expressions In this chapter I have discussed the argument that there is substantial overlap between the categories of metonymy and metaphor. I have tried to show
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Table 3.1 The cline from metonymy to metaphor Label
Characteristics
Example
Metonym
Non-conventional. Intra-domain mapping. Interpretation dependent on context.
Metonymy within metaphor (Goossens)
One component of a metaphorical multi-word phrase appears to be metonymical. Rare in the corpus data searched.
bite one’s tongue off (Goossens 1990)
Metaphor from metonymy (Goossens)
Metonymy clearly discernible. Mapping both intra-domain and cross-domain. Interpretation often ambiguous between literal and figurative use: continua of meaning between the two found in corpus citations.
keep an eye on [The job] entails collecting the rent and keeping an eye on some housing association flats.
Metonymybased metaphor
Mapping both intra-domain and warm cross-domain. . . . a warm welcome is Interpretation only very rarely assured. ambiguous between literal and figurative use in corpus citations. Discrete groups of collocates found in corpus.
Metaphor
Cross-domain mapping. Normally no ambiguity between literal and figurative use in corpus citations.
ham sandwich The ham sandwich is getting impatient for his check. (Nunberg 1979) palace Conventional. Normally no gifts are Intra-domain mapping. accepted unless it has been Interpretation not dependent on context. agreed with the palace. Metonymic use often an established sense of lexeme.
shoot down He shot down all of my arguments (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 4)
that a number of linguistic expressions realize features of both metaphor and metonymy to varying degrees. I have isolated and described the major types of metonymic and metonymically-motivated expressions found in my corpus studies, and the model is summarized in the Table 3.1. Although different terms and examples are distinguished in this table, this is not intended to be a discrete categorization; they simply represent points along the cline. It is rec-
Chapter 3. Metaphor and metonymy
ognized that there are many borderline cases between the types described, and that many linguistic expressions could fall into more than one of these boxes, depending on their use on context. Metonymy now seems to be so closely intertwined with metaphor that it is a difficult and probably unnecessary exercise to try to disentangle the two in every analysis. However, some corpus studies to be discussed later will suggest that the effects of different types of mapping on the lexicon differ. This is the last chapter in Part I, in which I have tried to outline some key contentions of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and develop definitions and categories with particular relevance for the analysis of corpus linguistic data. In Part II, I turn to current research into metaphor, and consider a number of research strands, before returning to a more detailed examination of corpus data in Part III.
P II
Current research into metaphor
Chapter 4
Corpus research into metaphor
In Part I, I outlined some principles of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and developed a typology of metaphor and metonymy. Part II of this book consists of three chapters, each describing an aspect of metaphor research. For each, I discuss its methodology and findings, from language descriptive and corpus perspectives. Each chapter has a dual focus, tackling both an area of research and a set of research methods. Although the two are not necessarily connected, in practice there is a strong tendency for particular research questions to be investigated using particular research methods, particularly in the case of metaphor, which is researched within several different academic disciplines and traditions. This chapter describes corpus methodology and outlines some current issues around it, before previewing some ways in which it can contribute to metaphor studies and describing some existing research. It will be shown in the next part of this book that a linguistic analysis of these patterns of metaphor is both interesting in itself and is able to contribute much to our understanding of the properties and use of metaphor more generally. Chapters 5 and 6 will outline two further ways of approaching the study of metaphor: cognitive and discourse analytic. Research in the cognitive and psycholinguistic traditions explores the nature and structure of mental mappings, and emphasizes the importance of mental processes in producing figurative language, while researchers who analyze metaphors as part of a discourse approach consider how metaphors contribute to the creation of text and message. Each approach will be critiqued from a corpus linguistic perspective, as introduced here.
Corpora and language analysis Types of corpora Technically, the term “corpus” can be used to refer to any collection of texts. It is sometimes also used to refer to collections of citations of various kinds,
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
such as dictionary entries, or a pre-selected collection of utterances containing a linguistic feature of interest, such as metaphor. Such uses of the term are becoming less common however, and this book follows the widespread current practice of only using “corpus” to refer to a relatively large collection of naturally-occurring texts, which have been stored in machine-readable form (Meyer 2002). In this form, the texts are then studied using various computer programs, in the branch of linguistics known as “corpus linguistics”. The development of computerized corpora as a tool for investigating language began in the 1950s (Leech 1991), and the huge increase in the capacity of computers since then has been reflected in similarly dramatic increases in the size of electronically-held corpora. Leech points out that early corpora such as the Brown corpus of American English and the Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen (LOB) corpus of British English, each consisting of a million words, were considered massive in the 1970s. In contrast, by the year 2000, corpora of many million words could be assembled and processed using desk-top computers, while specialist users had access to corpora consisting of several hundreds of millions of words. The speed and flexibility of the software used to study corpora has similarly increased. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of size, there are three important ways in which the various existing synchronic English corpora differ. These are, the genre of the texts included – whether they are specialized or not –, the inclusion of either whole or sampled texts, and whether the corpus is added to over time. Specialized corpora consist of texts from a specified register or genre, such as business English, the English of non-native speakers, or writing by a specific author. Researchers use such corpora to identify and describe typical features of that register, with aims such as specialized language teaching or literary analysis. Non-specialized corpora consist of a selection of texts that is usually intended to be “balanced”, in such a way that generalizations about the language as a whole can be drawn from it. Another way of seeing this is as an attempt to replicate the language experienced by a “typical” user of the language, who will encounter many millions of words of words from a range of registers in his or her lifetime. Such general corpora are used to assist in the description of language for purposes such as lexicography and language teaching, or as the backdrop to literary studies, such as work by Louw (1993), who compares the semantic patterns found in writing by particular authors with the patterns found in general, non-literary English. Stubbs (2001) takes these techniques further, by compiling corpora of literary texts which can be compared to general corpora. Deciding which texts should be included to ensure repre-
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
sentativeness in a general corpus is obviously far from straightforward, and has been the subject of debate since corpora have been in existence; the problem is discussed in more detail below. The second way in which corpora may differ from each other is that the constituent texts of the corpus may be included as wholes or sampled; that is, an extract of, for example, 2000 words, is taken from each text for inclusion in the corpus. Some corpora, such as the British National Corpus, contain a combination of sampled and whole texts. Sampling has the advantage that the number of words from each text can be exactly matched, and because of this, it is often used where corpus-designers wish to be as scrupulous as possible to ensure an equal proportion of each text type. However, sampling has the disadvantage that it may lead to a corpus which is under-representative of linguistic features that are particular to certain parts of texts (Stubbs 1996). For example, the beginnings and/or the ends of longer texts will be lost, and with them usages typical of these positions. A further argument for using whole texts, or at least fairly large samples of them, is demonstrated by Biber in a detailed analysis of the effects of sampling (1993). He shows that while frequent language forms seem to be distributed in a stable fashion and can be represented by text fragments of 1000 words, rarer linguistic features are more unevenly distributed in texts, which suggests that they may be lost unless large text samples are included in the corpus. It is possible that some of the linguistic features that are unevenly distributed might include metaphors. A third important distinction is that between closed corpora and those that are being added to over time. Most early corpora, such as Brown and LOB, are of a predetermined size; texts were assembled over a relatively short period of time, and the corpus is then complete and closed. The British National Corpus is also of this type (McEnery 1996). The second type, non-closed corpora, are known as “monitor corpora” (Renouf 1987: 21; Sinclair 1991: 25–27). Johansson describes monitor corpora as “gigantic, slowly changing stores of text” (1991). As this suggests, monitor corpora are not static, but change as texts are added to them, a procedure now fairly easy because of the wide availability of texts in machine-readable form. In theory, texts are also discarded from the corpus as they become dated, but in practice this does not always happen, because of the desire to keep the corpus as big as possible. The corpus which has been used for the studies described in this book is a cross-section of the Bank of English, which is owned by Collins Publishers and held at the University of Birmingham, England. It is general rather than specialized, and consists only of whole texts. It is a monitor corpus, and
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Table 4.1 Composition of the corpus Sub-corpus British English Times newspaper Today newspaper Sun newspaper Magazines Books Ephemera BBC World Service Spoken Total British English US English Books Ephemera National Public Radio
Text-type
Number of words
Approx percentage of corpus
Broadsheet newspaper: Written Tabloid newspaper: Written Tabloid newspaper: Written Magazines: Written Fiction and non-fiction: Written Letters, advertisements: Written Radio broadcasts: semi-scripted spoken Informal spoken
5,763,761
10
5,248,302
9
5,824,476
10
4,901,990
8.5
5,354,262
9
3,124,354
5.5
2,609,869
4.5
9,272,579
16 73
5,626,436
10
1,224,710
2
3,129,222
5.5
Fiction and non-fiction: Written Letters, advertisements: Written Radio broadcasts: semi-scripted spoken
Total US English Other Australian newspapers
17.5 Newspapers: Written
5,337,528
9.5
Information about accessing this corpus is available on the World Wide Web: http:// www.collins.co.uk
the cross-section used in these studies consists of around 56 million words, composed as shown in Table 4.1.
Techniques The most usual way of studying a corpus for linguistic purposes, and the main one used in this research, is by using a concordancing program. This enables the researcher to study a word form (or forms) by looking at large numbers
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
of citations of it in its linguistic contexts. The data is usually presented in Key Word in Context format (KWIC), in which the word to be studied, or “node”, is presented in the centre of the screen or page, with context on either side.1 Data presented in this format are usually referred to as a concordance. A sample from the concordance for hunt, and questions that this suggests for the classification of citations as metaphorical or literal were given in the Introduction. Concordance citations can be sorted in various ways. The following concordance extract (4.1) has been left-sorted, i.e. sorted by the word immediately preceding the node blow. The concordance citations have not been grammatically sorted, and it can be seen that three of them, citations 3, 11 and 12 are verbs while the rest are nouns. Where the node is a noun, or predominantly a noun, as in this case, left-sorting is often interesting because it enables the researcher to see quickly which groups of words premodify the node. Obviously, this information is still present where citations are unsorted, but when they are sorted alphabetically, repeated patterns become very visible to the eye. In this short extract, the only repeated word in the immediate left slot is a, but in longer concordances there is a good deal of repetition. In this concordance extract, examination of words appearing immediately to the left shows that adjectives indicating size or extent, such as devastating, huge and serious, tend to appear, and that these tend to evaluate negatively. It is possible to restrict a search to a particular part of speech, although the software is not 100% reliable in this regard. Extract 4.2 is the concordance of the verb blow; citation 10 was incorrectly identified as a verb. The citations have been right-sorted, which enables the researcher to focus on the object of the verb. In this case, right-sorting highlights the fact that verbal blow is often phrasal. Sorting and resorting citations is done almost instantly; it is also possible to sort two or more words to the left or right of the node, which sometimes highlights idioms; in the concordance of blow, this would cluster instances of the idiom blow the whistle. It is generally good practice to examine the concordance sorted in several different ways, because different pieces of information about the word usually emerge with each sorting. It is also important that all inflections of the node are examined, because, as will be shown in Chapter 7, it is not uncommon for singular and plural forms, or -ed and infinitive forms, to show different semantic and linguistic patterning. When two or more words regularly appear in each others’ environment, they are known as collocates; the phenomenon is known as collocation. (The significance of collocational patterns for metaphor theory is discussed in more
blow to its prestige and blow as a soldier might. ‘And blow it up on the run-out blow for them isn’t it really blow.
The 37-year-old blow to Scotland, a final act blow yesterday when a senior blow when head coach Wayne blow to New Zealand’s blow yesterday when Welsh blow up the hostages unless blow up in his face, and yet
In this and following extracts, items such as
and are codes indicating new paragraphs or headings, and <M01>, etc. indicate a change of speaker, M01 being an unidentified male speaker, and F01 being a female speaker.
1. 12 per cent cut over two years, are a 2. She felt him bracing himself for a 3. drop whatever it is in the water and 4. out of Wimbledon so that’s a bad 5. and Gatting’s injury was a body 6. of Ravenscraig is a devastating 7. for privatisation received a fresh 8. an end.
Still, it came as a huge 9. banking institution was the latest 10. Championship hopes suffered a serious 11. says the rebels have threatened to 12. that having no evidence, this would
Concordance 4.1 Sample of concordance for blow
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
which are extremely dry. And they aggression. I’m not going to do it. beer, pizza and motorbikes - could ill model (and smile, and wave, and his socks.
I thought it would ow those funny birthday candles you ountains spawned fast storms. It’ll first financial squalls threaten to ee <M01> Mhm. <M02> Well he did not of the Four Seasons Hotel. of involvement in an attempt to Newcastle 1. Kenny’s stormtroopers
blow Blow blow blow blow blow blow blow blow Blow blow blow
Concordance 4.2 Sample of the concordance for verbal blow across the Sierras and they just her. And he stops <M01> Mm. his £66million fortune: 1 Buy kisses if she want to) two special my cover if I refused,” 27-year out then they re-ignite Well, over soon enough, too,” Garin the new currency off course? Tony the whistle. MX then wrote that to BT bonanza;British Telecom up an Israeli airliner. The talks up title dream ALEX FERGUSON was
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.
a the be
dealt to it and s as suffered of that he struck in with you been for they are
is of was it s and another
by i blow as going you threatened in with be dealt soften want
the and another major big huge bitter t will body hammer first massive double would devastatin ll latest could final terrible you serious
NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE
up the it out
and in your by on when of a away but over that against from me dry at you
in his and
up he whistle to i away of their all it on blow out at us an own with
and to on a of in off out but head it i that who was he his when football for with
Figure 4.1 Collocates of blow
detail in Chapter 9.) As well as the traditional concordance, data can be studied in the form of an overview, or “picture” of the most frequent collocates, to the left and right of the node. The Bank of English picture program can be used to calculate collocates over entire concordances of many thousands of citations. Human memory limitations mean that it would be very difficult to glean such an accurate impression of the collocational profile of a word by manually scrolling through hundreds of screenfuls of concordance citations. For example, there are 2817 citations of the verb and noun forms of blow (not including inflections). In concordance form, this would be presented as more than 100 screenfuls of data. Output from the picture program, which processed these 2817 citations, is as shown in Figure 4.1. Each column shows collocates in descending order of frequency. For instance, in the column immediately to the right of the node, the item up appears first, followed by in, indicating that these are the most frequent items to appear to the right of the node in the entire concordance. Similarly, the column immediately to the left of the node gives the words appearing most frequently to the left of blow in the concordance. This confirms the impression gained from the
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
short concordance extracts, that words negatively denoting size tend to appear in this slot. In the column two to the right of the node, whistle is the 8th most frequent word, and the most frequent non-grammar word, suggesting that the idiom blow the whistle is relatively frequent. Exact frequencies of each collocate can also be obtained from the program, together with statistical measures of the significance of each. It is possible to focus on a word of interest in the picture, and extract citations of that collocation. In the above overview, bitter seems an interesting potential metaphor. There are 39 citations of bitter blow; when the concordance is left-sorted, the first 12 are listed in Concordance 4.3. These confirm that bitter blow is used metaphorically, and give an indication of its typical context. Findings from more detailed studies of the collocates of metaphors, and implications for theory are discussed in Chapter 9. Collocates of the node crescendo are given in Figure 4.2. Because delexical words such as determiners and prepositions (there is a brief discussion of delexical words in Chapter 2) are a great deal more frequent than lexical words, the former tend to dominate columns of collocates such as the above, and they do not necessarily represent significant collocations with the node. For instance, the appearance of the indefinite and definite articles a and the in the column immediately to the left of the node would be expected for almost any count noun. However, some delexical collocates are worth noting; for instance here it can be seen that crescendo is used in prepositional phrases such as to a crescendo, and is post-modified by prepositional phrases beginning with of. Other information that can be extracted from this picture is the fact that reached is the verbal form of which crescendo is most frequently the object, that rise is also an important verbal collocate, and that nouns in the slots two to the right, probably found in the expression a crescendo of, tend to be negative; for instance, a crescendo of violence. Data presented in this form are a very useful starting point for an investigation of word meaning and use, but conclusions can rarely be drawn from this alone. This is because collocational patterns are sometimes found across different senses of a word. For instance the combination of crescendo and of appears with both the literal and metaphorical senses of crescendo, as the following concordance (4.4) extract demonstrates. (The program was asked first to concordance crescendo of, then to sort by the word occurring two slots to the right of the node.) The same pattern is sometimes found for lexical collocates. For instance, an examination of citations in which crescendo is the object of reached shows that
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
a move was close.
week. <xr> 8044 pro-abortion activist”.
first London meeting dealt a at the semi-final stage is a llis. And he said: ‘It was a favour. The move will be a e Champions League will be a snub. She said: ‘It was a for Frey’s comrades is a Division glory bid. It’s a alks going would have been a
Bitter Bitter Bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter bitter
blow dealt to Mubarak campaign against blow; Captain Cash 03 May blow for beer drinkers AUSSIE beer blow not only to the people of Bosnia, blow and is hard to swallow because you blow to lose this game and I feel we blow to the CBI and spark fears of a blow. Coventry have seen their own blow because Songs of Praise is our blow to Germany’s carefully restructure blow for the 26-year-old who scooped a blow to Mr Blair. Aides had played down
Concordance 4.3 Extract from concordance for bitter blow
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
to a reached and up in rising rose there the
to a reached in the reaches of an with reaching
a the its deafening rising steady in this great final
NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE
of and in as with
the that to after
the a an and then he his boos it violence
and the to in he of that had
from
Figure 4.2 Collocates of crescendo
the combination occurs when crescendo is used in both literal and metaphorical senses, as in the following citations. (1) The singer reached a crescendo. (2) Speculation invariably reached a crescendo.
These examples show that while obtaining a picture of collocates is a very useful first step, it is necessary to supplement this information with a close examination of concordanced data.
Issues in corpus research Intuition and observation Corpus observation of language in use has three great advantages over intuitive language analysis. Firstly, the limitations of human memory mean that a computer is far better equipped to both store and search large amounts of text, performing endlessly repetitive tasks swiftly and accurately. Secondly, corpus linguists have found that human beings are not good at describing their own language production (Sinclair 1991). This seems strange; we must all have a stock of typical word meanings, collocations and grammatical patterns in order for us to produce natural-sounding language, yet for some reason we are unable to access this knowledge out of context. Experience of working with natural language data improves people’s intuitions about language, but my own and colleagues’ experience suggests that the improvement is not usually very great; corpus researchers and lexicographers report that they regularly find uses of words that they would not have predicted. These include observations about frequency, word combinations and idioms,
1. gold at the Games, crashed out to a 2. removed and another faqir rose to a 3. failed to unite the hall in a 4. Oct. 1, ‘the leaks have risen in a 5. protest gained momentum. When the 6. fur ride over her until, with a 7. the screaming of horses and the 8. rugby, lined up a sixth to a 9. rose to their feet to create a 10. behind your attacks which saw a
Concordance 4.4 Concordance of crescendo of crescendo crescendo crescendo crescendo crescendo crescendo crescendo crescendo crescendo crescendo
of of of of of of of of of of
boos, failing to drumming and, with emotion. He is, it prejudicial news protest peaked on screeches, they shrill women’s laug slow hand-clapping sound which rolled violence. For six
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
and word meaning. To take one example, I analyzed a concordance of the word rock and its inflections (some findings are described in Chapter 7), and discovered a number of points about usage which, with hindsight, seem obvious, but which I had not predicted. For instance: 1. The main metaphorical use of rock, meaning “disturb”, occurs almost always in the passive or simple past; 2. The most frequent idiomatic use of rock is rock the boat, meaning “disturb or criticize accepted ways of doing things”; 3. The expression rock the boat is almost always used after phrases expressing negativity, such as: (3) . . . too concerned with their career paths and not rocking the boat.
The expression is rare in the simple past tense, and most frequent in the “-ing” form. 4. Nominal rock is often plural when used to describe dangers, but more often singular when used to describe stability, as in the following examples: (4) The marriage has been on the rocks for a while. (5) Nothing must undermine the sanctity of human life – the rock on which our society is built.
This is logical when the grounds for the metaphors are considered; rocks that threaten ships, the source domain for the danger metaphor, are often plural, while the rock on which a house is built, the source domain for the stability metaphor, tends to be singular or a mass noun. A third advantage of using corpus data is that any one speaker will not know all the words of their language and their meanings in use: in my analysis of rocked I found a relatively frequent use that I had not been aware of, to refer to a sporting defeat, which appears in citations such as: (6) Relegated Drogheda United rocked Dundalk to claim only their second Premier Division win of the season.
Corpus data can therefore help to provide a less subjective analysis of language than unsupported intuition. Sinclair is one of several linguists who argue that the systematic study of large corpora yields information about language use that is not otherwise available: . . . the contrast exposed between the impressions of language detail noted by people, and the evidence compiled objectively from texts is huge and systematic. It leads one to suppose that human intuition about language is highly
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
specific, and not at all a good guide to what actually happens when the same people actually use the language. (1991: 4)
However, findings from corpus studies are sometimes dismissed, for two reasons. Firstly, they frequently strike people as familiar, because they confirm information that is part of their linguistic knowledge, previously known at a subconscious level. Because of this, these insights may be dismissed as obvious and it is easily forgotten that without the corpus they might have remained submerged. The second reason why corpus observations about language are sometimes dismissed is that they may seem trivial. From the perspective of the theoretical linguist, it can be argued that corpus observations are possibly accurate descriptions of the way words work at a detailed level in use, but are of no real interest or importance. The above findings about rock could be examples of this; a theoretical linguist might not argue with them as facts about language use, but he or she might well challenge their significance. In response to this, corpus linguists take the view that linguistic theory developed without reference to naturally-occurring language data may be elegant and internally consistent, but is simply irrelevant to the task of finding out how language works, because it ignores factual evidence. It is certainly true that corpus techniques are ideally suited to detailed, bottom-up descriptions of individual words, and that in themselves, such detailed descriptions have little impact on our understanding of language as a system. Where corpus linguistics can contribute however, is if those detailed descriptions are gathered together and examined for evidence of systems, either systems already postulated by linguistic theory, or, possibly, systems as yet unrecognized. To do this, the corpus linguist needs to be adept in working out how to interrogate the corpus and what to search for. Meyer gives examples of how this can work in practice, listing a number of corpus studies of grammatical structures, and describing a corpus study that he conducted, in which he investigated a theoretical point about ellipsis from a Chomskyan perspective (2002). The corpus studies described later in this book are also attempts to collect linguistic facts from which underlying systems, in this case metaphorical systems, can be traced.
Corpus-based research and corpus-driven research Tognini-Bonelli makes an interesting and much-quoted distinction between two types of corpus work: corpus-based and corpus-driven (2001). Put very
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
simply, corpus-based research starts with existing paradigms and investigates these using the corpus. Corpus-driven research, in contrast, starts with a clean slate, with no assumptions about what will be found: it places the corpus at the centre of the process, and allows new categories and rules to emerge from study. An example of corpus-based research would be where the researcher uses concordances to find out which lexical verbs most commonly realize a grammatical structure that has been identified in advance. An example of corpus-driven work would be where the researcher asks the software to identify the most frequent word forms in a corpus and their most frequent collocates, and then groups them semantically using categories developed through examination of the word forms, not pre-existing categories. Both Tognini-Bonelli and other researchers using the distinction tend to evaluate “corpus-driven” work positively and “corpus-based” work negatively. However, if a range of the work that claims to draw on corpora is examined, the clarity of the distinction starts to slip, though it is still a useful one as a guide. For instance, some work in English Language Teaching in the early days of corpus linguistics fully justified the criticisms leveled at corpus-based work. In this work, the corpus was often used as a source of examples for teaching materials based on existing language descriptions. For instance, a materials writer may decide, in advance of any corpus searches, to include a textbook chapter on make and do and their collocates, on the grounds that this topic is frequently covered in learners’ materials, and, intuitively, seems important. The corpus is then used to find authentic examples of these; the writer extracts concordances of make, do and their inflections, and searches for examples, probably choosing ones which do not include difficult vocabulary or which are close to the invented examples used in previous material. This approach is rightly deserving of criticism, because the writer will have found no new information from the corpus about the frequencies and uses of make and do, and will have taken no steps towards ensuring that the examples chosen are typical of language use. The corpus is supplementing and possibly lending credibility to existing descriptions of language, but is far from the heart of the process. A more corpus-driven approach to the same language issue would include establishing whether expressions such as make the bed / do the housework are in fact frequent enough in naturally-occurring English to justify their inclusion at an early stage in the syllabus, and if they are, which collocates of make and do are most frequent, and in what contexts and grammatical patterns. A completely corpus-driven approach would not even start from language items in a pre-existing list, but would take a completely fresh look at the language, de-
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
ciding which items to include in a language syllabus on the basis of frequency, together with pedagogic considerations. However, not all corpus-based work is open to the same criticisms. Meyer’s (2002) work on ellipsis, described above, could be described as “corpus-based” because it draws on pre-existing categories, but it is comprehensive, in that Meyer searched for every example of the categories he was studying in the corpus. Importantly, it questions existing beliefs about language rather than seeking simply to confirm them. The metaphor research described here has features of both corpus-based and corpus-driven work. It is corpus-based, in the sense that it begins with categories developed in the literature and explores them, rather than starting with a clean slate theoretically and taking the research agenda from some kind of statistical overview of the corpus. However, it is corpus-driven in the sense that it does not seek to maintain existing categories at all costs, but is prepared to reclassify the data and develop new systems of description if the data are found to contradict existing ideas. Partington describes the role of a corpus in research and the methodology of using it as an interaction of corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches, as follows: . . . the corpus represents both a resource against which to test [] intuitions and a motor which can help to generate them. Corpus research is generally carried out in the following manner. A researcher has an intuition about language, checks this against the data the corpus provides, and this checking process frequently suggests other avenues of research to be taken, often entirely unsuspected at the start of the process. (1998: 1)
This is close to the approach taken here, with the difference that Conceptual Metaphor Theory, rather than pure intuition, provided many of the starting points.
Representativeness A criticism often leveled at corpus studies is that the corpus that they are based on was not truly representative of the language. This raises the question of what a corpus should represent: whose language experience it seeks to mimic. Each person’s day-to-day language experience is different, depending on their occupation, interests, and family and social life. Some people spend much of their time engaged in spoken interaction with children, others spend hours talking on the telephone to clients, still others, such as metaphor researchers, may
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
spend much time engaging with written academic material. Further, many language users encounter different kinds of language at different stages in their personal and professional lives. For example, the students in their teens and twenties who participate in many university research projects will tend to have a corpus of up-to-date popular language, but may lack the formal professional genres that they will probably become familiar with in later years. Geography also makes a difference; some years ago, as a city dweller, the meaning of the compound cattle market that I was most familiar with was the metaphorical use, which refers derogatively to beauty pageants and similar events, in citations such as: (7) The contest has been condemned in the past by feminists as a cattle market that is demeaning to women.
However, since moving to a small market town, the literal meaning of the compound has become the one that I most frequently encounter, and the local sign saying “Cattle Market Street” no longer strikes me as odd in the way that it once did. The regional variety of language that speakers are exposed to varies, most obviously with location, but also with professional and personal factors. The Bank of English reflects what may be close to an “average” British English speaker’s exposure, in that the majority of texts are British English, a proportion are American English, and a smaller proportion are Australian English. However, the corpus is still unlikely to truly reflect the wide range of varieties spoken in modern Britain, particularly in its insistence that all texts are authored by a native speaker. Because there is such a wide variation in the range and relative proportions of text types that we each see and hear, no corpus could ever represent anyone’s personal experience of language more than fleetingly. This does not have to be seen as a disadvantage; it can be argued that a well-balanced corpus is superior to an individual’s personal corpus in its range and balance. For example, while an individual might read only one, or possibly two different newspapers, many corpora include a range of the most widely read ones. A more specific criticism of the Bank of English is that, like several other large corpora, it contains a large proportion of journalism, to the extent that has been considered unrepresentative (Summers 1996). One possible reason for the amount of journalism included is that newspapers are one of the most readily available sources of texts and are very cheap to collect in machine readable form. However, the amount of journalism that should be included to ensure balance is a contentious issue if we think of a corpus as modeling a
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
“typical language user’s” experience, because a high proportion of many speakers’ language input is journalism. A criticism that is less easy to answer is that many corpora under-represent spoken texts; they are difficult to collect because of many people’s natural reluctance to allow their private conversations to be recorded, and they are also very time-consuming, and therefore expensive, to transcribe. Knowles argues that while corpora may be limited, they at least provide naturally-occurring evidence, and the alternative is invented data. These would presumably be based on the linguist’s own language experience, which, as has been argued, will be difficult to access reliably, and will not be replicable or falsifiable. Further, most analysts’ experience of language must surely be atypical; the majority of human beings do not spend many hours of each week interacting with academic writing. The problem of achieving a corpus that can be taken as reasonably representative should not be under-estimated, and the task is not one that could ever be regarded as complete. However, corpus linguists believe that a large corpus which includes texts from a range of sources is a good deal better than introspective data, and the ongoing problem of representativeness should not be allowed to overshadow the value of corpus work.
Using corpora to research metaphor Retrieving metaphorical language from the corpus As has been demonstrated in the section describing methodology, above, the direction of investigation in corpus studies is from linguistic form through to meaning. It is not possible to use the corpus to proceed in the other direction, because there is currently no way of accessing general rules of language from a corpus. Computer programs can organize language data swiftly and accurately on orthographic principles, but identifying and describing features such as grammatical patterns, meaning and pragmatic use can only be done by a human analyst (Clear 1987). The corpus researcher who attempts to develop valid generalizations about language meaning and use has to sift through a large amount of linguistic data, looking for regularities and patterns. It follows that corpus analysis of semantic issues such as metaphor must be bottom-up rather than top-down. The metaphor researcher who chooses to use a corpus is faced with an overwhelmingly rich resource, far too large to process manually, and he or she
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
has to find a way in somehow. There are a number of possibilities. Firstly, the researcher can try to establish the existence of linguistic metaphors that realize a particular conceptual metaphor. Because the computer cannot work from a list of conceptual metaphors to identify their linguistic realizations, it is necessary to list potential linguistic realizations and then trawl concordance lines to see if they occur. For example, to investigate the conceptual metaphor happy is up would involve identifying lexical items from the source domain of upward direction and establishing which of them are regularly used to talk about the target domain, happiness. One way of doing this is to painstakingly work through thesaurus entries, concordancing each word given. If several thesauri are used, the researcher should be able to check a reasonably complete list of lexical items in the source and/or target domains being studied. Sometimes existing discussions of metaphor include intuitively generated lists of linguistic expressions, which can also be used as a starting point for corpus searches. Once retrieved, a concordance will show the researcher the linguistic contexts in which a lexical item is used, but this information then has to be processed manually. For the purposes of metaphor research, it is necessary to decide which citations should be regarded as figurative uses. At present there is no automatic way of doing this, and the researcher depends on informed intuition to decide whether a particular citation of a word is metaphorical, within his or her own understanding of “metaphor”, in itself not an uncontroversial matter. The next stage is to classify metaphors into groups such as innovative, dead and historical metaphors, along the lines discussed in Part I of this book, in order to concentrate on those of interest. Another way into a large corpus involves starting from a small corpus, searching it by hand, and working from this to the large corpus (Cameron & Deignan 2003), or searching a sample of the large corpus by hand (CharterisBlack 2004). Because the small corpus or sample can be read in its entirety, most or all linguistic metaphors can be identified, and these, and their collocates, can be concordanced from the larger corpus for more generalizable linguistic observations. This technique can also bring the benefits of using small corpora, which usually provide more detailed information about context, and so adds to the richness of interpretation. One other way into a corpus is to work with lexicographers who use corpus data and ask them to flag metaphorical uses on their database while they work through concordances of the entire lexicon, but this will be an opportunity that comes up rarely. It means being involved in the creation of a corpus-driven dictionary, and being allowed the chance to train and work with lexicographers.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
The studies described in Part III of this book have drawn on the first two of these approaches, but not the last. The main approach was identifying and then investigating particular source and target domains, those discussed in the metaphor literature, or ones which emerge from the study of whole texts such as newspaper articles, fiction or ephemeral literature, such as advertising, and those that I had already investigated using the major categories of thesauri, for a learners’ guide to metaphor (Deignan 1995). Inevitably there is an element of serendipity, of following a trail that is not known in advance. A collocate or idiom found in a concordance could suggest a new corpus search, which sometimes revealed a metaphorical system that had not been anticipated.
Intuition and metaphorical language Sinclair’s (1991) claim that intuitions are contradicted by corpus evidence of language in use seems to apply as much to linguistic metaphor as to the areas of language that he has researched. For instance, one of the first observations that can be made through studying the concordances for many words is the frequency of occurrence of their metaphorical senses. While non-metaphorical senses may be psychologically primary and historically prior, contemporary corpus data shows that metaphorical senses of some words are used as frequently as, or even more frequently than, non-metaphorical senses. This is unsurprising where a non-metaphorical sense is only detectable through studying etymology, as in Lakoff and Turner’s example of comprehend (which is derived from the Latin word for “take hold” (physically) but which does not have this sense in English) (Lakoff & Turner 1989). However, it is less expected where the non-metaphorical sense is still current. For instance, a 400-citation extract of the concordance of shreds was analyzed in order to determine the relative frequency of the literal and metaphorical uses of the plural noun (Deignan 1999a). 16 citations were discounted because they were either unclear or were proper names and 15 verbal uses were also disregarded. Of the remaining 369 citations, 207 were literal, and 162 were metaphorical. Typical citations of metaphorical shreds include: (8) So far she’d managed to cling to the shreds of her pride. (9) Her nerves are in shreds.
For some structures, the metaphorical uses of shreds are more frequent than the literal uses: for example, there are 48 metaphorical citations of shreds of compared with 39 literal citations, with, for instance, shreds of patience being a more
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
frequent collocation than shreds of cloth. This suggests that the metaphorical use of shreds is more frequent than might have been predicted using unaided intuition. Writers working within the contemporary theory sometimes cite intuitively derived examples of linguistic metaphor which turn out to be rare in the corpus. For instance, Yu cites the following realizations of anger is heat (1995: 161). These are inflammatory remarks. She was doing a slow burn. He was breathing fire. Your insincere apology has added fuel to the fire. After the argument, Dave was smoldering for days. Boy, am I burned up. Smoke was pouring out of his ears.
The Bank of English concordances of the lexical items identified by Yu, and their inflections, were examined in order to identify realizations of anger is fire (Deignan 1998). (For this study, the U.S. section of the entire Bank of English, rather than the sample described above, was used, because Yu’s work is based on American English.) The study showed that while some of Yu’s linguistic metaphors are frequent, others do not occur at all in the corpus. Inflammatory and smoldering both occur regularly with the meanings they have in Yu’s examples but metaphorical breath/e/ed/es/ing fire occurred only once in 1,000 citations of fire. Fuel and its inflections collocate with fire as a linguistic metaphor just three times in 10,000 citations of fire. The other three examples are either very rare or absent. Of 1,000 citations of burn and inflections there is none resembling that in example (b) (although the metaphorical use burn out = “be exhausted” is well-established). There are no instances of burned+up with the meaning of “be very angry”. Smoke appears within eight words either side of ears only twice in the entire American corpus, with a literal meaning in each case. This is not to argue that anger is fire is an unimportant conceptual metaphor, however. The metaphor has a number of lexicalizations not mentioned by Yu, several of which are more frequent than any of the above examples. For instance, ignit/e/s/ing/ed occurs 332 times in the American corpus, of which 228 citations are metaphorical. The following two examples are typical. (10) . . . the chaos in the country that could ignite into another Balkan war. (11) . . . terrible resentment will be ignited.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Ignite is also used to talk about feelings other than anger, as in the following citation. (12) . . . written by renowned children’s authors who know how to communicate with children and ignite their imaginations.
The collocation of fan/fans/fanned/fanning with flames is also a conventional realization of anger is fire, as the following concordance extract demonstrates (4.5). This study shows that Yu’s examples are probably not the most frequent realizations of anger is fire, an observation that might be disregarded as trivial. Less trivial though is the point that Yu’s examples are semantically atypical of the metaphorical use: corpus lexicalizations of anger is fire tend to refer to the externally manifested reactions of large groups of people, while Yu’s examples are focussed almost entirely on the feelings of individuals. Trained intuition is clearly indispensable for identifying conceptual metaphors and for suggesting likely lexicalizations of these. However, there is a discrepancy between the expressions which a researcher may produce from intuition when trying to think of typical lexicalizations and the expressions which are most frequently used in the corpus. Given that intuition and corpus findings seem to diverge when nothing more than the existence and frequency of linguistic metaphors is at issue, it seems unlikely that intuition would adequately predict more delicate features of metaphorical expressions. Because of this, corpus data is invaluable in making statements about issues such as the existence and frequency of literal and metaphorical senses, detailed aspects of their meanings, and their collocational and syntactic behavior.
Corpus studies of metaphor in English The corpus analysis of metaphor is relatively recent, and the methodology is evolving, but it has already contributed to our understanding of metaphorical systems in texts in several ways. In this section I describe three corpus studies of linguistic metaphors in English, chosen because they illustrate a range of the questions about metaphor that corpus linguistics has tackled. Charteris-Black’s study of a corpus of The Economist magazine shows how the choice of particular metaphors can promote a particular view of the topic, thus providing new evidence in support of one of the tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (2000). He found that animate metaphors are used to talk about the economies of different countries in general. Source domains are sickness and health, and the human life cycle and family, and typical linguistic
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
and the press for fanning the nly served to fan the movement’s rned like piles of kindling, the rageous talk show hosts, fan the instigating trouble, fanning the trouble and disparity fan the of old quarrels and fanning the tributed by their own fanning of ignited and fanned the creative igh ground and fanned the rising
flames.
Wayne Osaki (Japaneseflames. And now the radical right flames fanned by southwesterly flames of fear. And we see more of flames of that violence and itself flames of politically oriented flames of still-smoking remembered flames of discontent. Yes! Let us flames of Millstream. Although Linc flames of racism. Above all, I am
Concordance 4.5 Extract of concordance for fanning + flames
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
metaphors include healthy, ailing, infant and parent. However, in talking about the market and market movements specifically, several other metaphor systems are used. These are predominantly inanimate; for instance, the market is described as a liquid, through lexis such as float and buoyant, and as a ball, through lexis such as bounce back and rebound. Charteris-Black analyses the frequencies of each metaphor in detail, as well as exploring the connotations and entailments of each metaphor, and argues that the motivation behind the use of animate metaphors for the economy is the economists’ desire to suggest that while an economy can act of its own accord, it can also be controlled in the way that an animal can. On the other hand, inanimate metaphors present the markets as natural forces, beyond human control. Charteris-Black’s detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis shows the value of corpus work in bringing naturally-occurring data to the examination of the semantics of a particular genre, and tracing complementary and conflicting patterns of language and thought. Boers (1999) also studied a corpus of The Economist, and counted the number of linguistic metaphors drawn from the source domain of health. He then counted how many of these occurred in editions written in each month of the year, and found that health metaphors are more frequently used in articles written during the winter months. Boers argued that this is the point at which people in the northern hemisphere are more likely to experience illness, because of the cold weather at that time. People’s own health is therefore a more salient topic to them in those months, which may lead to its more frequent use as a metaphor. This piece of research suggests that we use metaphors from source domains which are salient to us personally, an important contribution to metaphor theory. Shen and Balaban’s (1999) study is not strictly corpus work, in the sense that it does not exploit automatic techniques for examining very large quantities of language. However, it is relevant here in that the researchers take randomly selected texts and subject them to detailed linguistic analysis, and it is of particular interest because the research was designed to test one of the predictions of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Shen and Balaban argue that Conceptual Metaphor Theory predicts that the use of metaphors in a given text would be systematic, that is, linguistic metaphors would tend to be realisations of the same conceptual metaphor, and there would be coherence between the metaphors used. To test this prediction they analysed the linguistic metaphors in newspaper texts, and found that “the use of metaphors in unplanned discourse appears more like free, uncontrolled ‘navigation’ between a large number of root metaphors than a consistent elaboration of any unify-
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
ing root metaphors” (p. 151). The following example from one of their texts is typical: Before landing (politics is a journey) in the Labor party he had flirted (politics is romantic relations) with the Likud party; nevertheless his roots (politics are plants) have always been in the Labor party ideology.
This finding is consistent with corpus studies undertaken by Semino, who has analyzed a corpus of texts discussing the economic aspects of the European Union from several perspectives (2001, 2002). She finds that isolated, “one-shot” metaphors rather than systematic metaphors are the norm, and argues that the Conceptual Metaphor Theory claim that these are conceptually insignificant needs to be reconsidered (2001).
Cross-linguistic studies of metaphor In addition to studies focusing on metaphor use in English, there have been a number of cross-linguistic corpus studies, some of which are described here, in order to illustrate a range of methodologies and contributions to our understanding of metaphor. Deignan, Gabrys and Solska studied linguistic metaphors in English and Polish (1997). Their starting point was sets of citations containing linguistic metaphors from the Bank of English, grouped thematically by source domain. They asked advanced learners of English, who were native speakers of Polish, to translate the citations into Polish and to comment on the translatability of the metaphors. They found that for some metaphors, the underlying mapping appeared to be the same in the two languages, with translatable linguistic realizations. In some cases, the same mapping existed but with different realizations, while in a few cases, there was no correspondence in the conceptual metaphors, and their linguistic realizations were untranslatable without considerable paraphrase. Boers and Demecheleer (1997) analyzed metaphors from economics discourse using corpora of English, French and Flemish texts, using detailed frequency counts of the metaphors from various source domains. They found that on the whole the same source domains were used, but with very different levels of frequency across the three languages. The most popular source domains in each language corresponded to national stereotypes; for instance, the British texts tended to use gardening metaphors while the French ones used more cookery metaphors. Boers and Demecheleer’s findings suggest that the speakers’ culture influences their choice of metaphor, a finding which comple-
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
ments Boers’s finding, reported above, that speakers choose metaphors from source domains that are salient to them. Charteris-Black also investigated the role of culture, using corpora of English and Malay. His findings emphasize the influence on metaphor of another aspect of culture: folk beliefs. He found that where English tends to use metaphors referring to the heart as the centre of feeling, Malay tends to use the liver, reflecting traditional beliefs in each culture about the role of each organ (2003). All the studies reported in this subsection find cross-linguistic differences, perhaps challenging a strong belief in the universality of conceptual metaphors. However, they are not inconsistent with most versions of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. While Lakoff claims that the most basic metaphors are universal, reflecting our physical experience, he notes that the less central metaphors may be more specific (1993), and Gibbs argues that even “universal” categories are culturally filtered (1999b). Semino also finds different metaphors used in different languages, but in her corpus data, these seem to reflect different attitudes towards the topic, rather than cultural differences. She analyzed corpora of English and Italian newspapers over the period in which the Euro was introduced in tandem with national currencies, at the beginning of 1999 (2002). Britain did not join, and at the time of writing, has not joined the Eurozone; a large number of British people apparently remain strongly opposed to doing so. Italy, in contrast, is largely Europhile, and the new currency was adopted enthusiastically. This is reflected in the corpus data; in the Italian corpus, the source domains used are journeys, sport, war and examinations, which express the Italians’ desire to adopt the Euro, but also their worries about meeting the economic criteria for doing so. Two linguistic metaphors that were unique to the English corpus were lock, in citations such as The precise exchange rates at which 11 member currencies are locked against the Euro. (The Independent newspaper, 1/1/1999)
and one size fits all, both stressing what was perceived in Britain as the inflexibility of a shared currency. Some metaphors are shared; Semino used precise frequency counts and detailed text analysis to compare their uses, which are consistent with an overall positive but apprehensive Italian view of the Euro and a skeptical British view. This study demonstrates, from a different angle, the point that has been made by several studies discussed in this book, that metaphors are often chosen in order to present a particular evaluative stance towards the topic.
Chapter 4. Corpus research into metaphor
Charteris-Black and Musolff (2003) also analysed corpora to compare the metaphors used to talk about the Euro in two languages; their study looked at discussion of the Euro in the British Financial Times and its German sister publication. Their data was collected from a later point than Semino’s, late 2000, when the Euro was weakening against other major currencies. Like Semino, they find commonalities between the two languages, particularly in the use of up/downward movement metaphors and health metaphors. They also found evidence of a difference in attitude towards the Euro, in that the English metaphors present it as an active participant in scenarios such as combat, while the German metaphors present the currency as a passive recipient of generosity from banks and governments. This British view of the Euro seems slightly at odds with the more negative views traced by Semino in her corpus of British journalism; the difference could perhaps be explained by CharterisBlack’s choice of a specialist financial newspaper, which might be expected to take a less popularist view than Semino’s general journalism texts. The insights from these two studies are fascinating, and suggest that a larger scale comparison of metaphors used to talk about a topic in different languages and different text types would prove valuable for research into attitudes and ideology. The corpus studies here have tended to focus on finding out which linguistic metaphors are used in different genres and languages, and sometimes on the relative frequency of different linguistic metaphors. They have shown that the choice of vehicle or source domain used to talk about a particular topic can vary considerably, according to the speakers’ language, culture, attitudes to the topic, and current preoccupations. An over-rigid interpretation of Conceptual Metaphor Theory might suggest that the most prevalent metaphorical mappings are a constraint, binding speakers into set ways of thinking and speaking; these corpus studies suggest that this is often not the case.
Summary In this chapter I have outlined some of the principles and techniques of corpus linguistics, arguing strongly that a corpus approach has a great deal to offer the study of many aspects of language. I have shown how corpus research can shed light on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and have described some key studies. The studies discussed here have provided insights about which metaphors tend to be used by which speakers in particular text-types, but have done little to investigate how they are used. Conceptual Metaphor Theory throws up a number of predictions about how linguistic metaphors will behave in texts,
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
predictions about their grammatical behaviour, the semantic relations that they will contract with each other, and their collocational patterns. In Part III, I describe these predictions and test them using Bank of English data, bringing a detailed linguistic perspective to the description of metaphor. In the remaining two chapters in Part II, I discuss two other approaches to metaphor research.
Note . All programmes discussed and illustrated here have been developed by, and are the property of HarperCollins Publishers.
Chapter 5
Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
Introduction This chapter describes some of the questions that have been asked about people’s conceptual structures and thought processes, and the ways in which these questions have been tackled. I begin by listing some of the questions about metaphor that cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches attempt to answer, and then discuss some of the insights that have been gained and the methods through which they are studied. Assumptions about language that appear to underlie these studies are then discussed and critiqued using corpus data. In particular, it will argued that the use of invented and elicited sentences in cognitive and psycholinguistic research is a problem, and that some analyses of small collections of texts can be unsystematic, which leads to uncertainty about how widely their findings apply.
Questions There are two central themes tackled by cognitive and psycholinguistic research into metaphor, firstly concerning conceptual mappings, secondly concerning processing and perception. For the first of these themes, the major research questions could be phrased as follows: – –
Is there a finite and identifiable set of conceptual metaphors? and Are some conceptual metaphors more central to thought than others?
The second theme is dominated by one central question: –
How is metaphorical language processed?
In the rest of this section, I briefly outline answers that have been suggested to these questions. In the following section I examine typical methodologies. In
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
such a wide and active field, it is only possible to describe a small sample of the research, so a selection of studies is described in order to illustrate typical procedures.
Identifying conceptual metaphors Some researchers have set out to establish a definitive list of the most important conceptual mappings, in English at least. A starting point is often taken with Metaphors We Live By, in which Lakoff and Johnson listed numerous mappings, among the best known being argument is war, more is up, life is a journey and some of the many conceptual metaphors used to talk about the emotions. One of the most prolific researchers in this area is Kövecses, who worked with Lakoff studying metaphorical models of anger (Lakoff & Kövecses 1987). Over a number of years, Kövecses has listed many of the conceptual metaphors used to talk about emotions. Some of his most important findings are discussed in his book Metaphor and Emotion (2000). One of his early research projects was to examine how the concept of happiness is conceptually structured. He found that it is talked about using a number of metaphors, including happiness is up, happy is light, happiness is vitality, happiness is insanity and happiness is a natural force (1991). Expressions which realize some of these metaphors include: “I am six feet off the ground,” “When she heard the news she lit up,” “He was alive with joy,” “They were crazy with happiness,” and “He was swept off his feet”. In several studies of American speakers’ understandings of the notion of friendship, Kövecses found that, like happiness, the topic is talked about through a variety of metaphors. These include friendship is a structured object, friendship is a machine and friendship is a living organism (1995, 2000), the different metaphors being used to talk about different aspects of the topic. Friendship is a structured object focuses on forming a friendship and its subsequent stability, and is expressed through metaphors referring to building friendships, and their strength. Friendship is a machine focuses on “the functional aspects of friendship” (2000: 101) and is expressed through expressions such as a working friendship, while “living organism” metaphors focus on “developmental aspects of friendship” (p. 104), and include references to birth, growth and maturity. Kövecese found that to explain all the metaphors in his data, metaphors for concepts such as communication, and metaphors for people and their feelings, such as a person is a container, also have to be invoked. For example, participants referred to communication as a central component of friendship, using various metaphors, and talked about them-
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
selves and their friends using “container” expressions such as deep. This then raises the interesting possibility that the concept of friendship, usually believed to be fundamental to Western culture, is not simple, but a complex construct drawing on a number of mappings. This leads to the related question of whether some conceptual metaphors are more central, or more basic, than others. This is important, not least because at some points in the development of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, there has been a tendency for researchers to propose new conceptual metaphors using limited linguistic evidence. For instance, Gibbs et al. (1997) take the idioms “he really couldn’t swallow it” and “[leave] a bad taste in his mouth” as instantiations of a conceptual metaphor termed accepting something is eating it. It is not clear how many other realizations there might be of this conceptual metaphor, and in what way it differs from the more-often cited ideas are food. Kövecses (2002) lists as a conceptual metaphor considering is chewing, which again is difficult to separate from ideas are food. If this tendency becomes widespread, the notion of a conceptual metaphor loses clarity, along with any predictive power it may have had. Some of these questions of generality and specificity can be explained within one recent line of research. In a much-cited article, Grady (1997) reanalyzed the well-known conceptual metaphor theories are buildings. He noted that it generates linguistic metaphors such as “Claims are supported by facts and arguments” but not “This theory has French windows” (ibid.: 270), a problem he describes as the “poverty of the mapping”. He also found that the same source domains are mapped onto a number of different target domains; for instance, building-related metaphors are used to talk about a number of target domains such as marriage, and political and economic systems, in citations such as “the architect of the Nazi Reich”. This observation is similar to those made in the discussion of an election is a horse race, in Chapter 1, where it was shown that racing metaphors can apply more widely, but not predictably, in domains other than politics. Grady argued that these inconsistencies are found because theories are buildings is not in fact a basic level metaphor. The linguistic metaphors apparently motivated by it are actually generated by the interaction of two more basic mappings: organization is physical structure and persisting is remaining erect. “Theories” is just one target domain among several, and “buildings” one possible source domain. Because theories are prototypical of abstract structures, and buildings are prototypical of vertical physical structures, there are a large number of linguistic metaphors that apparently realize theories are buildings. Grady argues that there are core level mappings such
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
as abstract structure is physical structure, termed “simple metaphors”, which are compounded to create the connections that we usually recognize as conceptual metaphors, or “complex metaphors”. In other words, many of the mappings usually described as conceptual metaphors are not basic level structures at all, but instantiations of more fundamental links. Ritchie (2003) is one of several other writers who have debated the status of the classical conceptual metaphor as fundamental to the mental structuring of concepts. He argues that linguistic metaphors may reflect, not the one-to-one mapping of source onto target that Lakoff and Johnson (1980) suggest, but the interaction of several associated fields, and it may be impossible to state which of these a particular speaker intends by a particular metaphor. For instance, linguistic metaphors that have been taken to lexicalize the mapping argument is war may in fact express relations between domains that include war and argument but also include chess, fencing, boxing, shouting matches and related fields, between which ideas and expressions are continually mapped. Insights such as those of Kövecses, Grady and Ritchie have moved this line of research away from its earlier goal of the identification of a probably finite number of conceptual metaphors. Many cognitive metaphor theorists now share a more hierachically organized understanding of conceptual structure, in which the classical conceptual metaphor is probably not the most basic unit. If Grady’s view is correct, the most basic level structures are mappings such as abstract structure is physical structure, which are a long way from our everyday understanding of “metaphor”. It also follows that the connections that we usually think of as metaphors are not simple mappings but the products of interactions between other, deeper mental connections.
Investigating metaphor processing There is a substantial body of research that tackles various aspects of the question: “How do people process metaphorical language?”. The best known researcher in this tradition is Gibbs, who provides a number of overviews of his own and related research (for example Gibbs 1994, 1998, 2001, 2002). In the Introduction, two understandings of metaphor were outlined; the view of metaphor as conceptual, and a decorative view in which figurative language is perceived as secondary to literal language. In terms of processing, the decorative view implies that understanding a metaphorically-used word involves a procedure of several steps. Firstly, the literal meaning of the word is accessed, the hearer then tries to process the whole sentence with this literal
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
meaning and, finding that it does not make sense, finally looks for another, figurative, meaning. So, when a reader sees the following (corpus) sentence: (1) Neither Scotland Yard nor the Midland Bank were able to shed light on the latest in the long-running series of mysteries about the robbery that have captured the public imagination for so long.
he or she at first processes shed light on literally, and struggles to work out a plausible meaning for the sentence. This fails, because the entity on which light is shed the latest in the long-running series of mysteries. . . is abstract. Only then does the reader look for another meaning of shed light on, and arrive at the metaphorical meaning of “demystify, elucidate”. Gibbs and others term this the “standard pragmatic view” (2001: 318); Gibbs has argued that experimental data show this to be a very unlikely version of what people actually do when they hear or see a metaphor (1994). The alternative possibility is that people process some figurative language directly, without analyzing the literal meanings of each component of a linguistic expression. This position is termed the “direct access view” by Gibbs (1994, 2001, 2002). Researchers in metaphor processing mostly position themselves between these two extremes, and have developed a number of more detailed models. In his discussion of a range of these, Gibbs comments that they all tend to be “hybrids” of the standard pragmatic and direct access views, “but with more specific understanding of the dynamics of figurative language processing” (2001: 319). The body of research in this field is vast, and I describe just two models are briefly, in order to give a flavour of researchers’ assumptions and goals. One model of metaphor processing that has received attention in recent years is the “graded salience” hypothesis (Giora 1997, 1999, 2002). This postulates that some metaphorical meanings of words and expressions are “salient”, and will be activated directly, while for other words the literal meaning will be the more salient and will be activated alone. Salience is described as a function of the conventionality, familiarity and frequency of a sense (Giora 1999). Peleg and Giora (2001) argue that two mechanisms are at work in processing: linguistic and contextual. The linguistic contribution to the process comes in activating the salient meaning of a word. The contextual contribution is in assessing the suitableness of the salient meaning that has been activated, and suppressing it when it does not provide a coherent interpretation. Innovative metaphors are not salient, so when people hear or read them, they will interpret them through the salient literal meaning, in a process like that of the “standard pragmatic” view described above. Peleg and Giora (2001) explored the effect
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
of linguistic and contextual factors on interpretation, and claimed that the balance of the two effects varies, depending on the stage of the utterance at which the potentially ambiguous word occurs. If the ambiguous word is towards the end of a sentence, the reader will have seen more clues to the intended meaning by the time they reach it, and so context plays a greater part at this point. Frisson and Pickering (2001) also studied how people process words that are potentially ambiguous between a literal and a figurative interpretation. Whereas the “graded salience” hypothesis proposes that the salient sense of an ambiguous word is activated at the start of the interpretation process, Frisson and Pickering argue that people do not make an initial choice between the various senses of a word. Instead, people initially activate an “under-specified” meaning of the word, a very generalized meaning that could cover both literal and figurative senses. This meaning is used until enough text has been processed for the overall sentence meaning to become clear, which is when the reader/hearer decides on a more specific interpretation. Several other models have been suggested to account for the ways in which people process metaphor; Gibbs (2001) summarizes the best known of these. Most models take into account the need to distinguish between conventional and innovative metaphors, arguing that these are almost certainly processed in different ways. Most research attempts to find out what a listener or reader does at each stage of processing an utterance, through a range of experimental techniques. Through the data thus generated, researchers then extrapolate to develop generalizations about processing. Related to the problem of how people process literal and figurative meanings is another question: If people’s thoughts are indeed structured by conceptual metaphors, do they refer to them in online processing of metaphorical language, or do they process metaphorical language directly? There is no general consensus on this, opinion being divided between those who see little or no role for conceptual metaphors during processing, and who indeed are dubious about their existence, and those who see a much more central role for conceptual metaphors in speakers’ online comprehension of figurative language. McGlone (1996) tends towards the first group, those who are skeptical of the role of conceptual metaphors. He conducted a number of experiments in order to determine whether his participants’ processing of metaphors was consistent with the implications of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Among other tasks, participants were asked to generate paraphrases of metaphorical statements, and it was found that the paraphrases generated did not show a tendency to draw on the same conceptual metaphor as the stimulus. This, among other evidence, convinced McGlone that participants do not refer to concep-
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
tual metaphors in online processing. Keysar et al. (2000) are also critical of the position that conceptual mappings are involved in processing. They have argued that the linguistic evidence cited in favour of Conceptual Metaphor Theory does not inevitably imply that thought is metaphorically structured. Their experimental data suggest that “People can understand conventional expressions, such as I’m depressed, without recourse to any mappings between domains, or in Lakoff and Johnson’s terms, conceptual mappings such as sad is down” (2000: 591). Gibbs et al. tend to the opposite stance, and have done experimental work on people’s processing of metaphorical idioms that starts from the assumption that conceptual metaphors do structure thought (1997). They argued from their data that although people do not automatically access conceptual metaphors each time they encounter a figurative use, they can do so. They leave open the question of which contextual conditions trigger people to access conceptual metaphors during language processing. Gibbs later argued that conceptual metaphors should be seen not only as structuring the thoughts of individuals, but as shared and shaped by the individual’s culture and community (1999b). From this perspective, rather than thinking of a speaker as reaching inwards, to their conceptual structures, to interpret idioms and metaphors, we can think of them as reaching outwards, towards culturally-shared ways of constructing experience and feelings.
Research methodologies Having overviewed some of the central questions concerning metaphor and cognition, I move on to some of the principal research techniques used to investigate them. Researchers in metaphor and thought are not primarily interested in language but it is difficult for them to avoid using linguistic data to some extent as a research tool, for the obvious reason that thought processes are not directly accessible. In his discussion of research into emotions, Kövecses puts the case for using language data as follows: . . . in order to be able to arrive at the metaphors, metonymies and inherent concepts, and, eventually the prototypical cognitive models [of emotions], one needs to study the conventionalized linguistic expressions that are related to a given notion. (Kövecses 1991: 30)
For metaphor research, language may function as data in itself, when it is elicited from participants, or in the case of corpus and text analysis, when it
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
is captured in natural conditions of use. Alternatively, language may form part of the input to the research process, and participants’ responses to different extracts of language may be measured. Within the cognitive tradition, language forms both data and input, but naturally-occurring language, from texts or corpora, is rarely used. In this section I describe some research techniques representative of the field, and go on to discuss problems that the artificial nature of the language data raises.
Intuition and elicitation A number of metaphor researchers in the cognitive tradition have used intuitively generated data; this is referred to here as “intuitive” when it appears to be derived from the researcher’s own internalized language experience, and “elicited” when the researcher has asked informants to generate language based on their own intuitions. Some writing is unclear as to which of these sources are used. Intuitive data seem to have been an important source for researchers such as Lakoff and Johnson, Kövecses, Grady and Ritchie, especially in the early years of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, but several of these writers also refer to data elicited from informants. Lakoff and Johnson tend not to give sources for their examples of linguistic metaphors, but it appears that they are often taken from expressions supplied by or elicited from their native English speaker students, supplemented by metaphorical expressions found in media texts. Eliciting data seems to be gradually replacing the practice of relying on intuitive or unsourced data. For instance, Kövecses has moved from using largely unattested sources of data in his work on happiness (1991) to widely sampled informant-elicited data for his work on friendship (1995, 2000). In the friendship studies, he used two complementary data-gathering techniques; firstly, 17 adults were interviewed about the topic, and sentences containing metaphors were extracted from the transcripts to form a database (1995). In his second study, university students were asked to write any number of sentences containing the words friendship or friend (Kövecses 2000). From these two data-gathering exercises, over 500 sentences were collected. Both intuitive and elicited data can be criticized because they seem likely to produce innovative rather than conventional metaphors. They also seem to yield metaphors taking the form A = B, which are now believed to be rare in naturally-occurring data (Cameron 1999). For example, one of Kövecses’ informants produced “friendship is like china, costly and rare”, an A = B simile which is highly innovative (2000: 107). Similar patterns are seen in data used by McGlone (1996), who, as reported above, asked his participants to gen-
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
erate paraphrases of metaphorical statements. All his prompt sentences were invented rather than naturally-occurring, and many are strikingly unconventional. For instance, to exemplify the conceptual metaphor ideas are food, the citation “Dr. Moreland’s lecture was a 3-course meal for the mind” and “Tom’s novel is the caviar of the book world” were used. The first citation elicited paraphrases including “The lecture was an intellectual rose garden,” “Dr. Moreland’s lecture was a full tank of gas for the mind,” and “Dr. Moreland’s lecture was a typhoon of facts and theories”. One explanation for this variety of responses might be that participants were struck by the novelty of the stimulus statement and tried to produce equally lively metaphors. Further, as McGlone points out, the stimulus statements were devoid of context, either linguistic or extra-linguistic. These data can perhaps be justified on the grounds that the conventionality or otherwise of the metaphors is immaterial – both demonstrate mental links, and the researchers’ aims are to gather information about thought, rather than about language. However, much literature in the conceptual metaphor tradition places emphasis on the ubiquity of metaphor in everyday, conventional language. Further, we cannot rule out the possibility that everyday language may reveal other patterns of meaning that could be informative to the development of metaphor theory.
Testing Research into the processing of metaphors largely depends on informant testing, and within this broad method, a number of related techniques are used. Some common tendencies emerge: researchers are concerned with high levels of detail; for instance participants’ responses are often measured in milliseconds, and tiny movements of the eye are monitored and measured. Researchers also do a great deal of work at the sentence and short paragraph level. They manipulate short texts in order to contrast participants’ responses to figurative and literal ways of expressing the same meaning, to words that have both literal and figurative meanings, and to realizations of the same and different conceptual metaphors. In Gibbs et al.’s (1997) experiments, participants read a short story and then decided whether a word presented to them immediately afterwards was a real English word or not. This technique is known as a lexical decision test, and is widely used; the underlying principle is that if a word has been activated in some way by the preceding text, people will recognize it more quickly than if it has not. The test can therefore suggest whether there are mental
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
links between words. In one of Gibbs et al.’s tests, one group of participants read stories finishing with linguistic metaphors such as “look on the bright side”. Other groups read stories identical except for the final sentence, which was either a control phrase or a literal paraphrase of the metaphor. All participants were then tested on how quickly they recognized words that realize the same conceptual metaphors as the final sentence that the target group had seen. In the case of “look on the bright side”, the word tested was light, which, like the final metaphorical sentence, realizes the conceptual metaphor optimism is light. The target groups’ recognition speeds for this word were compared to the recognition speeds of the other participants, who had not seen the final metaphorical sentence but had been given a paraphrase or the control sentence. Findings from this and other experiments suggested to the researchers that people’s knowledge of conceptual metaphors “can under some circumstances be quickly accessed during idiom comprehension” (ibid.: 149). Reactions to data were online and measured in milliseconds, not allowing time for reflection; this unreflective response may provide more valid data as to the nature of real-time processing than the approach of eliciting data without time constraints, as in McGlone’s paraphrase experiments, described above. Keysar et al.’s work (2000) investigated a similar issue to Gibbs et al.’s research. Here, participants read sentences that contained variously explicit and implicit, and conventional and novel metaphors, and their comprehension time was recorded. Testing reading times is another widely used technique for comparing people’s processing of different kinds of language, such as literal language, proverbs, irony, metaphors and so on. Keysar et al.’s examples include the following realizations of love is a patient, which contains implicit, conventional metaphors, and a novel metaphor in the final sentence (italics were not used in the version shown to participants): “Love is a challenge,” said Lisa. “I feel that this relationship is on its last legs. How can we have a strong marriage if you keep admiring other women?” “It’s your jealousy,” said Tom, “You’re infected with this disease.” (p. 582)
In this experiment, participants were no quicker to understand the final, metaphorical sentence when the same conceptual metaphor was used in the preceding text than when non-metaphorical expressions were used. This suggested that the presence of the metaphorical expressions in a text does not prompt the reader to activate the underlying conceptual metaphor. However, the researchers found evidence that people may use conceptual mappings when confronted with novel metaphors.
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
Other types of test include word fragment experiments. In one of Giora and Fein’s experiments, participants were asked to read a series of short texts, the final sentence of each text having two possible interpretations, literal or figurative (1999). The appropriate interpretation depended on the rest of the text. For instance, a text about guests sleeping late the day after a party and one about a delayed international response to a humanitarian crisis both finished with the sentence “Only now did they wake up” (p. 1605). Each participant read one of the two texts, so for half the group the final sentence would be interpreted literally, and for the other half it would be interpreted figuratively. On the next page of their booklet they were given fragments of two words, such as “t-b-e”, and asked to complete them to make words as quickly as possible. The two fragments could make up one word related to the literal interpretation of the sentence and one related to the figurative interpretation. The researchers claimed that the participants’ choices would show which senses of the target word had been activated by the preceding text. The data from these experiments suggested that the literal sense is involved in processing metaphorical senses. Studying eye movements is another technique used in metaphor processing research, based on the premise that the position of the eye is an indicator of what a person is concentrating on, and that eye movement disruption is a very good indicator of processing difficulty (Frisson & Pickering 2001). Frisson and Pickering studied people’s reactions to ambiguous words, including disarmed, the literal sense of which, meaning “remove weapons”, was considered “dominant”. The metaphorical use, which can be paraphrased as “eliminate or pre-empt hostility or criticism”, was considered “subordinate”. The researchers observed participants’ eye movements when they were reading two sentences using each sense, the first pair of sentences providing disambiguating context before disarmed, and the second pair having a neutral context before the verb, so that more confusion as to its meaning might be expected. Their results suggested that informants had greater difficulty overall with the “subordinate” sense, and that difficulties in general did not emerge until later processing. Like many other researchers who have examined metaphor processing, they do not use naturally-occurring examples of language in their experiments. These are just a few of the wide range of ways in which researchers have tried to analyze people’s responses to metaphorical language. In each case they have tried to set up conditions in which a difference in behaviour might be expected, often manifested in speed of response, and have then attempted to measure this very accurately, generally using technology capable of obtaining results measured in milliseconds. In the next section, I take a corpus
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
perspective to discuss some of the assumptions that underlie this kind of metaphor research.
Corpus perspectives on cognitive and psycholinguistic research methodology This section begins by tackling the notions of ambiguity and frequency, which are essential to some of the work described above. Both notions have been drawn on in the design of experiments and in the development of theory, but they tend not to be explored in their own right. Here, corpus data is used to argue that they are in fact both problematic issues. In the second half of the section, two further issues, context and authenticity are discussed. These are not taken into account in most cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches, and I claim that they may also contribute importantly to the ways in which people store and process metaphors.
Ambiguity Within the field of metaphor processing, a number of experiments have been designed using the assumption that a word having both a literal and a metaphorical sense is potentially ambiguous. Tests concentrate on finding out how the reader or hearer resolves the ambiguity to arrive at the intended meaning of the word. In order to eliminate other factors that might influence interpretation, it is common to invent sentences in which the word could be interpreted in either sense. Differing amounts of disambiguating context are sometimes then added, to test its effect. For example, Frisson and Pickering (2001) used the following four sentences in their experiments using eye movement data, described above (no italics in original): 1. (Supporting preceding context, dominant sense) “After the capture of the village, we disarmed almost every rebel and sent them to prison”. 2. (Supportive preceding context, subordinate sense) “With his wit and humor, the speaker disarmed almost every critic who was opposed to spending more money on art.” 3. (Neutral preceding context, dominant sense) “Mr. Graham is quite certain that they disarmed almost every rebel and sent them to prison for a very long time.”
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
4. (Neutral preceding context, subordinate sense) “Mr. Graham is quite certain that they disarmed almost every critic who was opposed to spending more money on art”.
Sentences 1 and 2 are intended to give sufficient context before the ambiguous word, disarmed, while sentences 3 and 4 are written so that the reader has no clues prior to the word as to whether the literal or metaphorical sense is intended. Corpus citations of disarmed were examined in order to see how similar Frisson and Pickering’s sentences are to naturally-occurring uses. There are 76 citations of disarmed in the 56 million words of the sample of the Bank of English used, of which 55 are literal, which is consistent with Frisson and Pickering’s claim that this sense is the most frequent. 18 are metaphorical, and 3 suggest a slightly different sense (in which items such as a panic button are disarmed, by the cutting of wires or altering of a computer program). In comparing language data such as these sentences with a corpus, it is important to use a corpus that is approximately representative of the text variety intended. Frisson and Pickering do not give a source for their sentences, but they would seem typical of journalistic or semi-formal speaking or writing. The Bank of English contains a large proportion of such texts (see Chapter 6 for a description of its composition) so the comparison seems fair. Analysis of the corpus citations suggests that ambiguity between the literal and metaphorical senses is very rare in context. In almost every case, the reader is able to see immediately which sense is intended from the part of the sentence leading up to the supposedly ambiguous disarmed, before the second part of the sentence is read. Concordance extract 5.1 shows 12 citations of disarmed. A typical citation for the literal sense is number 5: (5) The enemy crews were disarmed and handcuffed.
in which the intended sense is probably cued by the words enemy and crews; before the reader gets to disarmed. Similarly, in the tenth citation: (10) Her smile and pretty face disarmed the expectations of everyone.
it seems likely that the metaphorical interpretation is triggered by the time the word disarmed is reached. In just one of the 76 citations, the part of the sentence preceding disarmed is not sufficient to disambiguate, in the eighth of the above citations: (8) But Joe disarmed him.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
50, then was overpowered and before the fatal row, Connor had Samuel Jnr with the axe but was olved peacefully when the troops g appeared. The enemy crews were taken part in the fight had been is phenomenon, ‘Women, too, were nman pointed his pistol. But Joe ces and terrorist groups must be Her smile and pretty features ave been secured and the bandits by admiration; critics he
disarmed.
The man, a wellknown form disarmed a Romanian knifeman who stabbed disarmed and the axe fell to the floor. disarmed and were allowed into the pala disarmed and handcuffed. Their leader, disarmed by the police and placed under disarmed by Reagan’s charm and, like me disarmed him. Mr O’Toole, a former Sinn disarmed. The Lebanese army recently disarmed the expectations of everyone disarmed, what then? Those rules haven’t disarmed with kindness; his modesty was
Concordance 5.1 Extract of concordance for disarmed
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
However, when a slightly longer stretch of previous co-text is examined, it becomes apparent that the literal meaning is intended: (8’) Outside, as garda Joe Everett approached, the gunman pointed his pistol. But Joe disarmed him.
These citations suggest that in the very few cases where the words before disarmed do not disambiguate within the sentence, earlier sentences will. This is significant because in natural discourse it is rare to encounter a sentence in isolation in the way that participants in Frisson and Pickering’s experiment do. This corpus comparison has shown that while their first two sentences are in line with the corpus findings, their sentences 3 and 4, in which the preceding context is neutral, would be atypical. The corpus citations discussed here cast doubt on the assumptions behind experiments based on the ambiguity of words, especially within single sentences. If words are rarely ambiguous in their natural contexts, experiments may be forcing participants to tackle problems that are not faced in normal discourse. The strategies that they adopt may be of interest in themselves but they are not necessarily a clue to language processing in natural conditions.
Frequency Within both elicitation-based and experimental work discussed in this chapter, there is occasional reference to the frequency of metaphorical and literal senses of words. Empirical data is not usually given in support of statements about frequency, and it may have been assumed that people can readily identify the most frequent senses of words using their own personal experience of language. Corpus linguists and lexicographers would disagree, and most would confirm that they have on occasion been surprised at the relative frequency of a particular sense of a word. For instance, in advance of examining corpus citations, I expected that the concordance of the word shoulder, including all its inflections, would show a large number of metaphorical citations, because I had encountered a number of expressions such as shoulder a burden. In fact less than 15% of my corpus sample of 1000 citations were metaphorical, and of these many occur in fixed expressions such as cold shoulder and hard shoulder (Deignan 1999a). Facts such as these about individual words can be explained with hindsight, but it is not easy to predict frequencies in advance of examining the data. (The nature of the corpus examined will obviously affect the relative frequencies of different meanings of words; the Bank of English contains very
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
few specialized texts, so frequencies would therefore be expected to roughly mirror those found in general written and spoken British English.) Sinclair argues that “the commonest meanings of the commonest words are not the meanings supplied by introspection” (1991: 112), and gives the example of back. Counter to most people’s intuitions, the “body-part” sense of back is much less frequent than the adverb sense used in expressions like come back. For this example, as for many words, the sense that might be thought of as most salient is not the most frequent one. Despite the example of shoulder, the belief that “the figurative sense of a word is generally less frequent than the literal sense” (Frisson & Pickering 2001: 158) is not supported by evidence from naturally-occurring language. Many corpus lexicographers have in fact found that some figurative senses are more frequent than literal senses (Lewis 1993). For example, fewer than 10% of corpus citations for the verb soar (including its inflections) are literal. The following citation is typical of the metaphorical use: (2) . . . first-time buyers, driven out of Dublin by soaring house prices.
As yet, corpus research has shown no overall discernible pattern in the relative frequency of literal and metaphorical senses. Researchers are clearly right in arguing that frequency should be taken into account in a model of metaphorical language, but the evidence from corpora shows that it needs to be ascertained by the examination of data, not by introspection.
Context Some of the research described in this chapter has used single sentences as illustrations of metaphor, or as prompts. Some experiments have attempted to provide participants with a context for metaphors, in the form of a longer stretch of text. However, the texts used are not naturally occurring and the context is therefore a situation that has been invented by the researcher, in order to illustrate particular figurative or literal language. This raises several problems, now described. A central objection to invented texts is that the supporting context is usually scant. The richness of context in naturally-occurring data is exemplified in the following utterance. This was taken from a transcribed conversation between two British nurses talking informally during their break (Deignan 1991). (3) eventually she’ll get a lot more cos she’s leaving her job now and the job she’s at’s a pretty not a very good company and they’re low paid and that
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
know what I mean but when she comes back in two weeks she’ll go on day release and do a course where for legal executive she’ll really jump up the ladder quick but I mean considering she’s been doing her job since she was 20 she’s not really getting any more than I am
The speaker uses the metaphorical idiom jump up the ladder quick to talk about career progression. The utterance follows a series of four exchanges on the topic of career development and the advantages and disadvantages of taking further training courses, a topic drift from an earlier discussion of a colleague’s work prospects and training. In other words, the subject matter and speakers’ attitudes towards it have been developed over a number of minutes. In interpreting jump up the ladder quick, the hearer has a vast amount of information about the topic, the other speakers and their attitudes. This wealth of context in naturally-occurring data can be compared with the following text, used in experiments conducted by Keysar et al. (2000). As a scientist, Tina thinks of her theories as her contribution. She is a dedicated researcher, conceiving an enormous number of new findings each year. Tina is currently weaning her latest child.
The final sentence is the target sentence, containing the metaphor weaning her latest child. Here, context is supplied in the form of the two preceding sentences, but in comparison to the naturally-occurring language cited above, it is impoverished. The reader knows nothing about Tina other than what is said in the previous two sentences, and nothing about the writer’s attitude to her. In the experiment, participants’ reaction times to this final sentence were measured, on the assumption that it is difficult to decide whether weaning her first child is intended metaphorically, as a novel extension of conceived, or literally; the text may be part of an ongoing discussion about combining motherhood with a scientific career. The difficulty was contrived for the sake of the experiment, and would be much less likely to arise in an authentic discourse context, where a great deal more co-text and shared information would be available to the hearer. A second criticism of invented texts is that indications of the people involved, their relationship and the channel of communication are often absent, as is the case for Keysar et al.’s text. According to register theory, people’s language choices when creating natural text are determined by three factors: field, tenor and mode (Halliday 1978). Field describes the subject matter, or informational content, of the text, tenor describes the interpersonal relationship between the creator of the text and its intended audience, while mode refers
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
to the medium of communication, broadly divided into speech and writing. In the nurses’ conversation quoted above, as in almost all natural texts, it is not difficult to trace all three factors through the language choices made by the speaker. The field, vocational training is clearly evident from lexical choices such as job, day release, and course; the tenor is informal and familiar, as is evident from expressions such as know what I mean, and it is clear that the mode is speech from the syntax, for example there is a good deal of co-ordination and little subordination, with few or no discernible sentence boundaries, and from the use of contractions and non-standard forms such as cos. As well as being part of our general information about a text, it seems likely that tenor and mode may affect a speaker’s choice between different ways, metaphorical and literal, of expressing ideas. For instance, discourse-based studies have suggested that metaphors occur much more frequently where there is interpersonal tension of some sort, such as a negative evaluation (Cameron 2003). In contrast to natural texts, many of the texts used for experimental purposes are oddly shorn of any clues as to tenor or mode, or contain conflicting clues; for instance a text that is presented as spoken may contain lexis more usually associated with writing, or vice versa. It seems that invented texts may differ from naturally-occurring texts in that they provide a good deal less context, and in designing them, researchers seem to concentrate on informational content, neglecting interpersonal and modal issues. Texts like these are used in lexical decision, reading time and other tests, but participants’ reactions may be atypical of their everyday language behaviour because they have much less information available than in natural language settings.
Authenticity The final point in this section again concerns problems with invented language data, this time at a detailed linguistic level. Eliciting language data from informants, in the way that researchers such as Lakoff and McGlone have done, will obviously give useful information about the connections that people make when prompted. However, it will be argued here that as a source of naturalistic language data, the procedure is less sound. It is well attested in the corpus linguistics literature that eliciting language from informants does not produce results that match those found in naturally-occurring language data: for some reason, people are not good at introspecting about their language use (for example, Sinclair 1991). It has already been noted that the most frequent senses of a word can often not be determined by introspection.
Chapter 5. Cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor research
People are also poor at introspecting about the typical meanings and patterns, both grammatical and lexical, in which words appear. For instance, when some of Kövecses’ early examples are compared with corpus data, disparities are found. He cites “Amusement gleamed in his eyes” as a realisation of the conceptual metaphor happiness is light (1991). Of the 396 citations of gleam and its inflections in the 56 million word sample corpus, 62 collocate with eye or eyes. There is a difference between the noun and verb use of gleam. There are 37 citations where the verb is used, as in Kövecses’ example, a range of emotional conditions are connoted. However, negative emotions are much more common than positive in these citations. The only instance of verbal gleam collocating with eye/eyes and connoting an emotion like happiness is: (4) Her tiny eyes spotted him and gleamed with malicious glee.
There are no instances of the structure “[emotion] gleam* in someone’s eyes”, which Kövecses’ example takes, although the phrase “a gleam in someone’s eye”, connoting anticipation or greed, occurs 10 times. More typical citations include: (5) . . . his crazily gleaming eyes. (6) . . . a snarling bat creature with brightly gleaming eyes.
These data suggest that Kövecses’ example is certainly possible, but that the amusement referred to in his example would typically be cynical or unpleasant in some way, rather than associated with happiness. Like many details of collocation, structure and connotation, this pattern is unsurprising once revealed by the data, but probably inaccessible to unaided intuition. Kövecses uses this example of gleam simply to argue for the existence of a conceptual metaphor. When invented texts that contain atypical language structures are used to test participants’ reactions to metaphorical or literal language, a further problem arises. Wray’s discussion of research into formulaic language suggests that people store vast amounts of information about words, including the lexical and grammatical patterns in which they typically appear (2002). It is now widely believed that language processing alternates between word-by-word decoding, and “chunking” (Sinclair 1991; Erman & Warren 2000). “Chunking” language means recognizing a group of two or more words that regularly co-occur and processing them as one item, rather than breaking them down into units of meaning following word boundaries. Sinclair suggests that this is the only way we can account for the speed with which we process language; if we comprehended and produced text word by word, we would be
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
far slower than we actually are (1991). One implication of this is that readers are faster when the text includes collocations that are conventional, and therefore expected. They are slower when forced to decode word by word. This suggests that researchers need to take typical lexical and grammatical patterns into account when inventing texts to test processing speed. This is often not what happens when experiments are designed; more usually, the linguistic context is deliberately manipulated in order to contrast different senses of a word or different ways of expressing similar meanings.
Conclusion Research into the cognitive properties of metaphor, of which a small sample has been described in this chapter, has developed our understanding of metaphor hugely. It has helped to reveal some of the important metaphorical links that connect semantic groups of expressions, and it has suggested a hierarchy of these links. It has brought a useful angle to the debate about the nature of metaphorical meaning, the question of the primacy of literal senses, and the difference between conventional and novel metaphors. However, it has been argued that research in this tradition needs to be supplemented by the use and analysis of naturally-occurring data.
Chapter 6
Discourse approaches to metaphor research
Introduction This chapter is about discourse approaches to metaphor research. It presents some key findings from the field, showing how they complement work in the cognitive tradition such as that described in Chapter 5. The central methodologies are described and critiqued from a corpus perspective. Some of this research is framed within the traditions of Critical Discourse Analysis, and some uses techniques of spoken and written discourse analysis. Considered within the field of metaphor studies, there are two important differences between discourse approaches and the cognitive approaches discussed in the previous chapter. The first of these concerns aims. By and large, the studies described in Chapter 5 set themselves the goal of developing and testing theoretical models of thought and language. The studies discussed here, on the other hand, tend to use Conceptual Metaphor Theory as a framework, a starting point, for their analysis: they do not generally attempt to test the theory, or other theoretical models, in themselves. Instead, their main interest is in how speakers use language to create meaning, metaphor being one tool in this task. A second difference between cognitive and discourse approaches is that almost all of the texts used in the discourse approach described in this chapter are naturally-occurring. Where this is not the case, the data have been elicited from participants through lengthy, structured interviews. These attempt to recreate natural discourse, the interviewers trying to focus participants on content and not on linguistic form. In discourse approaches then, participants are not asked to make metalinguistic judgements, to explain their language choices, or to invent sentences for a situation specified by the researcher. This is of importance because, as has been argued, people are generally poor at describing their own language use analytically.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Questions Discourse-based research can be divided into two types. The first analyses speech or writing of a particular text-type, generally with the agenda of showing how metaphors are used to present a particular message or ideology, an aim broadly within the tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis. The second, smaller group has the goal of looking at how speakers use metaphor to develop shared understandings as a spoken discourse unfolds. What the two groups share is the close analysis of text as a product. Each study concentrates on a narrow range of texts; for example, a particular genre of fiction, the speeches of a particular politician, or newspaper articles from a particular period of time. Key research questions for the first group include the following: – – –
What are the significant metaphors used by this writer or group of texts? What are the entailments of these metaphors? What ideology does this reflect?
The main questions for the second group are: – – –
What role do metaphors play in the construction of ideas? How are metaphors interpreted? What role do metaphors play in the interaction?
Methodology In the first group of studies, those focussing on the ideological use of metaphor, most research studies tend to follow a very similar procedure. Texts are searched, almost always by hand, for linguistic metaphors. The breadth of the searches varies; in some cases, researchers seem to have been looking for particular themes, while in others, such as Santa Ana’s (1999), and Semino and Maschi’s (1996) (both described below), the researchers examined every linguistic expression that falls within their definition of “metaphor”. Some researchers, such as Van Teeffelen (1994) (described below), also consider metonymy, and images more generally. The linguistic expressions retrieved are grouped semantically, and conceptual metaphors are proposed to account for them. The researchers then consider the entailments created by these conceptual metaphors, and what ideologies these reflect. Sometimes, the frequency of the various linguistic metaphors is calculated and frequencies are then given as evidence of the significance of a particular conceptual metaphor.
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
In the second group of studies, a similar methodology is used, but the focus tends more towards the qualitative than the quantitative. The role of metaphor in the developing discourse is considered, each citation examined forming part of a longer discourse whose context is available to the researcher. The researchers in this group often draw their data from a field in which they have a personal or professional interest, and collect and transcribe them personally. They track metaphor use through the duration of the discourse and attempt to comment on how speakers develop their own and each others’ metaphors, thus being able to make informed judgments about speakers’ intentions. They often attempt to gauge how the hearers have interpreted a particular metaphor, and from this they comment on the success or otherwise of metaphors. Through this detailed analysis of metaphor as a product, these researchers are able to give insights into the process of metaphor creation and comprehension, that complement studies directly focusing on process, such as those discussed in the previous chapter. Examples of each of the two groups are now discussed.
The ideological use of metaphor A recurrent theme of Conceptual Metaphor Theory is that metaphors do not directly reflect reality but filter it, so that the metaphorical choices made by a speaker or writer inevitably present a biased viewpoint. This view was put forward by Reddy in his seminal discussion of communication metaphors (described in Chapter 1, 1979/1993), and is central to much of Lakoff ’s work. It strikes a chord with the Critical Discourse Analysis movement, which aims to make explicit the ideological bias of texts, and to trace the relations between discourse and power, through the tools of discourse analysis. Fairclough, one of the leading writers within the Critical Discourse Analysis movement, has touched on metaphor, claiming for instance, that a “disease” metaphor is frequently used to talk about social unrest. This, he argues, presents the societal status quo as the normal, “healthy” situation, and presents other interests as attacks on that health, thus suggesting a negative view of attempts to change the status quo (1989). Of studies that focus on metaphor in texts, Patthey-Chavez et al. (1996) and Santa Ana (1999) specifically relate their work to the Critical Discourse Analysis movement. Others, such as the group of studies of the Persian Gulf War discourse, align themselves with the movement implicitly. Topics that are tackled within this branch of metaphor text studies include gender and race, and political and governmental issues.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Metaphor, gender, race and politics The part that metaphor can play in expressing gender roles is investigated in Patthey-Chavez et al.’s work. The researchers are concerned with “the social, economic and political relations” that they find evidenced in their corpus of 16 erotic romances written for women, and “the unequal relations of power they index and thus help reconstitute” (p. 82). Among other elements, they identified and counted the linguistic metaphors in their corpus, and suggest that these realise conceptual metaphors such as sexual desire is a physical force. Comparing the metaphors used about men and about women, they found that metaphors in their texts tended to construct women as passive and men as active: for example, women tended to melt or dissolve in response to men, while men on the other hand possess and consume women. Metaphors of war and conquest to describe sex were found to be particularly widespread across the texts. The metaphorical representations of female desire are in contrast to female roles in the other spheres of life represented in the novels: the women protagonists are generally strong and successful in their careers and social lives, and are physically active. Patthey-Chavez et al. discuss these findings in relation to roles and expectations of men and women more generally, in the Critical Discourse Analysis tradition of tracing patterns through the individual to the societal level. The representation of different races in discourse is another topic that has been investigated through metaphors. Van Teeffelen studied linguistic metaphors in popular novels, looking at bestselling fiction set in the ArabIsraeli conflict (1994). He argues that Arabs are talked about in terms of animal, heat and sea metaphors, in passages such as: “It was a maddened swarm that fell on the wretched quarters of oriental Jews. . .” and “This always smoldering rabble had been ignited into a wildfire that swept over Palestine” (p. 393). Van Teeffelen claims that these metaphors construct the Arab character in negative ways, and present Arabs as unpredictable groups or as a force of nature, rather than as individuals. Israeli characters, in contrast, are presented as rational and individual, and are rarely talked about collectively, as a mass. The findings are of particular significance because the books that Van Teeffelen analysed are widely read in the West. For many of their readers they are the main source of information about the Middle East conflict, and, in their pseudo-historical tone, are probably regarded by many as authoritative sources. Metaphors used to talk about race in connection with immigration to the US were considered by Santa Ana, who analyzed articles from the Los Angeles Times (1999). He catalogued all articles and reports on immigration from
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
August 1993 to November 1994, 107 in total. These were significant dates in the proposal of and voting on anti-immigrant legislation, which, had it not been determined unconstitutional by state courts at a later point, would have denied benefits such as education and non-emergency health care to some immigrants. From his 107 articles, Santa Ana collected over 1900 instances of metaphor, some 10 percent of which focused on the immigrant. These, he found, could be divided quite easily into those presenting a positive and those presenting a negative attitude towards immigrants, the negative being easily the majority. The predominant metaphor for immigrants is animals, in passages such as: “The truth is, employers hungering for really cheap labor hunt out the foreign worker”. Other metaphors that he found talk about immigrants as undesirable people such as criminals, as plants such as weeds, and as commodities. The metaphor of the nation as a house is also invoked, and Santa Ana argues that immigrants are presented as a threat to the house, presenting dangers of flooding or invasion. In some cases, metaphors are found to be ideologically powerful through the choice of a vehicle that evokes feelings of solidarity and shared traditions. Semino and Maschi found that the Italian politician, Silvio Berlusconi, appears to choose metaphors that have a particular resonance for the Italian public (1996). For example, he often talks of politics in terms of football, exploiting the national love of the game. The metaphor is particularly apt because Berlusconi was also president of the important football club A.C. Milan. Semino and Maschi suggest that this role and his role as party leader and Prime Minister were deliberately blurred, the role of Prime Minister becoming potentially perceived as that of leading the national “team”. Other metaphors that Berlusconi uses draw on the words and images of Catholicism. By referring to the national religion and sport though these metaphors, he implicitly represents himself as “one of the people”, someone who shares the voters’ values and interests. The football metaphor is also cleverly chosen in its entailments, as it implies that patriotic people automatically owe allegiance to the “team”. Another entailment is that winning elections is the only goal of a political party, downplaying any work for the public good that might be achieved while in office. Semino and Maschi’s discussion shows how skilled metaphor users such as Berlusconi can draw on conventional metaphors and can extend these in creative ways. Their analysis suggests that simply identifying a linguistic metaphor as conventional does not always tell us that the message is not novel or effectively conveyed. On the contrary, cleverly used clichés can be a very effective means of expressing a proposition, because they are unmarked, and often perceived by hearers as self-evident, established versions of the way things are.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
On occasion, groups with different interests share a metaphor at a general level, but exploit it differently at the level of detail. Wee analysed texts dealing with the unification of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak, the subsequent separation of Singapore from the Malaysian federation, and later suggestions of a reunification (2001). He looked at texts written in both Singapore and Malaysia, and found that the metaphor of marriage and divorce is used in both states to refer to the relationship between them. In Malaysia, many writers also map the roles of husband and wife onto the two states, Malaysia, with its much greater relative size, being the metaphorical husband. However, Singaporeans map this relationship much less frequently, because the relationship of dominance-subservience that is implied by a husband-wife metaphor, according to Wee, is not in line with their political interests.
Metaphors and the Gulf War Two weeks after the start of the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf, Lakoff presented a paper on the metaphors used to justify it to the American people (1991). He began, “Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether to go to war in the gulf was a panorama of metaphor”. Using similar techniques to those described above, there have been a number of studies of the metaphors used to talk about the 1991 Gulf War and the period leading up to it. These include work by Lakoff (1991), Voss et al. (1992), Pancake (1993), Rohrer (1995) and Sandikcioglu (2000). Texts analysed include transcripts of the US Senate debate (Voss et al.), the speeches of President George Bush Senior (Rohrer) and news coverage (Pancake, Sandikcioglu). A range of evidence is given to suggest that metaphors were used persuasively to present a biased, politically expedient perspective. As was reported above, for metaphors used to talk about gender, race and politics, the metaphors used to talk about the war are generally found to have entailments that suggest a particular ideological stance. Pancake found that five conceptual metaphors: war is a storm, machines are animate, war is a game, war is entertainment and the war zone is the wild west, were widely used in local American newspapers published just before and during the war (1993). The first of these, war is a storm, was lexicalized in the United States code name for the war, Desert Storm. Pancake argues that it suggests that war is an unstoppable natural force, which “veils the possibility of a ceasefire for negotiation” (p. 284). Machines are animate is evidenced in numerous expressions attributing human actions and qualities to machinery: planes deliver warheads, missiles home in on their targets, and damaged ships
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
limp home. This metaphor removes human agency from the descriptions of attacks, to present a picture of war that may be more acceptable than one in which people inflict physical wounds on other people. Pancake argues that these five metaphors helped to convince the American people of the acceptability of military intervention: public support for the use of force grew from 41% to 86% over the months she studied (pp. 281–282). Sandikcioglu set out to extend Pancake’s work on the discourse around the build up to the war, and became convinced that it was situated within a wider, racist discourse (2000). He studied metaphors from Time and Newsweek magazines from this period, and argues that “the West still lives by the images inherent in Orientalist metaphorical conceptualisations, polarizing the world into the Orient vs. the West, Us vs. Them” (p. 300). He lists 16 frames based on this conceptual framework which include Civilisation vs. Barbarism, Power vs. Weakness, Maturity vs. Immaturity, Rationality vs. Emotionality and Stability vs. Instability, and cites linguistic data from his corpus which realise these conceptual frames. Rohrer begins his study of George Bush Senior’s metaphors by arguing that different metaphors give different inferences about the right course of action to take: Was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait analogous to the theft of a house by armed assailants, or was Iraq an angry adolescent nation redressing injustices visited on it by Britain during its colonial infancy? (1995: 116)
In his analysis of Bush’s speeches, Rohrer finds a complex metaphorical structure supporting the pro-war position. Bush appealed to the American public’s sense of justice at an everyday level, in his use of the metaphor a nation is a person; that is, a person who lives in a neighbourhood with other nationpersons. These nation-persons, like human members of a neighbourhood, have a moral duty to protect the weak, and must together stand up to the neighbourhood bully, in the shape of Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The “bully” metaphor was used repeatedly, in utterances such as And the naked aggression where a big country bullies its neighbor and takes over is against everything we believe in this country. What we’re confronting is a classic bully who thinks he can get away with kicking sand in the face of the world. (quoted in Rohrer 1995: 120)
In a scenario in which somebody is bullying their less powerful neighbours, a responsible adult, especially one who is physically powerful, has a clear cut duty to intervene. Not to do so suggests a lack of moral responsibility, a lack of
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
concern for one’s neighbourhood, or cowardice. The bully metaphor mapped the role of victim onto Kuwait, that of bully onto Iraq, and that of upstanding powerful neighbour onto the US, creating the entailment that intervention was the only moral course of action. Rohrer claims that by repeatedly describing the international situation in such terms, Bush persuaded many of the public that the US was obliged to go to war: his metaphors won out against a competing set. Like Berlusconi’s metaphors, described in the previous section, this evocation of the hearer’s neighbourhood and local responsibilities resonates with the public’s everyday emotional ties. Voss et al. found evidence that different metaphors were used by people who held different views about whether or not to go to war. They analysed the text of Senate debates about Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and subsequent events. Republican senators, who favoured US military action more strongly than Democrats, used more metaphors to talk about Hussein, and the epithets that they chose suggested lack of humanity, and violence and unpredictability. Hussein was talked about as a machine, as a criminal (rapist, thief, villain) by both sides. Republicans additionally called him a robber, plunderer, murderer, cutthroat, blackmailer and thug. (Some of these terms are believed to have been literally true, but are described as metaphors by Voss et al.) In their talk of the possibility of war, the Democrats’ metaphors stressed its unpredictability and seriousness, with expressions such as “an unpredictable tiger ride”, “unleashing a mad Middle East genie from its bottle” and “a black abyss”. In contrast, Republican metaphors tended to talk of it in terms of business or chess, metaphors that suggest a bloodless activity with a relatively secure outcome for the superior side. Related topics, such as sanctions, and the Middle East generally, were also talked of using different metaphors. Voss et al. also found that where the two sides used the same metaphors, they exploited them differently. For instance, senators from both sides used a “High Noon” vehicle; the Republicans used it as a “good over evil” metaphor, while the Democrats used it to suggest that Bush had deliberately stoked up an atmosphere of crisis. A cornerstone of Conceptual Metaphor Theory is the belief that we use metaphor to structure our understanding of the world. The findings of these studies are consistent with that view, and they also add weight to Lakoff and Johnson’s argument that metaphors can give form to social and political ideas, and that they can be exploited to suggest that a particular interpretation of events is the natural, inevitable interpretation. As well as supporting the Conceptual Metaphor position, the studies fill in detail. Specifically, the arguments described in this section hold that:
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
– – – –
– –
public perceptions of social issues and international events are strongly shaped by the dominant metaphors; metaphors encode particular ideological positions through the relationships that they suggest between entities, and through their entailments; metaphors may be particularly persuasive if the source domain is one that has strong emotional resonance for people; metaphors may be shared by parties with different interests; the parties may prefer to lexicalize different aspects of the mapping, choosing those that suggest a favorable representation of their interests; metaphorical systems interact to create networks of entailments that reinforce each other; different metaphors for the same target domain are favored by parties with different views on it; on occasion these metaphors may compete for adoption by the wider public.
Metaphor, meaning and the developing discourse The second group of studies that I discuss here consists of analyses of small collections of texts, usually from a specialized genre such as education or health. What unites this group is their concern with spoken interaction and in particular with the use of metaphor for the expression of personal meaning. One of the most detailed and extensive examples of work in this group is Cameron’s work on metaphor in classroom discourse (2003), using spoken and written data gathered from a number of primary school lessons. She examined the ways in which teachers and pupils use metaphors, and how metaphors are shared, understood and developed as the discourse unfolds. Cameron’s work demonstrates the importance of metaphor in introducing pupils to new concepts, as is suggested by Conceptual Metaphor Theory (for example, Olson 1988), discussed in Chapter 1. However, she also shows that the use of metaphor can impede understanding as well as facilitate it. Cameron’s data consisted of tape-recordings of lessons, and her interpretations were supported by worksheets and other evidence of the pupils’ activities during the lessons, and by her own experience of working as a primary school teacher. This, with detailed examination of the transcripts, gives a deep understanding of the data. One of the arguments in favour of using naturallyoccurring texts that was made in the previous chapter was that their formation is shaped by rich discourse and social contexts, a process that is not recreated in invented texts. Cameron’s analyses incorporate these contexts and are therefore
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
able to provide insights into the process of using metaphor in natural discourse, as well as its linguistic products. Her analysis of worksheets for primary school children is further supported by children’s impressions of the texts, elicited through an adaptation of the Think Aloud research method. In Cameron’s version of the method, rather than simply voicing their impressions as they read, the children were asked to talk with each other and the researcher to evaluate the suitability of a text for a younger child, a task which involved their assessing difficult uses of language, thus eliciting their views on the metaphors in the text. One of the most interesting findings to emerge from this research is the different ways in which metaphors are interpreted by different language users. With their limited world knowledge, young pupils are not always good at identifying the grounds for a metaphor, and hence what the metaphor-user intended to tell them about the topic. For example, in one conversation in Cameron’s data, children try to make sense of the metaphor the heart is a pump, used in a science text. The metaphor made some children think of the pumps most familiar to them, bicycle pumps, which of course do not work like the pumps alluded to in the metaphor because they push air in one direction rather than circulating it. In their discussion, the children also made links between pumps and warmth, and between the circulation of the blood and staying upright, links which do exist but are not usually thought of as the direct cause-effect connections that the children suggested. Teachers are not usually aware of misunderstandings like these because such detailed explorations of a pedagogical metaphor are unusual. An important implication of the research is that even apparently straightforward metaphors may mean different things to different pupils. Also with regard to interpretation, Cameron finds that children may perceive novel metaphors in conventional language. For instance, one child told her, “Weather men use metaphors. When they say there will be a hot spell. . . like a witch’s spell” (p. 12). This suggests that what has often been regarded as a clear-cut distinction between conventional and novel metaphors, as discussed in Chapter 2, may in fact be fuzzy in actual discourse, with different speakers having different views about the conventionality or novelty of specific metaphors. Cameron’s research also suggests that metaphor may have an even more important, or at least more frequent, function in educational discourse than framing subject knowledge: in her data, teachers used metaphors in their organization of the class. Metaphors clustered in talk around setting work to be done, summarising and rounding off activities, and providing feedback. Metaphor use also seemed important in controlling pupils and giving nega-
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
tive feedback, probably because it is indirect and thus less face threatening than literal language. Cameron’s findings are of importance to teachers and researchers interested in the pedagogic use of metaphor, and have implications for metaphor theory more generally, in particular in the dynamic view she gives of metaphor, in which speakers’ understandings of meaning change on a micro-level during the discourse (p. 8). Her work is also of importance in its demonstration of what can be found with detailed attention to context and individuals. Cortazzi and Jin found that metaphor has a role in helping to organize teachers’ understandings of learning, and to verbalize their evaluations, an interpretation that is consistent with Conceptual Metaphor Theory (1999). They investigated metaphors used by teachers, studying elicited data from interviews. Interview data have the some of the advantages of naturally-occurring data in that participants focus on the meaning of what they are saying, not on the language, and so the metaphors used are presumably ones which might emerge in natural discourse. Cortazzi and Jin considered the location of metaphors in the discourse with relation to theories of narrative, and found that metaphors often clustered around discussions of breakthroughs in learning, seeming to have the function of helping teachers to describe something intangible such as the instant at which a pupil who had been having difficulties with a concept seemed to become able to handle it. This was described in terms of a click, light dawning, finding a key, or making a leap. The teacher’s emotional reaction to this also tends to be described metaphorically, using happiness metaphors such as being up in the air or over the moon. Gwyn found that people living with chronic illness use metaphor both conventionally and creatively to understand their experience, and to help them to think and talk about it as they had experienced it, sometimes rejecting conventional beliefs (1999). His research is framed within the belief that story-telling is a widely used strategy for finding meaning in human experience, and like Cortazzi and Jin’s work, is informed by narrative theory. Gwyn interviewed 28 people who either had a chronic illness or cared for a sick family member, asking them to describe their experience of illness. He does not restrict his analysis to language; he argues that patients’ physical experiences or actions may stand metonymically or metaphorically for their feelings towards their illness. For instance, one aspect of a disease, such as losing hair through cancer treatment, may come to stand metonymically for the entire condition. Linguistically, Gwyn finds examples of conventional metaphors such as the war metaphor in which the illness is a human enemy, and time is money, where patients buy time before death. He also found innovative metaphors
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
such as that used by a woman whose life had been affected by having been exposed to radiation following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, who talked of being the “captain of her own ship”. Gwyn argues that his informants often rebel against the traditional Western separation of mind and body, and that their metaphors help them to construct a more holistic view of their experience. What also emerges, as in Cortazzi and Jin’s study, is that the most intense human experiences are very difficult to put into literal words, and we draw on metaphor as a resource in trying to communicate them to others. Liebert finds that metaphors are used in problem solving talk about popular science, but that they are often jointly constructed during the ongoing talk, sometimes playfully (1997). He shows how metaphors are introduced to explain scientific ideas. They are then taken up, ignored or adapted by other speakers. Among other data, he analyses live radio interviews with scientists, and traces the use of metaphors by scientist and journalist. In one interview, about fungus damage to buildings, he shows how a scientist introduces the metaphor fungi are people who settle down, which is taken up by the journalist, and developed by both speakers, who add to it with metaphors such as the tools of the fungi are pickaxes and shovels. Key findings from the group of studies discussed in this section are: – – – – – –
metaphor is used as a pedagogical tool, in formal teaching contexts and elsewhere, to explain new and difficult concepts through analogy; speakers use metaphor to convey ideas and describe experience that they find emotionally charged; speakers use metaphors to re-construct their experience, sometimes in rejection of conventional perspectives; hearers sometimes interpret metaphors in different ways from those intended by the speaker; speakers sometimes use metaphor to negotiate difficult interpersonal issues such as directive talk, or negative feedback; metaphors are negotiated and developed by different speakers during an interaction.
This approach to analysing language in use yields a fluid, dynamic view of metaphor. These studies give insights into details of the processes through which we use metaphor to organize thinking, insights that would be difficult to reach through theory-driven and psycholinguistic approaches alone. For instance, it was seen that that using metaphor to make sense of the world can be a dynamic process, developing as the discourse unfolds. This view is not incompatible with Conceptual Metaphor Theory, but from this perspective, a very
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
traditional interpretation of the theory as a network of mappings that is shared by all users of a particular language seems over-static and rigid.
A corpus perspective on discourse studies The discourse analytic approaches to metaphor that have been discussed in this chapter have made a number of significant contributions to our understanding of metaphor, both confirming assertions made by conceptual metaphor theorists, and developing and supplementing them. A corpus perspective could enrich this further, and can serve to address some potential weaknesses in discourse analytic methodology. Few writers in the discourse analysis tradition compare the texts that they analyse with other types of texts or a general corpus. For instance, in the first group of studies most writers argued that metaphor is used insidiously in their specialised corpora, but the discussions do not include comparisons, which would show whether such uses of metaphor are widespread, or are a good deal more frequent in particular genres. Examples of this use of a corpus, and the ways in which it can deepen and enrich the analysis of smaller samples of text, are now given.
Connotations of metaphors Corpus analysis has been shown to be an effective tool in identifying connotations of words, including some that may not be detectable by unaided intuition (Channell 2001). Louw has shown how a general corpus search can be used to identify the typical evaluative force of a word; he then compares this to specific uses of a word in literature and shows how breaking typical patterns creates effects such as irony (1993). Techniques such as these would seem to be useful in checking intuitions about the connotations of words that, it is claimed, are used to convey particular ideological messages. Santa Ana looked at the evaluative use of each linguistic metaphor in his corpus in his study of metaphors used to write about immigration, discussed above. He concluded that the dominant conceptual metaphor, immigrants are animals, was negative. Examples from his data include: (1) Employers hungering for cheap labor hunt out the foreign worker.
in which, he argues, “Immigrants are seen as animals to be eaten, by American industry” (p. 467).
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
I examined corpus concordances of the verb form of hunt and its inflections to see what connotations the metaphorical use of hunt generally has. Following Santa Ana’s division of metaphors into positively and negatively evaluating, the corpus citations can be divided into six groups: firstly, literal uses, where the object is an animal or animals; secondly, ambiguous, where the object cannot be traced or is difficult to identify unambiguously as either literal or metaphorical, and, where hunt is used to metaphorically, four different polarities. These are good hunts bad, good hunts good, bad hunts bad, and bad hunts good. Good was identified as an entity which is positively valued, wanted, or is identified with the speaker and/or hearer, either directly or in the co-text, and bad as an entity which is negatively evaluated. These polarities highlight different aspects of the literal meaning of hunt: for instance, good hunts bad maps the pursuing and eradication of vermin, while good hunts good highlights the value of the hunted animal as a source of meat. The following citations exemplify these polarities: good hunts bad (2) A callous mugger who snatched a woman’s handbag as she lay unconscious at a bus stop is being hunted by police.
good hunts good (3) [The Soviet leader] had been forced to wait twenty minutes while the White House hunted down a translator.
bad hunts bad (4) Each faction’s murder gangs hunted the other’s assassins.
bad hunts good (5) Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.
The first group, good hunts bad, is by far the most frequent in the corpus, accounting for over 60% of the metaphorical citations. The second group accounted for around 33% of the metaphorical citations, with the third and fourth groups being relatively rare. Of the first group, the majority of citations, nearly 80%, describe authorities searching for criminals. The citation from Santa Ana’s data: (1) Employers hungering for cheap labor hunt out the foreign worker.
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
may at first glance appear to follow the first pattern, but in fact follows the second, good hunts good, in that foreign workers are sought because they are wanted or needed, and are not presented in this citation as a problem to be dealt with. The linguistic pattern of the citation supports the semantic analysis: where hunt is followed by out, as in this example, the pattern in the corpus tends to be good hunts good; there are 13 citations of hunt, or one of its verbal inflections, followed by out, 9 of which were analysed as good hunts good. The good entities that are hunted out are: bargains (4 citations), the best possible medical cover, the skimpiest, sexiest clothes, the best play clothes, chicken eggs, a flexible deal.
A typical citation is: (6) Hunt out the best possible medical cover for you and your family.
The corpus comparison does not support a negative view of immigrants for this citation, but it does support Santa Ana’s argument that the metaphor presents immigrants as entities to be used or consumed, and it shows that these entities are typically non-human. It also tells suggests that the object in such sentences is usually something rated as very desirable; in the corpus citations this was often something described using superlatives. Assuming that the readers of Santa Ana’s text bring their language experience to bear in interpreting the metaphors used to talk about immigrants, this use of hunt will suggest to them a view of the immigrant as a very desirable entity but one that has no control over how he or she is used by others. This detailed corpus analysis of a number of citations suggests that domains such as animals or hunting cannot be accurately described as positive or negative as a whole, as Santa Ana attempts to do. Rather, each domain can encompass a number of fairly detailed metaphorical mappings, which ascribe positive and negative values to their different elements: the object of hunt is evaluated positively or negatively depending on which of the related hunt scenarios is mapped. Ascribing positive or negative force to a particular word therefore involves identifying the mapping that applies in each particular context. This can be done by studying a number of instances of the word in use, but is very difficult without a reasonable amount of naturally occurring language data.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Dead metaphors Discourse analysts who single out metaphor for particular attention presumably do so because of the special ways in which it can create meaning on a number of levels, evoking, at some level, a non-metaphorical meaning, and probably a source domain structure. Without this quality, a linguistic metaphor is not importantly different from any other word or phrase. It was noted in Chapter 2 that a large proportion of the lexicon is metaphorical in origin, but that many originally metaphorical words and phrases are now “dead” or “historical”. It is unhelpful to include these in an exploration of the effects of metaphor as they will distract from the effects of living metaphors. “Dead metaphors” are generally understood as those that never evoke the source domain. This criterion is difficult to establish empirically, so a corpusbased test was preferred in Chapter 2: a “dead”, or “historical” metaphor is found where there is no evidence of their having a source domain counterpart, or “literal” meaning. Lakoff uses this criterion as part of his framework for distinguishing dead from living metaphor (1987), and it forms Goatly’s (1997) definition of “dead” metaphor, though neither writer uses corpus data to apply it. Some research in the discourse school cites metaphors that strike the reader as possibly dead. For instance, Santa Ana cites scapegoat as an instance of “immigrant-affirming” metaphor. He argues that it is mapped from the domain of the bible, and calculates that it accounts for 84% of the bible metaphors in his data. However, the corpus gives no evidence that scapegoat or its inflections are ever used in the literal, biblical sense. In the 218 corpus citations of scapegoat and its inflections and derivations, scapegoats, scapegoated, scapegoating, scapegoaters and scapegoatism, none refers to the literal sense, “goat that was sacrificed in symbolic representation of the sins of a community”. It could still be argued that referring to immigrants as scapegoats is sympathetic to them, but this is by way of the word’s reference generally, and not through the particular properties of metaphor. Santa Ana also discusses the “metaphorical” use of curb, which he defines as “a metal mouthpiece used to control animals” (p. 468). It is used in the following citation from his data: (7) Those who want to sharply curb illegal immigration include conservatives, liberals and most unions. (p. 468)
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
Corpus data suggest that this is a similarly dead metaphor; in 516 citations of curb and its inflections, there are no “literal” uses. Curb is used with a wide range of objects; in order of frequency these are: power, excesses, violence, inflation, pollution, spending, crime, province’s autonomy, influence, press freedom
Examination of the citations shows that the large majority of uses express a negative evaluation of the object of curb. This supports Santa Ana’s argument that the word is used with negative connotations, but not the argument that it is a metaphor from the domain of animals, at least not for current speakers. Corpus examination of the linguistic metaphors cited in discourse analytic studies also reveals cases where conceptual mappings may have ceased to exist. One such example is the use of inflamed in Van Teeffelen’s data (1994). It is argued that this is a heat metaphor, and is an instance of depersonalising groups of people, “as a result of which mass action is seen as acquiring its own volition” (p. 393). Van Teeffelen’s examples are: (8) If they become inflamed, I am but a mukhtar. I cannot stand against a tide. (9) . . . inflamed mobs broke out in wild rioting.
There are 27 citations of this metaphorical use of inflamed in the corpus, some of which also refer to Arab and Palestinian people, although many other races and social groups are also described in this way. A typical citation is: (10) . . . a story which inflamed residents of a council estate.
However, all the literal citations in the corpus refer not to heat, but irritated skin or other body parts, in citations such as (11) . . . an acutely inflamed small intestine.
The metaphorical use certainly originates from the mapping of heat onto emotion, but it is difficult to say whether for current speakers the mapping is still meaningful, given that the linguistic metaphor is evidently historical.
Ubiquity of metaphorical patterns Some of the metaphors that are discussed as instances of a particular genre and ideology are found to be very widespread across the corpus. Pancake discusses the linguistic realisations of the conceptual metaphor machines are animate (1993), and argues “All these metaphors breathe life and a will into equipment,
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
effacing – on the one end – the presence of the men and women operating the machines – and on the other end – the human beings they kill” (pp. 287–288). However, corpus data suggest that the use of this metaphor is not confined to texts supporting war; throughout the corpus, machines are talked about as living beings, in citations such as: (12) [The pump] delivers 300 ml/min. (13) The Stairmaster machine measures your fitness level by testing your ability to walk on the spot for five minutes.
It is still possible that machines are animate has the effect of making readers less aware of human agency in war, but the fact that it is widely used across a range of genres makes it less likely that it was consciously chosen for this purpose. It is possible that modern English generally tends to ascribe consciousness and volition to machines. Alternatively, it could be argued that the use of a verb such as deliver with an inanimate subject has no semantic significance but is the result of the human tendency to speak as economically as possible; “the pump delivers 300 ml/min” is quicker to say than “the pump can be used to deliver 300 ml/min”. In either case, the pattern is well established and it would be more remarkable if it were broken than that it is followed in Pancake’s data.
Over-generalization from linguistic data It was noted in the previous chapter that there is a problematic tendency in some research to propose conceptual metaphors on the basis of a very limited amount of linguistic evidence. This also occurs in some discourse studies. For instance, Voss et al. (1992) suggest, apparently on the basis of two citations: “He plucked January 15th out of thin air” and “None of us has a crystal ball”, that Bush was negatively described as a magician by his opponents in Senate. Corpus analysis suggests that the expressions pluck. . . air and crystal ball do not regularly lexicalize a magician mapping. There are 11 combinations of pluck/plucks/plucking/plucked with air, 10 of which are figurative. The most frequent object of figurative pluck is figure, in citations such as: (14) . . . a commitment to reduce spending by a figure plucked out of the air.
The single literal citation is: (15) He plucked a passing horsefly out of the air.
Chapter 6. Discourse approaches to metaphor research
There is no reference to magic in either the literal or figurative citations. There are also a number of citations of the combination of pull or pick with air, but again none refers to the domain of magic. It is possible that pluck, pull or pick in combination with air is a realisation of a mapping from the domain of magic, but there is no linguistic evidence for this in the corpus. There are 39 citations of crystal ball and 10 citations of crystal balls in the corpus, two of which refer literally to somebody looking into a crystal ball to see the future. In 11 citations, writers refer to their lack of a crystal ball, meaning that they are unable to predict the future, as in Voss et al.’s example. The following is typical: (16) In any forensic environment one tends to be one step behind the illegal user. And the reason for this is that we are not party to their thought processes and neither do we have a crystal ball.
There is no evidence of an association with magicians in the concordance lines, but the expression “fortune teller” is used twice. Overall, the corpus does not give any evidence that these expressions are part of a mapping from the domain of magic onto people’s behaviour. The corpus also shows that the expressions are used conventionally to discuss a range of types of people and behaviour, without especially strong or unusual connotations. This is another case in which corpus data could usefully be used as a back-drop against which to test claims based on intuition. This would enable the researcher to focus on mappings for which there is a convincing body of evidence, such as, in Voss et al.’s work, the high noon metaphor.
Conclusion In this chapter I have overviewed just a few of the most influential and interesting text-based studies of metaphor, and to show what their research methodologies can contribute to our understanding of metaphor. I have argued that because this group of work is focussed in detail on naturally-occurring texts, it generates insights unavailable to intuition-based study. However, because these studies work in detail on relatively small quantities of language data, it is not possible to gauge how general their linguistic findings may be. Only by looking at larger amounts of data, as is possible with a computerized corpus, can we try to detect more widespread patterns of language.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
The studies discussed here emphasize the language user rather than the language system. In the last section, I argued that this perspective can be complemented by an examination of the language system. In the final part of the book I will describe corpus research into metaphor from a number of linguistic angles, showing how these can add to the picture built up through studies grounded in the cognitive and discourse traditions.
P III
The examination of corpus data
Chapter 7
The grammar of metaphor
Introduction In Part II of this book, I argued that a corpus linguistic approach can contribute to our understanding of metaphor. This chapter is the first of the three chapters making up Part III, which tries to do that by describing corpus studies of linguistic metaphors and considering their implications for metaphor theory. In this chapter, I describe and discuss grammatical patterns of metaphors. I begin by summarising some work by other researchers, and then move on to corpus analyses. I argue that both at the macro-level of part of speech, and in more detailed syntactic patterns, there are frequent and possibly regular formal differences between metaphorical and literal uses of the same words, either at the major level of part of speech or at a more detailed level. I also show that many metaphorical uses seem to be restricted grammatically. Conceptual Metaphor Theory as it stands does not provide an explanation for either of these observations, and in the final section I suggest that they may have implications for our understanding of a key aspect of the theory, metaphorical mapping. I also suggest that the notion of “blending” may provide a framework within which these grammatical features are better understood.
Approaches to grammar and metaphor The earliest well-known work on the grammar of metaphor is Brooke-Rose’s analysis of the language of metaphors in literature (1958). Her work shares some goals of modern corpus work in that she analyses a large corpus, considers linguistic patterns and contexts, and gives frequency information. Like the corpus studies to be described here, she finds subtle semantic variations associated with different linguistic forms. Brooke-Rose worked within a very different understanding of metaphor from the Conceptual Metaphor perspective, being closer to the decorative approach described in the Introduction, and she concentrated on poetic rather than conventional metaphors. Nonetheless,
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
her work is of interest to contemporary researchers of linguistic metaphor, in its attention to detail, its wealth of examples and its subtlety. To take one example, she looks at noun metaphors when used with or without the definite article, and argues that when they are used without an article the metaphorical effect is blander. This is because nouns used without the article are “abstract, or generic, or both” in comparison to the more specific effect when used with the article (p. 42). Because of this, the reader does not have such strong expectations of a concrete referent when there is no article, and therefore an abstract or otherwise unconventional referent is less marked. One of her examples is taken from Spenser’s Faerie Queene: He oft finds med’cine, who his griefe imparts; But double griefs afflict concealing harts
where med’cine seems to refer to the relief found in talking about troubles, or the comfort gained from others through doing so. Her argument is that the metaphoricity of med’cine is relatively unmarked because, used without the article, a very general, even abstract meaning is already suggested. Had the poet instead used “a” or “the” medicine to refer metaphorically to an abstract remedy, the unconventional use might have been more noticeable. Brooke-Rose’s work is rich in such thought-provoking, subtle observations, and it broke new ground in its linguistic approach to metaphor. More recently, Cameron has researched the question of metaphor and part of speech in her classroom data (2003). She counted linguistic metaphors and compared numbers of different parts of speech, finding that some parts of speech account for disproportionate numbers of the total metaphors. She finds, for instance, that verbs account for nearly half the metaphors in her data, while adjectives and adverbs together account for less than 5% (p. 89). She also finds that “Metaphors with single nouns as Vehicle terms, often the form used to exemplify metaphor theory, account for only 5 per cent of the total” (p. 88). Goatly also makes some useful observations on metaphor and word class. He gives examples of metaphors from all the major parts of speech, but argues that noun metaphors are inherently more marked (1997). This is because the primary function of a noun is to refer, and therefore an unconventional referent is very noticeable; for example when Hartley wrote that the past is a foreign country (p. 82), it is very clear to the reader that foreign country is not being used in its usual, literal sense. Verbs used metaphorically may also be marked, but this depends on our perceiving an unusual context rather than an unusual referent. To take one of Goatly’s examples:
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
we cannot imagine kicking without imagining a foot. So that in the phrase from the Ted Hughes’ poem “Pike” the gills kneading quietly we are entitled to supply a subject colligate of “kneading”, hands, and compare the slow movement and slatted structure of the gills with the movement and structure of hands. (p. 86)
Metaphorical adjectives are also identifiable through being used in an unconventional context, to modify a noun not usually associated with them, as in Goatly’s example “dry and thirsty hair” (p. 90), where thirsty is more usually used to describe animate beings. Prepositions and adverbs are often much more difficult to identify as metaphors, though some writers consider the metaphorical use of prepositions to be very important (for example, Lindstromberg 1997). The studies that have been referred to in this section have taken slightly different perspectives on metaphor and grammar, but taken together they suggest two important points: firstly, there seem to be quantitative and qualitative differences in the way that different parts of speech behave metaphorically, and secondly, that the focus on nominal examples in much metaphor theory is not representative of the diversity of use in naturally-occurring data. Apart from these few noteworthy studies there has been relatively little interest in the grammar of metaphor, and it may be that in neglecting this aspect of figurative language some useful insights have been missed. In this chapter, it is argued that the grammatical behaviour of linguistic metaphors may have implications for theoretical models. None of the studies cited above has looked closely at differences in grammatical form between literal and metaphorical uses of words. This is attempted in the corpus analyses described here, as part of a wider concern with the relationship between form and metaphorical meaning and what it can suggest for theoretical models of metaphor.
Metaphor and part of speech In Chapter 2, it was argued that there are sound reasons for allowing words such as verbal dog as metaphors, even though there is no literal use of the verb form: that is, a metaphorical link can be established between two uses even across part of speech boundaries. Two reasons were given for this. Firstly, a
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
very large number of metaphors seem to be of a different part of speech from their literal equivalents, and excluding them from study could lead to missing important patterns. Secondly, as will be shown in this chapter, grammatical differences between literal and metaphorical uses of the same word can be found at all levels, and having part-of-speech as a cut-off point seems arbitrary. The first of these reasons was the starting point for a corpus study. One immediate observation from the analysis of concordance data is the large number of nouns that become a different part of speech when used in their metaphorical sense. To investigate this further, and to see whether it applies to parts of speech other than nouns, linguistic metaphors generated from three source domains were examined. The key lexis in the source domains chosen tend to be different parts of speech: in the source domain of movement, the central words tend to be verbs, in the source domain of cleanliness and dirt, they tend to be adjectives, while in the source domain of animals they tend to be nouns. Clearly, there is no reason to suppose that these three domains are representative of all verb, adjective and noun senses, and the findings reported here therefore raise questions for further research rather than presenting a conclusive picture. Key source domain lexis was identified through the use of thesauri, and through examination of collocates in the corpus, as described in the previous chapter. Concordances of the source domain lexis were then examined, words which have one or more metaphorical meanings were identified, and the grammatical patterns of the literal and metaphorical uses were studied. Findings suggest that the source domain adjectives and verbs tend to remain adjectival and verbal in the target domain, although some minor grammatical differences can be found. The nouns from the source domain of animals often appear as adjectives or verbs when used in their metaphorical senses.
Verbal metaphors of movement The conceptual metaphor that equates experiencing strong emotions with experiencing physical motion can be expressed as feeling is physical movement. The corpus data suggest that it is conventionalised and frequent; its linguistic realisations are to be found widely in media and literary texts, and in conversation. Some of the main linguistic metaphors are rock, shake, move and stir. Examples of literal and metaphorical uses of rock and shake include: (1) Kobe was rocked by an earthquake which left 4,400 dead.
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
(2) Initial ratings were just short of 12 million but the show was rocked by the revelation that Leslie Grantham, who played Dirty Den, was a convicted murderer. (3) Her self-esteem was shaken by a move and a new job. (4) Joe shook his head.
Literal and metaphorical uses from the concordance of moved include: (5) When Gordie’s condition stabilised, his father moved the family to Southern California. (6) My mum’s sister was moved here about two or three years before. (7) That was the first music I heard live that really moved me. (8) Long said he was very moved by what happened at one peace demonstration he attended last fall.
In addition to this apparent mirroring of literal and metaphorical uses, there is some syntactic development, with the adjectives moving and stirring being formed from the verbs move and stir. Neither of these adjectives has a literal counterpart. (9) That letter – a moving testament of courage and determination – is published exclusively below. (10) . . . a stirring adventure story.
However, when the purely verbal uses are looked at in more detail, slight differences between literal and metaphorical uses are also found. Rock, move and stir all tend to occur in the passive voice when used metaphorically, and are found in both active and passive when literal. Although an example of active voice metaphorical moved was given above, this is in fact rare in the corpus, and the strong tendency is for its metaphorical use to be in the passive voice. There is also a tendency, though less marked, for the literal use of this verb to be in the active voice. Similarly, examining the different inflections of ROCK shows that the metaphorical use is a great deal more frequent in the concordance of the form rocked, because of the dominance of the passive use. The active use is possible, in citations such as (11) . . . the drugs scandal that has rocked British athletics. . .
but this is relatively rare.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Because it is more usually used in the passive voice, the metaphorical use is hardly found in concordances for rocking and (verbal) rock, with the exception of the metaphorical idiom rock the boat, which occurs in citations such as (12) . . . nurses too concerned with their career paths and not rocking the boat. . .
The only non-literal use found in the concordance of verbal rocks is several instances of the metonymical expression the hand that rocks the cradle, in citations such as (13) Now the hand that rocks the cradle could soon be wielding a screwdriver.
This tendency for metaphors to occur in relatively fixed expressions is found again and again in the analysis of corpus data, and is examined in more detail in Chapter 9. A few other divergences between literal and metaphorical uses are observable in source domain verbs that realize this conceptual metaphor. For instance, when stir is used metaphorically, it tends to be in the form of a phrasal verb, stir up. Examples such as the following citation are tens of times more frequent than metaphorical, non-phrasal stir. (14) [The picture] brought back sad memories to me and stirred up emotions.
The tendency for metaphorical verbs to become phrasal was noted by Low (1988), and is found frequently in corpus data, other examples being flare up, clean out and horse around. Further, a number of citations for nominal stir were also found, such as: (15) It must have caused one hell of a stir in this town when Dad married her.
This use is relatively fixed lexically, in that around 85% of the several hundred corpus citations co-occur with the verb cause, and most of the rest occur with create. The literal use of nominal stir is rare but does occur, particularly in texts describing cooking, in phrases such as give it a stir. Apart from in the expression stir-fry/fries/frying/fried, where stir is tagged as a noun, there are only seven literal citations of nominal stir, compared to 88 metaphorical citations. In terms of the grammar of this group of verbal metaphors then, it seems that at the major level of word class there are some differences between source and target domain uses, but these are relatively limited. There also are hints in the data of more detailed differences between source and target domain linguistic patterns, an issue to be explored more fully later in this chapter.
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
Adjectival metaphors of cleanliness and dirt As an example of grammatical patterns in literal and metaphorical adjectives, realizations of the conceptual metaphor clean is good, dirt is bad are examined. This is a conventional and frequent metaphor, which corpus research has shown to be widely used in talk about morality across most genres (Deignan 1997). Realizations include clean, dirty, spotless and filthy. Here, as in the verb examples discussed above, there is no major shift in grammatical class, the metaphorical citations showing apparently straightforward adjectival use. (16) Seven days later Reynolds went to the main testing lab in Cologne and tested clean. (i.e., free of drugs) (17) The recession has sparked a boom in electronic buys as firms resort to dirty tricks to keep ahead of their rivals. (18) She made him blush by telling dirty jokes as he styled her hair on royal tours. (19) [Had she] done something to blemish her thus far spotless record?
However, at a more detailed level of analysis, the metaphorical use again shows some distinctive patterns developing, in this case lexical strings such as clean-living, come clean, and good, clean fun. (The last of these is usually used ironically.) (20) Young Henry Ford gained from them a clear if unbending ethic of hard work and clean-living. (21) It was time for him to come clean. (22) [The festival] is about as far removed from rock n’ roll as you can get. It is good clean fun, no sex and absolutely no drugs.
Another development is fixed lexical patterns associated with non-standard adverbial use of the adjective, such as talk dirty and play dirty. (23) Elle is overweight, talks dirty and dresses appallingly. (24) Michael’s ex has decided to play dirty and go after his future earnings.
In their literal senses, clean and dirty are usually clear-cut cases of antonyms, meaning that they can be substituted for each other to produce acceptable sentences, with contrasting meanings, as in the following citations: (25) I am thorough and fast and I enjoy leaving a clean house behind. (26) I hate coming home to a dirty house.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
In their metaphorical use this is rarely the case; each word tends to occur in fixed expressions and cannot be substituted for its antonym to produce a natural sentence. For instance, there are many citations of talk dirty but none of talk clean, many citations of clean-living but none of dirty-living. (In Chapter 8, I look at the behaviour of literal and metaphorical synonyms and antonyms in more detail.) Looking briefly at derived forms, verbal clean occurs rarely with metaphorical meaning, and then only in the fixed expression clean up his/her act: (27) . . . her sordid past of drug and alcohol addiction. All that was a long time ago and she has cleaned up her act.
Similarly, nominal dirt with a metaphorical meaning is rare except in the fixed expressions dig up the dirt and dish up the dirt. Overall then, the word classes of the literal senses are replicated in their metaphorical senses in this small group of adjectives. However, as for the verbs studied above, it seems that some detailed syntactic and lexical patterns particular to the metaphorical use are emerging.
Metaphors from nouns: Word class shift Metaphors from the source domain of animals have often been discussed in the metaphor literature, with examples such as “Richard is a gorilla” being examined at length (Searle 1993). It seems generally agreed that words for animals are used to denote certain human characteristics. As, naturally enough, the central terms are nouns, this seems an appropriate source domain through which to investigate metaphors derived from nouns. The first point to note is that there are very few corpus examples of metaphors that equate a person with an animal in a straightforward A = B, “Richard is a gorilla”, format. Secondly, I found only one example of an animal metaphor where there is no grammatical conversion at all. This was cow (the adjective cowed was rejected as being too removed semantically from the animal sense to be considered as a metaphor). The metaphorical use of cow/cows is infrequent, especially in comparison to the very high frequency of the literal use. Table 7.1 shows the different parts of speech found in the target domain for each metaphorical use, and is divided according to target domain part(s) of speech. In Chapter 2, it was argued for that straightforward grammatical conversions should be considered metaphors. Derived forms involving an affix raise
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
Table 7.1 Part of speech of animal metaphors Noun only as conventional metaphor cow Noun What the hell does the silly cow think she’s doing? Noun and verb as conventional metaphors pig Noun . . . a bunch of racist pigs. Verb He had probably pigged out in a fast-food place. wolf Noun is something of a lone wolf. Verb I gratefully wolfed down the food. monkey Noun She’s such a little monkey. Verb Not a day goes by without him getting in and monkeying with something. rat Noun . . . a thieving rat. Verb Good friends don’t rat on each other. Verb only as conventional metaphor horse I was horsing around with Katie. weasel A buyer will not usually be able to weasel out of these promises later. ferret O’Connor was the person who ferretted out the truth. hound He was hounded out of his job. hare He went haring round to her flat. squirrel . . . as consumers squirrel away huge sums for the downpayment on a home. ape He apes their walk. Noun and adjective as conventional metaphors cat Noun . . . a bunch of fat cats with fast cars. catty Adj . . . catty remarks. kitten Noun . . . a blonde sex kitten. kittenish Adj She was playful, innocent and kittenish. sheep Noun We’re not political sheep. sheepish Adj He gave them a sheepish grin. tiger Noun Already the Celtic Tiger boom has transformed towns. tigerish Adj . . . tigerish determination. mouse Noun I always thought her a mouse. mousy Adj . . . the mousy little couple. shrew Noun . . . a tyrant and a shrew. shrewish Adj . . . a shrewish look. Noun, verb and adjective as conventional metaphors fox Noun You sly old fox. fox Verb Experts are going to be completely foxed by this one. foxy Adj That is one foxy lady. bitch Noun I’m very sorry I was a bitch. bitch Verb She bitched about Dan. bitchy Adj I was bitchy. dog Noun . . . an old dog. dog Verb . . . the feeling of dread that had been dogging her all day. dogged Adj . . . and enviable reputation for dogged determination and skill.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
another problem for metaphor identification, also described in Chapter 2. It is apparently a chance feature of English that verbs are often formed from nouns without any change to the base form while adjectives formed from nouns usually take an affix. This means that excluding derived forms could be seen as a decision based on form rather than on meaning. Derived forms are included in Table 7.1 because they may be of interest, but no solution is proposed here as to whether they should be considered truly metaphorical; this will depend on the researcher’s goals. The information in Table 7.1 suggests that when a word referring to an animal is used metaphorically to describe human characteristics or behaviour, an adjective or verb is often formed. An overall tendency away from nominal metaphors is also evidenced by frequency information; where there are both a noun metaphor and adjective or verb metaphor, the noun metaphor often tends to be a good deal less frequent than the other part of speech. For example, in the concordance for fox, foxes, foxing, foxed, which numbers 461 citations (once citations of the common English surname Fox have been discounted), the noun metaphor is found just three times while the verb metaphor is found eighteen times. All verbal uses are metaphorical, while for the noun there are three metaphorical uses compared to 440 literal. (The very high number of literal citations is due to the frequent discussion in the British media of the sport fox-hunting.) The adjective foxy is found nine times, all metaphorical. In a number of other cases, the only metaphorical use of an animal noun is verbal, there being no noun metaphor in conventional use. Where there is a noun use, this is sometimes confined to a narrow range of texts. For example, both sex kitten and Tiger economy are largely restricted to the journalism sections of the corpus and there are no other instances of kitten used as metaphorical nouns and only a limited number of fixed collocations with tiger. Based on this evidence, it would seem that utterances such as “Richard gorilla-ed his opponents into submission” or “Richard’s gorilla-ish behaviour was off-putting”, might be more likely to enter the language than Searle’s “Richard is a gorilla”. In the classical version of Conceptual Metaphor Theory there is no immediate explanation for this, yet the phenomenon is so widespread that it seems necessary to consider it. A possible explanation for the grammatical differences between source and target domain is that animal metaphors tend to be used to talk about human behaviour, and sometimes attributes. Behaviour and attributes are notions which are prototypically expressed through verbs and adjectives respectively in English, so the tendency for source domain nouns to appear in the target domain as verbs or adjectives might be predicted. This would suggest that
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
we might expect grammatical conversions in a number of other metaphorical mappings, particularly where easily imageable entities are used to talk metaphorically about more abstract qualities such as behaviour.
Linguistic restrictions When metaphors from the source domain of animals are examined in more detail, some interesting linguistic restrictions emerge. The data suggest that in most cases, the metaphorical uses of animal lexis are highly specific, idiom-like in their limited semantic range, and also sometimes in their linguistic fixedness. This was seen in the case of the metaphor cat/cats. One thousand corpus citations of cat/cats were examined; the only time the metaphorical use occurs with any frequency is in the expression fat cats, the perhaps more intuitively obvious phrase cat burglar occurring only once in the sample. One other metaphorical use also appears just once in the sample. The citation is from a magazine horoscope: (28) Aquarius: You are the cool cat of the zodiac.
As the horoscope is a genre known for very high use of metaphor and idiom (Moon 1998), this single example may not be representative of general language use. Metaphorical fat cat/cats, in contrast, occurs frequently, around 75 times per thousand citations of cat/cats. This restriction of the metaphor to a single collocation is an example of the idiom-like linguistic fixedness found very widely in the analysis of animal metaphors. Interestingly, the converse also applies; the collocation fat cat/cats is very infrequent in its literal meaning, appearing in just one citation in the sample. Metaphorical fat cat/cats has a very specific meaning, referring to business people who have made a good deal of money, and the expression has unpleasant connotations of greed. It is used in the specific context of criticism of business activities, the following examples being typical: (29) . . . huge payments to fat cat bureaucrats. . . (30) Irvine has named and shamed the fat cat lawyers and law firms. . . (31) Why would we put up with chauffeur-driven fat cats telling us . . . (32) . . . a group of business fat cats lining their pockets
A further restriction is seen in that fat cat is rarely used in the singular, although the form appears fairly frequently as a modifier, for example in fat cat lawyers.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
This very specific nature of the metaphorical meaning of cat/cats runs counter to the impression that might be gained from discussions of animal metaphors in the literature. These would suggest that cat could be used to denote humans with supposedly feline qualities such as grace, agility, selfishness or malice. In fact most of these qualities are absent from the conventional metaphorical uses, although some of them can be seen when similes using cat are examined: (33) . . . watching like a cat. (34) . . . curled up like a cat.
The adjective catty is fairly freely combining lexically, and is used in both attributive and predicative patterns, but draws on only one aspect of what is connoted to English speakers by cats, the quality of malice. (35) Life as a supermodel can get pretty catty at times. (36) . . . a catty nickname.
It seems then that nominal cat metaphors generally occur in a fixed collocation, exploiting the ideas of greed and selfishness that are associated with literal cats. The derived adjective form exploits a different meaning, malice. It is rare for any of the numerous other meanings that are associated with cats by English speakers to be drawn on metaphorically. The same patterns are found in the examination of citations for kitten and tiger, which, as has been noted, appear almost exclusively in the journalism sections of the corpus. Metaphorical kitten is used with a very specific meaning, in the expression sex kitten, and not being used to describe other qualities connoted by literal kittens. Likewise, metaphorical tiger is almost always used in the economic sense, to refer to a country which has suddenly developed into a major economic force. This is reflected in the linguistic patterns that it forms; it appears in the expression Celtic Tiger which occurs 11 times in 918 citations, referring to the Irish economy, or in tiger economy/ies, referring to the economies of the Far East which boomed in the 1980s and 1990s, which was found 20 times. There are also 9 citations of another metaphorical meaning, in the expression paper tiger: (37) [Heavy weapons are] critical if this force is to be more than just a paper tiger.
Apart from these fixed expressions, and the expression Tamil Tiger, which occurs 13 times, there are no metaphorical uses in the concordance, which con-
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
sists of over 900 citations. There are a small number of proper names such as Tiger Woods or Tiger Bay; otherwise all citations are literal. Other verbal and adjectival animal metaphors are similarly restricted in use; there are 28 verbal metaphorical citations of the lemma WOLF (17 of wolfed and 9 of wolfing), of which all but two refer to eating quickly and greedily, in citations such as (38) The meat didn’t smell 100 percent but the cat gratefully wolfed down every last bit.
Of citations with this meaning, all but two are phrasal, wolf* being followed by the particle down. There are two citations of wolfing with a different metaphorical meaning, referring to a form of taunting that sometimes takes place between sporting rivals; again, a highly specific meaning. The view of animal metaphors in which they are used by speakers relatively freely to describe human behaviour, in an A = B format, is not supported by the corpus data. Instead it seems that animal metaphors are frequently verbal, sometimes adjectival (if derived adjectival forms are to be accepted as metaphors), probably because they are used to talk about ways of behaving. This suggests that metaphorical meaning is more important than source domain linguistic patterns in determining a metaphor’s linguistic behaviour. This study also shows that whatever their part of speech, animal metaphors are to a large extent fixed by convention, both in terms of grammatical patterning and meaning and rarely exploit the full range of meanings associated with the literal animal.
Detailed grammatical patterning The second part of this investigation concentrates on more detailed aspects of grammatical patterning. The conclusion that was drawn in the previous section, that both the grammatical form and meaning of many metaphors are fairly restricted, was further supported by this study. Here I describe some linguistic findings, then move on in the following section to discuss implications for Conceptual Metaphor Theory.
Inflections Conceptual Metaphor Theory does not suggest that there should be any difference in metaphorical meaning associated with superficial details of form, but
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
the theory is not generally concerned with details. Nonetheless, it will be argued that the detailed linguistic patterns, like differences between singular and plural inflections, to be found in naturally-occurring data may have theoretical implications. Taking a linguistic metaphor which is frequently and apparently conventional across all sub-corpora of the Bank of English, the concordance of ROCK was further analysed. The lexeme is homonymous, deriving from two different etymological sources; the metaphorical verb meanings are generally derived from the meaning “move”, as discussed above, while the metaphorical noun meanings are generally derived from the meaning “large stone”. For this study, the various metaphorical uses of the singular and plural inflections of the noun, and its use as a modifier, were examined. Overall, one major difference in meaning was found; the singular inflection tends to evaluate positively, while the plural inflection is more generally negative. In the singular uses, rock tends to refer to a support, in citations such as: (39) Nothing must undermine the sanctity of human life – the rock on which our society is built.
and in citations which describe a person as a rock, such as “a handsome rock”, referring to a male partner. This use appears in relatively fixed lexical and syntactic contexts; in many citations rock collocates with build, and in a number rock occurs in the string “the rock on which / upon which. . . ”, or “[person] is a rock”. The images underlying these metaphorical expressions may be Biblical, alluding to the parable in which the house of God is built on a rock and therefore able to withstand rough conditions. Citations in which rocks are plural, on the other hand, nearly always suggest negative evaluation. Here, the rocks alluded to seem to be those which are hidden under the sea, presenting a danger for ships. Again, there is a degree of fixedness, expressions such as “hit the rocks” or “be on the rocks” emerging, in citations such as: (40) A flagship initiative started eight months ago to boost home ownership in Greater London has hit the rocks already. (41) The marriage has been on the rocks for a while.
Rock is also used as a modifier, occurring in the collocations rock steady, rock solid, and rock bottom, and in the fairly rare idiom between a rock and a hard place, which occurred once in the sample. The collocations vary in whether
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
they are positively or negatively oriented: rock steady and rock solid seem to convey positive values, in citations such as: (42) She has a lovely daughter, a clever assistant district attorney husband and, unlike her sister, a rock-solid marriage.
while rock bottom is negative: (43) His approval rating with Russia’s 104m voters is at a rock-bottom low. (44) Morale at the force was said to be rock-bottom before Dr. Oliver retired.
The metaphors rock steady and rock solid seem to have their grounds in the hardness and stability of literal rocks, which metaphorically connotes durability and trust in human relationships. Rock bottom draws from our knowledge that rocks are usually the lowest level of the earth’s surface, or lie at the bottom of the seabed, and is probably a realization of down is bad. This study suggests that noun rock/rocks appears in a number of linguistic metaphors, each of which is the realization of a different aspect of our knowledge about literal rocks. Grammatically the singular and plural inflections seem to have become associated with, respectively, positive and negative aspects of literal rocks. Each metaphor seems to encapsulate a small piece of folk wisdom, and has then become tied to a particular syntactic pattern. Although there is a very small number of counter examples in the corpus, these can generally be shown to be ironic or punning uses; overall it appears that for this noun the choice of singular or plural is associated with a key aspect of the message of the text. It is possible that this has processing implications; hearers will be aware, at some level, of the regular correspondences between and meaning in the language, and may well use information about form in interpreting metaphorical meaning. For instance, when someone hears singular rock as opposed to plural rocks, he or she may start to activate the positive meaning of “support” before an utterance is complete and its metaphorical meaning fully processed.
Lexical grammar The studies of lexis from the source domains of movement, cleanliness and animals, above, suggested that in addition to part of speech change, there are differences between literal and metaphorical uses at a more detailed syntactic level. Linguistic features of this level, the point where lexis and grammar merge, are sometimes referred to as “lexical grammar” (Tognini-Bonelli 2001).
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
In order to research this aspect of metaphor more widely, a corpus search of metaphors from the source domain of the human body was undertaken. This domain is known to be a very important generator of metaphors (Moon 1998). The search was restricted to nouns referring to the body and body parts, and the syntactic behaviour of metaphorical uses was examined. As in other studies, key words for analysis were identified using thesauri and collocation searches. Samples of 1000 citations for the central lexis were examined; examples of the patterns found are given in Deignan (1995). The corpus data suggest that there is variation in the syntactic behaviour of body-part metaphors, which falls into three different patterns. The first of these is found where a linguistic metaphor seems to have a free-standing meaning, one that is not dependent on its occurring in a particular syntactic context, or with particular collocates. These might be considered as classical instances of metaphor; having little of the fixedness described in the previous section, they are apparently linguistically flexible, and can be used in a range of contexts. This group is very small, and includes uses such as heart meaning “centre”, and hand, meaning “help”. (45) At its heart the issue is not a scientific debate. (46) . . . the very heart of our culture. (47) Everyone lent a hand. (48) . . . offering you a helping hand.
Even for these two fairly free standing metaphors, some uses are more restricted. For instance, heart meaning “generosity” appears in expressions that are relatively fixed syntactically and lexically, such as have a heart and heart of gold. A great many more metaphorical uses come into the second category: expressions whose syntax is relatively fixed. For instance, shoulder is used in talking about bearing responsibility or problems, but only occurs in the plural, and only in the expression on [his/her etc.] shoulders or on the shoulders of [name]: (49) The hopes of the nation are on his shoulders. (50) The government’s reforms place too great a burden on the shoulders of ordinary people.
A metaphorical meaning of face is used to refer to someone’s pride. While in its literal use and in other metaphorical uses the noun is countable, here it is always uncountable:
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
(51) . . . lying to save face. (52) You should never be made to feel that you have lost face.
Teeth is used to refer to the power with which a piece of legislation can be enforced, or the power that a public body has to enforce its decisions. Like shoulders and face, this metaphor is lexico-grammatically fixed; it only occurs in the plural, and only after the verb have: (53) The resolution . . . will have teeth.
In their lexico-grammatical fixedness, these expressions are close to idioms. However, they would probably not be considered true examples of the class because they still have more variation than associated with classical idioms, and they are fairly transparent for most speakers. Finally, the third group of metaphorical uses of lexis from the human body consists of those that are always qualified by a word or words from the target domain, presumably because this is necessary to avoid a literal interpretation. These include some metaphorical meanings of body, head, eyes and face: (54) There is a large body of evidence. (55) . . . political, administrative and legal bodies. (56) . . . head of modern languages at a London grammar school. (57) . . . heads of state. (58) . . . look at snow through the eyes of a child. (59) You see London through the eyes of a tourist. (60) [It] changed the face of mainstream publishing. (61) They want him to represent the face of the modern nation.
This group includes the uses of nose, ear, or eye to talk metonymically about someone’s instinctive ability and perceptions. In the corpus, these are always preceded by a determiner, sometimes with an adjective, and are always followed by for, then a target domain term. (62) He had a nose for trouble. (63) . . . my extraordinarily good ear for accents. (64) . . . an eye for a horse.
Of the three grammatical patterns discussed here, the second is the most frequent, followed by the third. The first pattern is very rare. For body-part metaphors then, it seems that some degree of lexico-grammatical fixedness
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
is the norm. As found in earlier discussions in this chapter, a metaphorical meaning tends to coincide with a restricted range of grammatical forms.
Implications In the studies described in this chapter I have compared metaphorical and literal uses of words from a number of source domains. I have looked at different aspects of their grammar: word class, inflection and details of lexical grammar. Two features have consistently emerged from the data when considered from these various angles: –
–
The target domain use tends to be different in form from the source domain use, whether at the major level of part of speech or at a more detailed level. Metaphorical uses seem subject to much more restricted grammatical choices than literal uses.
Grammar and Conceptual Metaphor Theory The discussion of grammatical differences between literal and metaphorical uses may have implications for our understanding of the nature of metaphorical mapping. The original proponents of Conceptual Metaphor Theory argued that one of the novel and important features of the theory is that it takes account of the systematic nature of metaphor in language, and, as outlined in Chapter 1, this systematicity is used as evidence for underlying conceptual metaphors. Although different writers take different perspectives on the issue, it is generally held that conceptual metaphors map the source domain onto the target domain, so that the correspondences and logical relationships from the source domain are replicated in the target domain. This mapping allows for the generation of metaphorical entailments, an important aspect of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, especially for researchers into metaphor and ideology, as outlined in Chapter 6. Lakoff developed the notion of systematicity of mapping in some detail, and formulated the Invariance Hypothesis (1990), later referred to as the Invariance Principle (1993). The Principle states: Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive topology (that is, the imageschema structure) of the source domain, in a way consistent with the target domain. (Lakoff 1993: 215)
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
Lakoff warns against perceiving mapping as starting with the source domain, aspects of which are copied onto the target domain, but instead suggests thinking of mappings as fixed correspondences. Taking this view, a conceptual metaphor is the link between points in the structure of the source domain and their corresponding points in the target domain. The Invariance Principle means that the relationships between the target domain points will be consistent with relationships between the source domain points. Lakoff (1990) gives the example of life is a journey, where elements of literal journeys are mapped onto the target domain of life in a consistent way; so that the start of a journey is mapped onto birth, and the end of the journey is mapped onto death. The start of the journey will not be mapped onto a middle point in life, and difficult pathways will not be mapped onto easy periods of life. Turner develops this point, writing that metaphorical mappings import only the elements of the source domain that are consistent with the structure of the target domain, and import them in a way that is consistent with the structure of the source domain (1990). Lakoff is concerned with the way that conceptual metaphor and the Invariance Principle enable us to reason at an abstract level, and not with developing a theory which accounts for the observable facts of language use. However, in one of his earliest discussions of Invariance, he cites “systematicity in . . . linguistic correspondences” of linguistic metaphors as one of the three planks of evidence that persuaded him of the centrality of metaphor to thought (1990: 50), and it therefore does not seem unreasonable to examine linguistic data in more detail for any further light they may cast on the theory. Corpus evidence showed that the source domain of animals includes a very large number of nouns denoting animals, which would probably be regarded by most speakers as the central terms in the field. There are also some verbs and adjectives such as bark, growl and vicious, that are specific to the domain, but these would probably be regarded by most speakers as of secondary significance; they are certainly less frequent in the corpus than their related animal nouns. It seems then that the source domain is dominated by entities, their attributes and behaviour being of less importance. The target domain, human characteristics, seems to have a different inherent structure, attributes and behaviour here being more prominent than entities. Many source domain verbs and adjectives are metaphorically mapped onto the target domain of human attributes and behaviour, such as snarl or feline, but as was shown above, the target domain also draws on key source domain nouns. The Invariance Principle allows for aspects of the source domain not to be mapped onto the target domain, indeed, Lakoff points out that metaphorical
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
mappings are always partial. The source domain is not completely mapped because there will always be some elements of the source domain that have no counterparts in the target domain. This explains why “you can give someone a kick even if that person doesn’t have it afterward” (1993: 216). The notion of literal giving has a counterpart in the target domain of kicking. In the source domain, “giving” also entails the notion of “(permanently) receiving”, but in the target domain of kicking there is no correspondence to this notion, so it is not mapped. In the case of animal metaphors, where the target domain is concerned with attributes and behaviour, the Invariance Principle would suggest that entities expressed as nouns from the source domain would be largely absent from the mapping, and that the mapping would thus be very partial. However, these entities are not dropped from the mapping; what seems to happen instead is that they undergo grammatical transformation, and can thus be used to talk about attributes and behaviour. This can distort some of the relations that hold between source domain points. For example, in the source domain, dog usually refers to an entity, and when it co-occurs with hunt the relationship is generally subject-verb: in the target domain dog and hunt are near synonyms. In this case, the correspondences predicted by the Invariance Principle are clearly absent. The corpus evidence suggests that the nature of the target domain does not just constrain the extent of the mapping, as argued by the Invariance Principle, it also shapes it. Stockwell has argued that for literary metaphors there is feedback from target to source domain meaning (1999); what is claimed here is slightly different, though not incompatible with Stockwell’s argument. That is, metaphorical meanings and the relationships between them are partly motivated by source domain structure, as claimed in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, but that the inherent structure of the target domain plays a much more important role in motivating linguistic metaphors than is suggested by the theory.
Blending If classical Conceptual Metaphor Theory does not provide a complete explanation for the linguistic data described here, another concept from the field of Cognitive Linguistics may. This is the notion of blending (Fauconnier & Turner 2002). To simplify a good deal, blending theory draws on the notion of “mental spaces”, which are a way of describing a (metaphorical) area in the mind within which we construct mental representations of the external world.
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
We create mental spaces online as we process information; they are specific to the thought processes taking place at the time, as opposed to domains which are general, semi-permanent constructs. Blending happens when several mental spaces are drawn on in one utterance or thought, and these become fused to create a further mental space. Blending can be used to describe how we think about any utterance that draws on different mental spaces at once, such as counter-factual conditionals. For example, utterances beginning “If I were you. . . ” create a mental space in which the speaker is identical with the hearer. This new mental space is a blend of the mental space of the speaker and their opinions, and the mental space of the hearer and their opportunities for action. Kövecses shows how the notion of blending has been applied to metaphor. For some metaphors, the notion of a mapping from one domain onto another does not completely explain the linguistic metaphors found. He takes the example of the linguistic metaphor “Steam was coming out of his ears” (2002), which is apparently a realization of the conceptual metaphor anger is hot fluid in a container. Kövecses argues that this creates an image which does not exist in either the source domain or the target domain, but can only exist in a third mental space, a space in which elements of the source and target domains are fused: In the source, there is a container with hot fluid inside, like a pot, which produces steam when heated. In the target, there is a person who is getting more and more angry, showing signs of losing control over anger as a result of a continued cause. But there is also a blended space of an angry person with steam coming out of his ears. (2002: 233)
There is insufficient space here to explore any further the detailed and complex notion of blending, but discussions of the concept, including its relationship to metaphor can be found in work by Fauconnier (1997), Fauconnier and Turner (2002) and Grady (1999), and an introductory outline to blending in Coulson and Oakley (2000). Discussions of blending theory have drawn on semantic anomalies such as the image of a person with steam coming out of his ears, discussed above, and have not as yet incorporated discussion of language in use, for a good reason; it is a theory which attempts to explain online processing rather than the linguistic products of such processing. However, the study of language in use may be a useful application, and blending theory may be able to provide a more satisfactory explanation for the grammatical characteristics of some linguistic metaphors than the model discussed so far. Using blending theory, we discard the notion that the source domain structures the target domain and, instead,
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
see a third, blended mental space being created. Both source and target domain contribute to the blended space, but it nonetheless has its own structure, which in this model can be more autonomous. As Gibbs puts it: [The] input spaces project onto separate blended spaces, which inherit partial structure from each of the possibly multiple input spaces, but also yield new emergent meaning structures. (2000: 348)
This model allows for the metaphorical uses of words in the blended space to have unique linguistic features, because the relations between them are less constrained by the source domain structure than they would be in classical Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Unfortunately, in common with some other developments in Cognitive Linguistics, blending theory is open to the charge that it deals with unusual or invented language, with limited examples, and that it provides post-hoc explanations which do not have predictive power. Gibbs summarises some of these criticisms (2000). Nonetheless, some account along these lines is needed to explain the grammatical phenomena discussed here; a classical version of Conceptual Metaphor Theory is too static to handle the variations that are found between source domain and target domain language. This echoes discussions in earlier chapters, which have tended to conclude that language in use is subtler and more dynamic than might be suggested by Conceptual Metaphor Theory.
Conclusion In this chapter I have described some grammatical patterns of linguistic metaphors, finding that these are both less predictable and more fixed than would be suggested by the notion of metaphorical mapping. An alternative explanation for grammatical differences between source and target domains was suggested, drawing on Blending Theory. No suggestions were made as to why metaphorical meanings tend to be highly specific, nor why they tend to be used in relatively fixed constructions was offered; these points are returned to in later chapters. The data discussed so far suggest that each linguistic metaphor has a life of its own, and both at the linguistic and semantic levels, metaphors operate partly independently of the conceptual mapping that seems to underlie them. This could ultimately make generalizations about metaphorical patterns difficult, at least if Conceptual Metaphor Theory is viewed as the underlying
Chapter 7. The grammar of metaphor
framework. Writing within the Conceptual Metaphor Theory tradition has emphasised the structure of domains, and individual linguistic mappings are often discussed in terms of their role within that structure. One implication that emerges from all the studies discussed in this chapter is that the top-down model of Conceptual Metaphor Theory provides only partial explanations for the data. It may be that we need to redress the balance, and work more directly with the data of individual linguistic metaphors, searching back for theoretical implications, rather than proceeding from theory to find the linguistic examples that we need to support it.
Chapter 8
Semantic relations in source and target domains
Introduction In the previous chapter, the Invariance Principle was discussed and explored with relation to grammatical patterns in the source and target domains. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory account of mapping also has implications for semantic relations between words as they are used in the target domain. Specifically, it will be shown here that the Invariance Principle implies that the sense relations of antonymy (oppositeness), synonymy (sameness) and hyponymy (inclusion) that exist between the literal, source domain senses of words will be replicated in the target domain. If sets of metaphorically-generated senses can be found to relate to each other following the same patterns as their literal counterparts, then the notion of metaphorical mapping could be a powerful tool in describing semantic relations across the lexicon. This would be of use for descriptions of vocabulary in language, and specifically helpful for lexicographers, thesaurus-writers and other compilers of reference works, along with language teachers. Vocabulary has always seemed somewhat resistant to systematic descriptions; lexical items can be listed and described at the level of detail but there seem to be no overarching organizing features. The mapping of semantic relations could prove to be an organizing feature that enables explanation of at least one important aspect of abstract vocabulary. Language teachers have known for some time that the lexical level is at least as important as the grammatical level, but teaching syllabuses continue to be largely based around grammatical structures, because of the difficulty of organizing information about lexis in ways that allow generalizations, and traditional classroom activities. The discovery of underlying systems of lexis could help to refocus classroom priorities away from grammar, as many teachers would wish. This chapter describes research that investigated two groups of linguistic metaphors to see whether they do in fact behave systematically. In fact, the two groups were found to be slightly different in their behavior, an observation
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
that could be explained by the type of figurative process involved in their mapping. In these studies, “pure” metaphors show systematicity in their semantic patterns, while mappings that have some metonymic elements, as discussed in Chapter 3, are much less systematically patterned. In terms of both theory and applications, this shows that the differences between types of figurative language are real and important.
Metaphorical mapping Although Conceptual Metaphor Theory concerns thought, rather than language directly, the notion that semantic relations are metaphorically mapped can be logically inferred from it. As discussed in the previous chapter, Lakoff ’s “Invariance Principle” argues that the elements of the source domain that are mapped onto the target domain are mapped in a way that preserves the overall coherence of the metaphor. To be consistent with the Invariance Principle then, semantic groups of linguistic metaphors should demonstrate the same connections in the target domain as they have in the source domain. The idea that relationships in one semantic field can be exploited for the development of senses in another field was put forward by Lehrer, a lexical semanticist, who claims that: If there is a set of words that have semantic relationships in a semantic field (where relationships are described in terms of synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy etc.) and if one or more items pattern in another semantic field, then the other items in the first field are available for extension to the second semantic field. (1978: 96)
Approaching metaphor from a philosophical perspective, Kittay makes the same point: Metaphorical transfers of meaning are transfers from the field of the vehicle to the field of the topic of the relations of affinity and opposition that the vehicle term(s) bears to other terms in its field. More precisely, in metaphor what is transferred are the relations which pertain within one semantic field to a second, distinct content domain. (1987: 36)
Kittay describes ways in which this potential for metaphorical extension of meaning is exploited in literature, and shows that writers use known metaphorical mappings to create meanings and inferences which are new and yet comprehensible. For instance, she shows how Wordsworth develops the metaphor Venice is a woman1 to create innovative metaphorical meanings.
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
In Wordsworth’s poem, the source domain of a woman’s life is mapped onto the target domain of the creation, glory and decline of the city of Venice. Early in the poem, birth, a conventional metaphor, is used to describe the creation of the city. Words from this source domain, including child, maiden and seduced, are then also used in the target domain of the city, creating novel meanings. The reader interprets the new meanings by analogy, through their semantic relationship to birth in the source domain. Working in the Conceptual Metaphor tradition, Lakoff and Turner also show how poetry extends existing conceptual metaphors to create innovative meanings that can be understood by analogy with more familiar metaphors (1989). Neither Conceptual Metaphor theorists, nor writers in other traditions, such as Lehrer and Kittay, claim that all the potential metaphorical senses in a given target domain are actually found in language in use. However, they all do claim that metaphorical mapping provides a resource for systematic meaning extension. As has been seen, Lehrer and Kittay argue unambiguously that where several words from a source domain are used in the same target domain, semantic relations between the target domain uses will replicate those found in the source domain.
Argument is war and metaphorical mapping In an earlier paper, I discuss a corpus investigation into semantic relations between the key words from the conceptual metaphor argument is war (Deignan in press). Verbal and nominal uses of attack and defend/ defence (defense) were studied, and it was found that there is a relationship of antonymy between both the literal and metaphorical uses. I also studied the most frequent collocates of the literal uses of attack and defend, including fire (verb), shoot (down) and gun(s). Not every target domain use had a corresponding metaphorical use, but those that were found are consistent with a coherent mapping of the domain of war onto argument; logical and semantic relations are preserved. The metaphorical uses show some degree of lexical fixedness, common to most target domains investigated. This in itself does not contradict the Conceptual Metaphor Theory of mapping although it is not explained by it.
Temperature terms and metaphorical mapping In her discussion of semantic fields, Kittay argues that the conventional use of hot to describe a good performance by a sportsman could be exploited to create new meanings of cold, warm and cool by analogy, although she does not sug-
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
gest that these metaphors will necessarily enter the language as conventional expressions. The field of temperature is frequently cited in discussions of lexical semantics, probably because it is neatly divided into four core terms, hot, cold, warm, cool which have clear relations of gradable antonymy (hot-cold, warm-cool), and near synonymy (hot-warm, cold-cool). The field is also the subject of much discussion for metaphor theorists, who argue that many of the terms used to talk about emotions are mapped from the domain of temperature (Kövecses 2000, 2002). In another study (Deignan 1999b), I brought together observations made by lexical semanticists and metaphor theorists, using the additional perspective of corpus linguistics. I reported an analysis of 1000 corpus citations of each of the four key temperature terms; I analyzed the meaning of the key word in each citation, listed the literal and metaphorical senses of each that were found, and then compared the semantic relations between pairs of words in the source domain with the relationships between the same words in the various target domains in which they are used. The corpus data showed that in the source domain, the semantic relations described in the literature hold: the pairs hot and cold, and warm and cool are classic examples of antonymy. Both pairs not only have opposing meanings, they also collocate with words from the same semantic fields, principally but not exclusively weather, body temperature and food. Similarly, the pairs hot/warm and cold/cool are clearly near synonyms, the first of each pair denoting a similar but more intense quality than the second. In the target domain of emotion, which accounts for the vast majority of metaphorical uses, I found some instances of these relations apparently having been mapped. For instance, cool and cold are both used to describe a distant and over-polite manner, while warm and cool are antonymous in talk about friendliness or the lack of it. In some instances, there was an apparent target domain relationship that appeared less strong on close inspection than it had at first. For instance, hot and cold are both used with sexual connotations, but they collocate with different lexical sets; the use of hot collocates with words referring to texts or images, to mean “sexually explicit” or “erotic”, while cold collocates with words referring to people, meaning “uninterested in sex”. Some of the less central temperature terms, such as icy and tepid, seem to be used in the target domain in ways that are analogous to one of the key terms. For instance, icy describes a social distance even more extreme than cold, while a tepid welcome is less enthusiastic than a warm one. However, these mappings are very partial; each of the less central terms usually only takes on one of the several metaphorical senses of its related key term. Overall then, I did not find
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
the coherent mappings that a strong version of Conceptual Metaphor Theory might suggest. One possible explanation for this finding lies in the fact that many figurative language expressions are a product of metonymy as well as metaphor. In Chapter 3, I described research by Goossens (1995), that explores the interaction between metaphor and metonymy, and suggested that these various types of interaction can be seen as on a cline, rather than as discrete categories. I claimed that it is possible to distinguish prototypical instances of particular kinds of conceptual mapping, which include metaphor itself, metonymy, and combinations of the two tropes such as metonymy within metaphor (which is rare), metaphor from metonymy and metonymy-based metaphor (Table 3.1 gives brief descriptions and examples). Most metaphorical uses of temperature lexis are either instances of metaphor from metonymy or metonymy-based metaphor rather than pure metaphor (Kövecses 2000). It is possible that the inconsistency and patchiness of lexical patterning of these words may be because of the element of metonymy in their mappings. For instance, the metaphorical use of a term such as cold and chilling to describe fear, in a citation such as: (1) My blood ran cold. (2) . . . a chilling account.
is grounded in the physical sensation experienced by the speaker. This would explain the closely related metaphorical meanings of these two words and other near-synonyms from the same source domain. It also explains the lack of an antonym from the source domain: while we feel cold when we experience fear, we do not associate feeling hot with the absence of fear, and so the antonymous use of hot would not be expected. In the following sections, I report on two corpus investigations designed to test the hypothesis that mappings grounded in “pure” metaphor result in a consistent set of semantic relations in the target domain, while those partially grounded in metonymy do not. The two source domains that were examined are plants, and lightness and dark. These were chosen because it seemed that mappings from the domain of plants, such as ideas are plants, and companies are plants, are instances of “pure” metaphor; it is difficult to postulate a metonymic basis for them. Mappings such as happiness is light, on the other hand, have an obvious element of metonymy (Barcelona 2000). Although much of the conceptual metaphor literature refers to fairly detailed mappings such as ideas are plants and happiness is light, it was decided here not to limit the searches to single mappings of this kind, but to
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
consider all metaphorical uses of frequent words from the two source domains. There are several reasons for this, the first being that automatic concordance searches by their nature show up all senses represented in the corpus. Rather than treating this as a disadvantage to be overcome, it can be seen as a strength of the methodology. Pre-imposing a category from the literature would require the researcher to eliminate other uses manually, and brings the possible disadvantage of missing interesting and important examples; in Tognini-Bonelli’s terms (2001; described in Chapter 4), this would be a corpus-based approach. On the other hand, taking the entire concordance and allowing categories of meaning to emerge, in Tognini-Bonelli’s terms taking a “corpus-driven” approach, means that significant patterns of meaning that had not been predicted can be seen. A second reason for not attempting to limit the analysis to a detailed mapping is that it can often be difficult to decide whether specific corpus examples realize a particular conceptual metaphor; as Grady argues, it is possible that many “conceptual metaphors” are in fact merely prototypical instances of more basic mappings (1997).
Corpus investigations: Plants Searches Lakoff and Johnson give the following examples of plant metaphors that realize the conceptual metaphor ideas are plants. His ideas have finally come to fruition. That idea died on the vine. That’s a budding theory. It will take years for that idea to come to full flower. He views chemistry as a mere offshoot of physics. Mathematics has many branches. The seeds of his great ideas were planted in his youth. She has a fertile imagination. Here’s an idea that I’d like to plant in your mind. He has a barren mind. (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 47)
Kövecses describes mappings from the source domain of plants as complex abstract systems are plants, and shows that target domains include “social organizations (such as companies), scientific disciplines, people, economic and political systems, human relationships, [and] sets of ideas” (2002: 98). He illustrates the mapping of growth from the source domain onto the target domain using corpus examples taken from a learner’s guide to metaphor, Cobuild English Guides 7: Metaphor (Deignan 1995).
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
In the study I report here, aiming to investigate the extent of coherence of the mapping onto the target domain, all the central lexis of the domain of plants were examined in the corpus. These included the words identified by Lakoff and Johnson, above, and related words identified through searches of collocates in the corpus, thesauri and WordNet, a thesaurus available on the Internet. The concordances of the following word forms were examined. Except where indicated, all citations were examined. plant plants planting planted (sample 1000) budding bud buds flourish (vb) flourishes (vb) flourishing flourished bloom blooms blooming bloomed blossom blossoms blossoming blossomed flower flowers flowering flowered wither withers withering withered shrivel shrivels shriveling shriveled wilt wilts wilting wilted offshoot offshoots fruition fruit (sample 1000) fruits harvest vine sow seed seeds (sample 1000) root roots (sample 1000) branch fertile barren
Main findings The study produced four central findings, the first of which is that overall, the corpus data were found to be consistent with the hypothesis that our knowledge about plants and their behavior is mapped onto various target domains, all of which seem to have an inherent structure that includes an element of development. The majority of metaphorical citations for plant lexis can be explained as realizations of this mapping, both in terms of numbers of citations (tokens) and numbers of senses (semantic types).
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Secondly, a few metaphorical uses were found that did not seem to fit into the overall mapping quite so well; they are possible but not entirely straightforward realizations of the overall conceptual metaphor. For example, a frequent non-literal use of withering is found in collocations such as a withering look or withering criticism. It could be argued that this meaning of withering is something like “prevent or slow down the development of someone’s ideas or feelings”. This might fit the conceptual metaphor but is not a completely satisfactory account, particularly as there is no corresponding literal use of withering. Another example is the more frequent of the two metaphorical meanings of barren, which appears to mean “lacking”, rather than “not allowing reproduction”, in expressions such as emotionally barren. Similarly, the metaphorical meaning of grapevine, “informal network”, is not an obvious realization of a conceptual metaphor of growth and development. The third main finding was that some metaphorical uses of plant lexis only occur in one or two very fixed lexical structures; for instance, the noun form bud is only used metaphorically in the expression nip in the bud, and nominal bloom only appears as a metaphor in the expressions in bloom, into bloom and in full bloom. In terms of their meanings, these metaphors can be interpreted within the growth mapping, but a theory of structural mapping does not account for their very limited linguistic range. Fourthly, the target domain, complex abstract systems, as described by Kövecses (2002), can be divided into a number of sub-domains, the main ones being business, relationships, ideas and people. Some plant words have a strong association with one sub-domain, and rarely or never appear in the others, for no clear reason; for instance, words referring to people and businesses are frequently the subject of metaphorical blossom and flourish, but not of wither. In contrast, metaphorical flower and its inflections are strongly associated with creative projects, and not used to talk about businesses in the corpus.
Detailed findings A selection of the findings is now presented in detail, in tabular form (Table 8.1), beginning with a detailed study of the central word plant*, followed by other words grouped semantically. Further discussion is provided below each table, and then the semantic relations between metaphorical senses are considered. (A * signals that all inflections of the word were also studied.)
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
Table 8.1 1000 citations of plant* Number of Meaning citations Literal uses 515 202 229 18 17 8 6
Example
Literal, noun Literal, verb
. . . buy well-nurtured plants from the garden shop. In the old days when you planted a crop there were loads of weeds. Factory The plant will be shut down for two weeks. Place a bomb No group has yet said that it planted the bomb. Place other concrete The women planted themselves in front of the stalls and object crossed their arms to wait. Place with intent to They had planted drugs in our bags. deceive Place a kiss [He] planted a smacker on each of his cheeks.
Metaphorical uses 4 Place idea 1 Spy
What happened planted seeds of doubt in some minds. He was a plant.
The other three metaphorical citations from the first category of metaphorical uses are: (3) The treaty called for a single European currency by 1999, and planted the seeds for common European foreign and defence policies. (4) The seed of caring planted by a simple farm family has flourished. (5) . . . planted the idea.
As the Table 8.1 shows, the metaphorical use of the word plant* is rare, accounting for only one in every two hundred citations. Where the word is used metaphorically, there is a tendency for it to collocate with seed or seeds. There are 8964 citations of plant* in the corpus altogether, 152 of which include the words seed or seeds within the 80 character span of the concordance citation. Of these, 24 are metaphorical, a far higher proportion than in the complete concordance of plant*. The smaller the span studied, the more likely the meaning is to be metaphorical; if seed(s) occurs more than four words away from plant*, the meaning tends to be literal, but where it occurs within three or four words, especially where seed(s) appears to the right of plant*, there is a strong tendency for the meanings of plant* and seed(s) to be metaphorical. The pattern whereby two words from the same source domain are used together with metaphorical meanings is found repeatedly in the corpus, and is explored in
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
more detail in the following chapter. Here, it is noted that the mapping tends to be of the entire phrase plant a seed, rather than the verb alone. The single noun use of plant as a metaphor does not appear to be a realization of the complex abstract systems mapping. More instances of metaphor were found when words describing flowers and flowering were studied. The main senses, frequencies and examples are given in the Table 8.2. With the exception of flourish, the words in this set can occur as either nouns or verbs both in the source domain of plants and in the target domain. Flourish has a noun use meaning “exaggerated wave”, which is occasionally extended metaphorically, and is sometimes used as a verb; citations of this meaning were not included in these counts. Disregarding this apparently unrelated meaning, and the differences in frequency of different parts of speech between the words, it seems that in the source domain the five lexemes have a loosely synonymous relationship, while bud, blossom and bloom can additionally be regarded as hyponymous to flower. In the target domain, the corpus citations suggest that all five words function as loose synonyms, with a tendency for some words to collocate with particular semantic sets; for instance, flower is associated with creative projects, while blossom and bud have a strong association with relationships and personal development. An argument could be put forward for treating metaphorical flower as superordinate to metaphorical bud, blossom and bloom, but there is no strong support for this in the citations. It is also interesting to note that flower is infrequent as a metaphor in relation to some of the other words from this set; numerically there are fewer citations of metaphorical flower than metaphorical blossom, and considered in relation to the number of literal uses in the corpus, flower is the least significant metaphor of the group. It was noted above that the metaphorical meaning of plant is also infrequent relative to its literal use. For this lexical set at least, words with more specific meanings in the source domain are more frequent as metaphors. In contrast, words that have a more general source domain meaning, and which, probably as a consequence, are highly frequent, do not have frequent metaphorical meanings. The tendency noted in the previous chapter, for source domain nouns to be used as verbs in the target domain, was again seen in several words in this group. Nominal blossom appears as a metaphor just four times, at least half of which are archaic, but as a verb the metaphor is frequent, accounting for 98% of the concordance of blossomed. The concordance for blossoming is split between verbal and adjectival uses, verbal uses tend to be metaphorical while adjectival ones are predominantly literal.
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
Table 8.2 The lexis of flowering Word
Frequency
Meanings, examples
bud
114 citations (after proper names removed)
buds budding
194 158
budded flourish
3 155 verb
80 literal, 34 metaphorical All 34 metaphorical citations are from the expression “nip in the bud” “In such communities, crime is often nipped in the bud by public pressure.” All citations are literal 3 literal; 155 metaphorical Describes people, relationships, businesses. “From her earliest schooldays, the budding young star wanted to turn her back on what she described as ‘a boring life in Pinner’.” All literal 45 literal, 110 metaphorical Subjects include business, love, terrorism. “. . . creating a more favourable and positive environment in which business can flourish.” 5 literal, 33 metaphorical “Crime flourishes in conditions of deprivation.” 11 literal, 113 metaphorical Typical subjects are country, business, person, industry. The most frequent right collocate is business. “The two countries have flourishing business ties but different political systems.” 9 literal, 137 metaphorical “Slavery flourished in ancient Greece and Rome.” 58 verbal, of which 6 metaphorical “Her business talents were late to bloom.” 186 nominal, of which 8 metaphorical. All metaphorical uses appear in fixed expressions: in bloom, in full bloom, into bloom. “Capitalism was in full bloom.” 238 literal, 4 metaphorical All the metaphorical uses are verbal. “Joy blooms from wartime sorrow.” 76 literal, 17 metaphorical, 76 expletive “Her talents are blooming.” “My blooming phone’s just gone and bust.” 26 literal, 9 metaphorical “. . . social deserts where communities once bloomed.” noun in 169 citations, of which 2 are metaphorical, but archaic. verb in 60 citations, of which 5 are literal and 55 metaphorical. “Venture capitalists provide the vital infusion of funds to help budding companies blossom.”
flourishes 38 verb flourishing 124
flourished 146 bloom
244 (when proper names excluded)
blooms
242
blooming 169
bloomed
35
blossom
229
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Table 8.2 (continued) Word
Frequency
blossoms
130
Meanings, examples
128 literal, 2 metaphorical Both metaphorical uses are verbal. “. . . the player who doesn’t make an impression in the reserves but blossoms in the first team.” blossoming 62 30 literal, 32 metaphorical “Demand is blossoming in the luxury market.” blossomed 118 3 literal; 115 metaphorical The top left lexical collocates are romance, love and career. “The actor turned to Karine for consolation and their love blossomed.” flower 2162 Noun metaphor very rare. The only significant occurrence is in 4 citations of flower of : “Scotland will watch the flower of its youth suffer the hell of heroin addiction.” No citations of Lakoff and Johnson’s come to flower were found (1980: 47). flowers sample 1000 No metaphorical uses found flowering 636 607 literal, 29 metaphorical. All metaphorical uses occur in the expression flowering of, which has only two literal uses. Almost all of the metaphorical citations are associated with creativity. “Though Ashoka’s empire fragmented politically after his death, the great flowering of Indian culture begun in his reign continued.” flowered 178 173 literal, 5 metaphorical “That influence flowered when Rome appointed him archbishop.”
There is a smaller set of words, almost antonymous to the above, consisting of wither, wilt and shrivel (Table 8.3). This corpus study of lexis from the source domain of sickly and dying plants shows some established metaphorical uses. These are antonymous with the target domain meanings of the lexis of flowering. In particular, flourish and wither are used antonymously within several citations, and share collocates. This is consistent with a coherent mapping of source domain relations onto the target domain. The metaphorical uses of this group of words are less frequent than their antonyms however; it may be that literal alternatives are preferred, that other metaphors are used such as those from the source domains of direction or reduction (fall, contract), or that growing is talked about more frequently than its opposite. The last plant study to be reported in detail is the interesting set of lexis around fruit, summarized in Table 8.4.
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
Table 8.3 Wither, wilt, shrivel Word
frequency
wither*
190 (without proper names, or “horse” sense of withers)
shrivel* wilt*
Meanings, examples
111 literal, 79 metaphorical Metaphorical citations can be divided into two senses: “become weaker” (48 citations), and “criticizing” (31 citations). The “become weaker” sense includes 6 citations of wither on the vine. “. . . Lincoln’s view that slavery would wither and die.” “Tyranny flourishes in some lands but withers in others.” “[He] turned abruptly round and gave his wife a withering look.” 67 64 literal, 3 metaphorical “Wild generosity often shrivels up in the cold wind of reality.” 105 (without 87 literal, 18 metaphorical proper “The market wilted in line with softer overseas bonds.” names or archaic form of will)
The majority of metaphorical uses in Table 8.4 also support the notion that the structure of the source domain of plants is mapped coherently onto the target domain. The metaphorical meanings of the expressions bear fruit and come to fruition: “achieve the result of efforts spent over time”; are those that would be expected from a mapping of what we know about plants and their behavior. The expressions are loosely synonymous as in the source domain, and are also loosely antonymous with die or wither on the vine, in both source and target domains. Again, there is a tendency to linguistic restrictions; metaphorical fruit is rarely used except either in collocation with bear* or followed by of and a noun phrase; the converse also applies, these strings being rare with literal meanings. As for previous groups of words from this domain, there are a few additional meanings not accounted for by the growth metaphor: the Biblical forbidden fruit, and grapevine. As was the case for the “flower” group, the most frequent source domain word, fruit, is one of the least frequent words in the target domain. Fertile and barren, were also studied. These words are of interest because they occur in Lakoff and Johnson’s list of examples (1980: 47), and because intuition suggests that they are antonymous in the source domain at least. In fact, their literal uses suggest that they do not properly belong to the source domain of plants; fertile is usually used to talk about human fertility rather than plants, and perhaps contrary to intuition, its literal antonym is not barren, but
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Table 8.4 Fruit, vine Word
frequency
Meanings, examples
fruit
3040 (sample 950 literal, 50 metaphorical, broken down as follows: 1000) – 1 metaphorical verb. – 19 fruit of : “[The song] ‘Hold On’ is the first fruit of this collaboration.” (4 of these are archaic, e.g. “. . . fruit of her womb. . . ”) – 24 other citations in which fruit means “result of efforts”; 21 of these include bear or its inflections: “Before the idea of modernity could bear fruit. . . ” – 2 quotations of “By their fruit you’ll recognise them”. – 4 forbidden fruit: “Among those formerly forbidden fruit East Germans are now reading ‘Die Spiegel’.” fruits 662 535 literal, 127 metaphorical 80 metaphorical citations are in the string the fruits of. “They swore to share and publish the fruits of their research.” “. . . to enjoy the fruits of peace.” fruition 79 (without 3 literal, 76 metaphorical brand The literal citations all appear in the string come to fruition. names) “. . . if the merger talks made public last week come to fruition.” vine 124 (without 117 literal, 7 metaphorical proper Metaphorical citations are 1 citations of die on the vine, and 6 of names) wither on the vine. “Local authorities that fail to provide good service will lose money and could wither on the vine.” grapevine 66 31 literal, 35 metaphorical “From what we hear on the grapevine, the cash involved would be out of our league.”
infertile. Literal barren is usually used to describe land. Both words generate interesting clusters of metaphors, but those are not particularly relevant here.
Semantic relations in the target domain The corpus studies of the lexis of plants have suggested that this domain is consistently mapped onto the domain of development. A number of pairs and groups of words show semantic relations in the target domain that are consistent with the source domain; these include the loose synonymy between bloom, blossom and flower, between wither, shrivel and wilt, and between bear fruit and come to fruition. Several pairs of words were found to function antonymously in the target domain; these include flourish and wither, and bear fruit and die
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
on the vine. Hyponymy is a less easy relationship to establish, as evidence in language in use is possible but rare. It can be identified if a speaker explicitly indicates that one term is a superordinate of a list, in citations such as: (6) . . . plenty of diced, crunchy fresh vegetables such as celery, cucumber and capsicum.
where such as in this structure indicates that diced crunchy vegetables is the superordinate of celery, cucumber and capsicum. However the absence of such citations is not evidence for hyponymy not existing between two meanings of a word. What can be gleaned from the corpus citations is that the source domain superordinate terms studied are less frequently used as metaphors, and when they are used metaphorically, as flower is, they do not seem to be superordinate to other words in the domain. As well as the paradigmatic relations of synonymy and antonymy, syntagmatic relations, the relationships between collocates, also seem to be mapped to some extent. This is evidenced by the target domain uses of strings such as put down roots and sow/plant seeds. (Syntagmatic relations are the subject of the next chapter.) However, the exceptions and inconsistencies found seem to be at a detailed and relatively insignificant level.
Corpus investigations: Light and dark Metonymy-based metaphor The second group of words that I examined are words used to talk about light and darkness. This group was chosen as an example of a mapping that has an element of metonymy. The mapping is discussed in the Conceptual Metaphor literature: Kövecses discusses the use of these metaphors to talk about happiness (1991), and cites corpus studies that show that they also frequently realize knowing is seeing (Kövecses 2002). Barcelona writes Light is likely to arouse a feeling of confidence, safety, liveliness or happiness etc and physical well-being, which is positively valued, whereas dark tends to bring about a feeling of insecurity, melancholy and physical unease, which is negatively valued. (2000: 40)
The use of light to talk about things which are known, and dark to talk about things which are secret is also obviously experiential, and therefore metonymic in its grounds. However, the figurative uses are not pure metonyms. There is
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
a semantic gulf between the literal and figurative senses of the words, rather than the continuum associated with metonymy; for most or all figurative uses of light and dark, a literal interpretation is not possible. In as far as it can be established, there seems to be cross-domain mapping. Literal light and dark belong to source domains of perception and possibly colour, while the figurative uses belong in target domains of cognition and emotion. The existence of a metonymic motivation combined with cross-domain mapping makes light and dark metonymy-based metaphors by the criteria developed in Chapter 3. If it is correct that metonymically-based conceptual metaphors are less systematic than pure conceptual metaphors, then the target domain semantic relations between the key terms will be less consistent with source domain relations than was found for plant metaphors. For this study, 1000 citations of the words light and dark were examined, with all citations of their inflections and derivations, and all citations of other key source domain terms, such as gloomy and bright.
Main findings Concordances for light and its inflected and derived forms showed realizations of three conceptual mappings: known is light, which could be seen as related to knowing is seeing, goodness is light, and happiness is light, the last being rare. In terms of raw frequency, known is light is by far the most significant. It also generates a larger number of fixed, conventionalized linguistic expressions than the other mappings. Concordances for dark and its inflected and derived forms show realizations of related mappings: unhappiness (and negativity) are dark, unknown is dark, and evil is dark. In some cases, there seemed to be overlap between the mappings; for instance where something that is unknown is described as dark, there is a strong implication that it is also negative. In terms of frequency, unhappiness is dark is the most significant mapping. For light and dark and their inflected and derived forms, there are parallels of meaning, but not many clear examples of antonymy between two word forms. This is partly because the two words behave very differently in grammatical terms; light as an adjective meaning “bright” has almost no metaphorical uses, while adjectival dark has a range of frequent metaphorical meanings. As nouns, both appear in fixed metaphorical expressions, but there are many more that include light than including dark. The less central terms from the source domain show metaphorical extensions related to the metaphorical meanings of light and dark, but, as was found for temperature terms, the patterning is
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
incomplete, with a word such as gloomy having a parallel with one use of dark but not with others.
Detailed findings Investigating concordance data for light presented two problems; firstly, the adjective form is homonymous with the word meaning “not heavy”, and the two words have to be distinguished manually. Secondly, light can be a noun, adjective or verb; in order to study these separately, the automatic tagger was used, which achieved less than 90% accuracy for this word form. Concordances of all three grammatical forms were studied in some detail, so it is unlikely that metaphorical uses of any frequency were overlooked, but nonetheless frequency information should be regarded as indicative rather than highly accurate. For the noun form of light, the corpus gave 7762 citations, of which a sample 1000 were studied. 726 of these are literal uses, 114 appear to have been mistagged (most were in fact verbs), which leaves 160 metaphorical uses. They are broken down as in Table 8.5. When the verbal form of light was examined, around 60 citations of the 1000 word citation were found to be instances of come/came to light and bring/brought to light, that had been mistagged. These metaphorical uses are therefore more frequent than the 5 found in the above sample would suggest. Of 1000 citations of the nominal form of lights, only 9 appear to have been mistagged. 966 are literal, leaving 25 metaphorical uses, which were broken down as in Table 8.6. The adjectival form light is only used as a metaphor in the collocation light years, a realization of difference is physical distance, in citations such as: (7) The management structure we have offered the clubs is light years away from anything the RFU has offered them in the past.
A number of metaphorical uses of light can be traced to its meaning of “not heavy”, but these were disregarded here. There are relatively few metaphorical citations of the verbal use of light. Those that were found are realizations of happiness is light, are phrasal verbs with up, and almost always refer to the face or eyes, as in the following citations: (8) He looked very ill and his eyes lit up only when he saw an old friend. (9) Hinckley’s face lit up with a glow of rare pleasure.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Table 8.5 Metaphorical uses of nominal light from a 1000 word sample Freq. Meaning
Lexical phrase
Example
known is light (perceiving is seeing): 123 citations in the light The course considers selected issues in 60 taking account of particular information of/ in light of geomorphology, climatology and biogeography in the light of recent research. or perspectives It would have to consider its investments in light of the proposed laws. Most people that are in love see things in a 22 understand something cast/ show/ very rosy light. in a particular way see/ appear He’s made her see life in a positive light. in a particular kind of light . . . a summing up of the main points that 18 provide new, additional cast/ shed/ focuses our minds and casts a sharper light or more detailed ways throw/ give on the issue. light on of understanding An examination of Haig’s attitude towards something his personal staff sheds light on this subject. 7 have a sudden see the light Lyn’s seen the light. realization of the truth (often ironic) 6 central person, leading light [He] was for a while a leading light in provider of knowledge literary London. or ideas 5 become known to come/ bring When the abuse and his gay affair came to many people to light light, the guilt the young priest has to deal with becomes almost too much to bear. 5 cease to be hidden, be see the light [There is] far too much self-indulgent, soporific and frankly laughable third available for people to of day see division material that should never see the light of day. goodness is light: 23 citations 15 source of goodness, no frequent hope (some uses lexical archaic, some religious) phrases 7 future hope light at the end of the tunnel 1 kindness (often ironic) sweetness and light Other: 14 citations 14 permission to proceed with a course of action
green light
. . . light of my life. . . . celebration at the coming of the light. All I can do is look for the light at the end of the tunnel, hope that both sides give a bit. If you have watched children together, you know that all is not sweetness and light in the world of the young. The council were happy to give the green light which is very satisfying after such a lot of discussion.
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
Table 8.6 Metaphorical uses of nominal lights from a 1000 word sample Freq. Meaning
Lexical phrase
known is light (perceiving is seeing): 21 citations 17 central person, provider leading lights (12), of knowledge or ideas lesser lights (4), society lights (1) 3 inspirational/ important guiding lights (2) person or principle lights of my life (1)
1
in one’s judgement
goodness is light: 4 citations 4 good/ bad point in time
Example . . . one of the leading lights of the Civil Rights movement.
. . . the movement’s guiding lights, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Station, had died a decade before. by one’s own lights [the] administration have, by their own lights, too frequently missed chances.
Bright lights (2), low lights (2)
One of the few bright lights financially was this summer’s blockbuster hit Terminator 2.
A sample of 1000 citations of dark used as an adjective was examined. Of these, 93 had been mistagged, and were in fact nouns. 773 citations were literal, and 134 were metaphorical. The metaphorical citations have been broken down as shown in Table 8.7. A corpus search for nominal forms of dark produced only 154 citations, although as was commented above, a number of other uses had been incorrectly tagged as adjectives. Of these 154 citations, 10 were mistagged, 102 were literal, and 42 were metaphorical. Of the 42 metaphorical uses, 39 are accounted for by the expression be/keep in the dark. Of the citations that had been mistagged as adjectives a number of further examples were found. These citations realize unknown is dark, in citations such as: (10) The patients were also in the dark. They did not even know they were involved in an experiment. (11) . . . criticism from families and friends of the Antares crew that they’d been kept in the dark about whether the men’s bodies would be recovered. (12) If you have been left in the dark about various routine matters, light will be shed in due course.
The other three citations include one instance of the expression whistle in the dark. The verbal form darken and inflections shows few metaphorical citations, the majority of which are accounted for by the expression (not) darken some-
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Table 8.7 Metaphorical uses of adjectival dark, from a 1000 citation sample Freq. Meaning
Lexical phrase
Example
unhappiness is darkness, negative is dark: 73 citations 18 Unhappy with a word He recalls those dark days when he denoting a period was beset by disillusionment with of time the world of film. . . . helping her to write a book about that dark period in her life. 13 unhappy, lacking in hope relatively freely Things aren’t as dark as they seem. combining Denise, 31, explores the dark worlds of mental illness, drugs, alcoholism and child abuse. 5 unhappy, negative dark cloud The organizers hope to demonstrate that the dark cloud of recession is finally lifting. 20 expressing negative with a word It’s a dark and somewhat sad inner emotions, without hope denoting a work of city novel. art 11 unhappy, difficult, with a word [He] continues to represent a dark expressing negative denoting a speech chapter in the state’s history. emotions act . . . dark mutterings about the race being a lottery. 6 unhappy or shameful dark secret unknown is dark: 40 citations 17 a part of someone that is usually hidden, generally unhappy or haunted 13 someone who may perform unexpected well in a competitive situation 5 hidden, generally negative or unhappy 5 Unknown evil is darkness: 21 citations 13 Menacing 8
Satanic
dark side
. . . but there is a dark side to him as well.
dark horse
He may have only won two tournaments but he is my dark horse for the title. He pokes his finger into the dark hidden corners of their lives. . . . explorers returning from the dark continent.
relatively freely combining dark continent (Africa) relatively freely combining dark forces
. . . people who make dark choices . . . the dark forces . . . dark gods
one’s door, meaning “be so angry with someone that you never visit them / allow them to visit you”. The other citations are analogous to the metaphorical uses of dark described above. Darkness was also studied, and metaphorical meanings were found in the domains of unhappiness, evil and unknown.
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
One of the near synonyms of dark when it is used in its literal sense is gloomy, which is used metaphorically to talk about unhappiness, in citations such as the following: (13) The mood is quite gloomy and I think people are becoming really desperate. (14) The outlook is particularly gloomy among manufacturers.
However, the knowledge mapping is not realized linguistically by either gloomy or gloom, which are never used to talk about secrecy in the corpus. Several other words from the source domain of light and darkness are used metaphorically in the corpus. Bright has several metaphorical meanings that describe happiness and optimism, as in the following citations: (15) There was brighter news. . . (16) Prospects for investment looked bright.
Shadow is also used in metaphorical expressions apparently generated by unhappiness is dark, in citations such as: (17) . . . with the shadow of war looming. (18) Unsettling trends on financial management [. . . ] have cast a shadow on our traditional excellence.
Neither bright nor shadow are used in the target domain of knowledge/secrecy, although bright is used to describe intelligence, in citations such as: (19) Caine was a bright boy but badly schooled.
Semantic relations in the target domain It would seem logical to predict that light and dark would be used antonymously to talk about the target domains of emotion, knowledge and goodness and evil, but this is rarely the case in the data. Their metaphorical meanings are distributed unevenly across the different parts of speech, light tending to be nominal when metaphorical, and dark tending to be adjectival. The two words also tend to realize different target domains, most metaphorical uses of light being associated with knowledge and most metaphorical meanings of dark being associated with unhappiness. Even where the words coincide in part of speech and in metaphorical meaning, the result may not be antonymy; the expression in (the) light of is not the opposite of in the dark.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
There are two sets of roughly antonymous expressions however; these are (be) in the dark, and shed, cast or give light; and the verbal forms light (up) and darken, when used to talk about people’s facial expressions. These account for only a minority of the metaphorical citations. In other cases where light and dark share collocates, the overall meaning is very different: dark years are years of sadness and lack of hope, while the expression light years refers to literal or psychological distance. It seems that darkness stands metonymically for unhappiness, secrecy, and occasionally sin and Satanism, while light stands for happiness, knowledge, and sometimes goodness. Within this loose framework, linguistic expressions are mapped in a very specific way, without reference to an overall semantic structure. The less central terms in the field have some metaphorical meanings that are related to a metaphorical meaning of light or dark, but do not echo all their metaphorical meanings. A large number of metaphorical uses of light and dark occur in fixed expressions. If these are indeed grounded in metonymy, it is tempting to see the entire expression as having been metaphorically mapped, expressing a gestalt, a tiny fragment of physical experience which can stand for the emotions it is often associated with. This might be the case for expressions such as be in the dark, see something in a particular light, see the light of day and others. There thus need be no connection between the various figurative expressions. Such a mapping is also suggested by expressions containing the words shadow and clouds, as in the following citations: (20) . . . [the] tiny Jewish community of 30,000, a shadow of its prewar numbers. (21) He’ll probably live the rest of his life under a cloud.
One exception to the lack of systematicity describe above was found in less conventional uses. Here, it seems writers are more likely to emphasize paradigmatic relations. The following citation contains the only nominal use of dark to mean “sad period of time”, and this is overtly contrasted to a metaphorical use of bright. (22) You have led us [] out of the dark into the dawn of a bright new future.
If this tendency is widespread across innovative metaphors, it would support the arguments of Kittay and Lehrer, cited above, that paradigmatic relations are available for exploitation in developing new senses of words. In other words, literary language may tend to make greater use of relations between target
Chapter 8. Semantic relations in source and target domains
domain words. The findings for this group of metonymy-based metaphors echo those found in the corpus study of temperature terms described earlier (Deignan 1999b). The two studies suggest that where metonymy is an important element in mapping, target domain relations are patchy.
Summary and conclusion The chapter began by discussing the hypothesis that semantic relations between metaphorical senses of words echo those of the source domain when the mapping is one of pure metaphor. This was contrasted with metonymy-based metaphor or metaphor from metonymy, which will tend to produce less coherent target domain relations. Two earlier corpus studies, on war metaphors and temperature terms, were described, and seemed to be consistent with this hypothesis. Two more corpus investigations were then described in more detail: plant metaphors and light/dark metaphors. The first group of metaphors showed a general pattern of coherence in the target domain, while light/dark metaphors were more fragmented, again consistent with the hypothesis. The model of metaphorical mapping which suggests that sense relations are neatly preserved between source and target domain clearly holds for some poetic metaphor, as shown in Lakoff and Turner’s (1989), and Kittay’s (1987) examples. It also seems to explain metaphorical mappings such as argument is war and complex abstract systems are plants. This finding has useful implications for language description, because it offers a systematic explanation for one aspect of lexical behaviour. In contrast to metaphor, metonymically grounded senses of words do not show such coherent patterns. They do show small-scale areas of coherence at the most detailed level, where lexemes seem to develop metaphorical senses that are consistent with relationships between their literal senses. Thus it was found in earlier studies that icy and cold have closely related metaphorical senses of unfriendly formality, echoing their loose synonymy in the source domain, and there is a consistent mapping of the items warm, tepid, lukewarm, cool, icy and chilly onto the domain of friendliness or lack of it. Corpus data are also consistent with mappings at the most generic level, such as emotions are temperatures. For light/dark metaphors, generic metaphors such as happiness is light and knowledge is light / secrecy is darkness seem to be borne out by the linguistic evidence. At the most detailed level, again, there are examples of consistent mapping; between dark and gloomy, or between a few senses of light and dark. However, like temperature metaphors, an overall
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
coherence is lacking. Both studies of metonymy-based metaphor give a picture of loosely-related patches of small scale mappings, within a much more general framework, rather than a consistent one-to-one mapping of domain onto domain at all levels of specificity. The studies discussed in this chapter suggest that distinctions between metaphor, metonymy and related tropes that have been made through semantic analysis of the kind carried out by Goossens (1995) can be confirmed by evidence from language in use. I have argued that distinct types of patterning can be traced in naturally-occurring figurative language, patterns which appear to correspond to the distinctions made through semantic analysis and from hypotheses developed by cognitive linguists. The detailed analysis of surface linguistic features of figurative language can contribute to its classification, and may offer an approach that is potentially both systematic and replicable. Language data are thus valuable for many types of research into figurative language, including research that is not concerned with language itself. A feature of all the mappings explored in this chapter is the development of fixed expressions; these recur time and again in the analysis of metaphors in corpus data. They have been mentioned in passing in many of the studies described so far, and in the following chapter I focus on these specifically.
Note . “On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic” by Wordsworth. Reproduced in Kittay (1987: 259).
Chapter 9
Metaphor and collocation
Introduction The previous two chapters have looked at the way semantic relations are mapped between source and target domains, firstly considering grammar and then paradigmatic relations such as synonymy (sameness), antonymy (opposition) and hyponymy (inclusion). In this chapter, links between words in source and target domains are again examined, but here the focus is on syntagmatic relations, that is, the sequential relationship between a word and the other words that regularly occur in its context. The way in which pairs or groups of words regularly co-occur is described as collocation by applied linguists. In this chapter it will be argued that collocational patterns are very important in considering how people use metaphor, both conventionally and innovatively, and that they have implications further than just language description. In particular, the study of collocational patterns seems to suggest that two forces, which tend to oppose each other, shape the linguistic form of metaphors and metonymies. One force is the need to express and develop abstract and innovative ideas through metaphor; this is very convincingly explained by Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The other force seems to be the human need to communicate unambiguously, and therefore to reuse known sequences of words with meanings that are regularly associated with them. These forces can also be understood as, respectively, the tendency for people to develop creative language, and the opposing tendency for language patterns to become conventionalized. In the corpus studies discussed in this chapter, each of the two forces can be seen in operation at successive levels of detail. Some understandings of “collocation” and the related notion “idiom” are now presented. I then describe how collocation has been handled in the metaphor literature, and compare this with a view from lexicography. In the rest of the chapter, some corpus data are examined in detail; complex patterns of collocation in metaphor are detected and it is concluded that these are not entirely accounted for within Conceptual Metaphor Theory.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Collocation and corpus data Most speakers of English would agree that the word that is most likely to appear after auburn in a naturally-occurring text is hair, and that one of the verbs that often comes before the noun phone is answer. Intuition can also be used to identify mis-collocations of the kind that are produced by language learners, such as give in “Nuclear power does not give pollution,” or produced by children learning their mother tongue, such as poorly in “Dat [that] car poorly”, used by a two-year-old to describe a car that had been damaged in an accident. In one of the earliest discussions of collocation, Firth (1957) claims that one can talk of a strong argument or a powerful argument, strong tea but not usually powerful tea, observations that can be confirmed by intuition. Despite examples such as these, it has been argued in the literature on corpus linguistics that native-speaker intuition is unreliable in identifying frequent collocates for many words (Fox 1986), and that computerized corpora can provide more accurate and detailed information about collocational patterns. For the purposes of this corpus analysis, it is assumed that collocation exists when one word occurs in the environment of another word significantly more frequently than would be expected by chance (Mackin 1978; Sinclair 1991). This can be demonstrated using one of Firth’s examples: strong + argument. The word argument occurs 2449 times in the corpus, or once about every 22,900 words (the corpus having around 56 million words). Strong occurs 9564 times, or once about every 5,900 words. If the corpus were composed of words thrown together randomly, we would expect to find strong + argument next to each other once every 5,900 × 22,800 words, that is, once every 134,520,000 words. In the corpus of 56 million words used for these studies, that means there would be more than a 50% chance of not finding the combination at all; it would certainly not be expected to occur more than once. In fact, the combination occurs 19 times, just over 45 times more frequently than would be expected. This is the simplest way of defining collocation through corpus statistics: two words collocate if their occurrence is significantly higher than random probability would suggest. In fact this is something of a distortion, because grammatical constraints are such that words could not be thrown together completely at random; the fact that strong is an adjective and argument a noun means that in a grammatically normal corpus there would be a higher than random chance of their co-occurring even if normal collocational relationships were not present. Nonetheless, the calculation is nonetheless useful as a rough guide. Writers such as Smajda (1989), Stubbs (1995), Barnbrook (1996)
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
and Hunston (2002) describe various ways in which this rough calculation can be refined. This example shows two more points of interest. Firstly, the collocation is always more significant for the less frequent of the two words; a higher proportion of citations of argument contain the collocation strong argument than do citations of strong. Secondly, a glance at the other collocates of each word shows that strong + argument is not in fact an especially important collocation for either word. Legal, big and good all occur more frequently before argument than does strong, while for strong at least twenty nouns are more frequent in the immediate right slot than argument. The most frequent of these, support, occurs 114 times in this position, and the second most frequent, sense, 92 times, compared with the 19 occurrences of argument. This underlines the weakness of intuition as a source of information about patterns of collocation. While the intuitively obvious strong + argument was found in naturally occurring language, it was a good deal less frequent than combinations that might not spring to mind as readily.
Idiom The notion of “idiom” will be referred to at several points in this chapter, so the term is briefly outlined here. Moon’s (1998) book gives an account of an investigation into the properties of idioms from a corpus perspective, and informs much of this section. Classical examples of idioms are expressions such as kick the bucket, meaning “die”, or raining cats and dogs, meaning “rain heavily”. Fernandez defines them as follows: “Idioms are indivisible units whose components cannot be varied or varied only within definable limits” (1996). Specifically, idioms are generally believed to share the following characteristics: – – –
–
they are composed of more than one word; their meaning is not transparent. They are more than the sum of their parts, and are therefore not decomposable; they are lexically fixed: a synonym cannot usually be substituted for one of the component words; if it is, the idiomatic meaning is lost and the expression is interpreted literally; they are grammatically fixed; for instance, they often cannot be passivized or pluralized without losing their idiomatic meaning.
Corpus data have shown that expressions such as kick the bucket and raining cats and dogs, which exhibit all of these characteristics strongly, are actually rare
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
in language in use. However, other idioms and expressions showing idiomaticity, or idiom-like qualities, are found frequently in natural language data. A number of writers have pointed out that with the exception of the first, the characteristics listed are found to a greater or lesser extent for different idioms. Gibbs and his co-researchers carried out several experiments to test the second characteristic, the decomposability of idioms. They start with the premise that if an idiom is based on a conceptual metaphor, it can in fact be decomposed, and their experimental data tend to suggest that this is the case (for example, Gibbs, Nayak, & Cutting 1989; Gibbs, Nayak, Bolton, & Keppel 1989). Moon shows with a number of corpus examples that the third and fourth characteristics exist on a cline rather than being absolute. She gives a number of examples from her corpus of lexical variations on idioms, including the following: throw/toss in the towel blow up in one’s face / explode in one’s face hold a gun/pistol to someone’s head (be like) a cat on a hot tin roof / a cat on hot bricks throw someone to the wolves/lions
(1998: 125–127)
One of the most striking of her examples of lexical variation is the expression shake in one’s shoes, meaning “be very afraid”. Moon uses corpus evidence to show how “. . . verbs meaning ‘shake’ are associated with nouns meaning ‘footwear’ to connote fear and apprehension” (ibid.: 161), giving the following example: British policemen are already quaking in their size 11s at the thought of keeping the warring tribes apart when the European Championship comes here in 1996.
Moon also finds a degree of grammatical variation in some idioms; for instance, stab someone in the back, meaning “treat someone badly, thus betraying trust” can be nominalized to form a stab in the back, and waste one’s breath is similarly understandable as a waste of breath (ibid.: 113). Many writers now believe that there is a cline from “pure” or “classical” idioms, which show all the characteristics described above, through to collocations that simply have a degree of metaphoricity and some tendency to fixedness. The studies reported in this chapter do not tackle the characteristics of idiom or the boundaries between idiom and collocation. Instead, they approach these issues from the perspective of metaphor, and try to find out
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
more about what collocation can tell us about metaphor and metaphor theory. Nonetheless, the notion of idiom is importantly related and will be referred to.
Collocation and meaning A Conceptual Metaphor Theory perspective Writers working within Conceptual Metaphor Theory frequently cite multiword expressions that apparently occur in more than one domain. The following examples are given by Lakoff and Johnson (1980): “We haven’t covered much ground.” “We’ll just have to go our separate ways.” “His mother’s death hit him hard.” “Let’s let that idea simmer on the back burner for a while.” “She’ll rise to the top.”
The italicized words are those which are used in both the source and target domains; for example, each of the words cover and ground has a meaning in both the source domain of journeys and in the target domain of thought. Similarly, go and ways have meanings in the source domain of journeys, and the target domain of love. If these examples are representative of the patterns that appear in naturally-occurring language, it seems possible that not only single words, but whole linguistic expressions such as cover ground and go . . . way might be metaphorically mapped. Because their main concern is not with linguistic structures, Conceptual Metaphor Theorists tend not to comment on these patterns. However to a corpus linguist they are immediately interesting, and seem to suggest that collocation is sometimes found between pairs or clusters of words in both their literal and metaphorical uses.
A lexicographical perspective on meaning and collocation Lexicographers working with corpus data assert that typical collocates can be used to establish the existence of distinct uses of a word. For instance, Moon (1987) shows that gap has a number of different meanings, which include a literal meaning and at least two metaphorical meanings, one referring to time, and another meaning “discrepancy”. The literal sense collocates with words such as mountains, teeth, and in, the “time” sense collocates with year and of,
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
while the “discrepancy” sense collocates with close (verb), poor, rich, widen, bridge (verb), trade, generation, narrow, and reduce. A similar pattern is seen for the word cowboy. Corpus citations show that the word has two distinguishable meanings, a literal one which refers to the occupation of looking after cattle in North America, and a metaphorical one, which is used to express a poor opinion of a workman. The first meaning collocates with words such as country and boots; to form compound nouns, and with other source domain lexis such as cattle and Indians. The second collocates with plumber, electrician, cab driver, again forming compound nouns, and verbs such as rip off. These data suggest that different meanings of a word tend to have different groups of collocates. If this is consistently the case, it runs counter to the suggestion that collocations may be metaphorically mapped and therefore shared between literal and metaphorical meanings. The question: “Do clusters of words which collocate in a given source domain also tend to collocate when they are used metaphorically?” would be answered “yes” on the basis of Lakoff and Johnson’s data, but “no” by corpus lexicographers. While this question may seem to be important mainly to language description, its investigation in the corpus raises issues of interest for other fields.
Metaphorical mapping of collocates in the corpus Methodology In the research reported in this chapter, I looked at whether groups of collocates from various source domains are used extensively in the target domain, and, if so, whether there are any consistent patterns of use, through an extensive study of the collocates of two lexical items: price and rise. In Chapter 4, I discussed the difficulty of finding a starting point for corpus investigation of metaphor. In a purely corpus-driven approach, the starting point would be determined by a preliminary automatic analysis of the corpus. It is difficult to see how this can be carried out for metaphor, which can normally only be identified by a human analyst (though Berber-Sardinha is developing automatic procedures for identifying candidate metaphors in a corpus; in press). Like most of the studies reported in this book therefore, this one takes an approach that tends towards corpus-driven but is not purely so. I selected price and rise for study for two reasons: firstly, they are of midlevel frequency; the behaviour of the small number of highly frequent words may be unrepresentative of the wider lexicon, while very infrequent words
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
would not be sufficiently represented in the corpus and might also be atypical. The second reason for choosing these words was that they realize metaphors fairly widely discussed in the Conceptual Metaphor Theory literature: money and orientation. In an earlier publication I described a study that used a similar methodology, concentrating on the metaphorical and literal meanings of the noun blow (Deignan 1999c). To some extent this work builds on and develops those findings. I extracted the entire concordance of each word, then used the Bank of English software to obtain an overview of its most frequent collocates, up to three places to the left and right of the search word. Figure 9.1, below, shows the overview of collocates for the node price. (The collocations towards the top of the overview are skewed by the existence of a number of catalogues in the corpus, in which price appears in lists of products.) The overview indicates, for example, that in the immediate left slot, and is the most frequently occurring word. If we look further down the list of left collocates, we find that share, half and cut are frequent in the immediate left slot. Similarly, tag, rises, index and war are frequent in the immediate right slot. Two slots to the right, pay is the 14th most frequent collocate, due to the frequency of expressions that include the string price to pay, such as a heavy/small/high price to pay. The software enables the researcher to focus on a particular collocate from this overview, and then extract all the citations containing the collocate. For instance, placing the cursor on the word high, the 17th most frequent word in the immediate left slot, prompts the program to produce the information that there are 104 citations of this collocation. The concordance of these can then be viewed with a further command. The above concordance consists of 10 citations randomly selected from the full concordance of high + price. The full concordance of high + price can then be re-analysed to find its frequent collocates; this produces the overview in Figure 9.2. As can be seen, pay is the most frequent item in the slot two words to the right of the node, and pay and its inflections appear in several other slots. There are seven citations of the collocation high + price + 1 word + pay; the concordance can again be expanded from the above overview, as shown below Figure 9.2. This process could be continued many times, but, as seen from this example, as the detail is increasingly specified, samples rapidly become smaller. It is unlikely that a further analysis of collocates from the above citations would produce anything meaningful. The advantage of using such programs is that the researcher is able to examine patterns extracted from many thousands of citations, and yet combine this with a qualitative analysis of detailed linguistic patterns from individual citations.
catalog model the sizes at number catalogue to
a and of in for list is photo item s
number the a descriptio code at
for s in of and goods an to is pay that
and the descriptio a share
half in cut purchase orig asking of sale s high retail low same
Figure 9.1a Overview of collocates of price
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE
of
for pound and is to tag the on in was rises index war increases waterhouse that has
the a pound and in dollar of for is to pay on it that one be you
photo picture the model a to
for and catalog in of table is pound 99 photos be s dollar
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
1. not save the jobs at such a 2. doing so, because of the 3. The market has had extremely 4. em, you’ll continue to pay a 5. minister got upset with the 6. be pushed up by the current 7. cancer. Ministers fear the 8. his silence to tell of the 9. water each day, despite the 10. <M02> You know I mean the
Concordance 9.1b Concordance of high + price high price.
Thousands more jobs in high price at which it has contracted to buy high price-earnings ratios, but these have high price in terms of insecurity, shame, and high price of death, and founded a company high price of crude oil and that the next high price of creams and lotions stops sunhigh-price paid by his family after the high price they have to pay for the high price wages these council top brass gets
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
a pay paid the with of by such despite
a high NODE of the NODE for very NODE
current NODE to NODE in NODE and extremely NODE scandal this NODE tag to NODE a with NODE on
1. some devoted smokers, that’s a 2. for you.
Is £ 18 a 3. ild’s behavior. That is a very 4. of the book is rather a 5. R. St. Pierre, Dulwich. 6. minds like Bevilacqua was a 7. takes their breath away is the
high high high high High high high
price price price price price price price
Concordance 9.2b Concordance of high + price + to + pay to to to to to to we
pay a the their crude to it these they the a
for and
to low oil
pay, especially if they’re on a pay for peace of mind on the pay. Third, there is frequently pay for this article that pay MAY I take this pay for ‘reconciliation". But pay to live here. There are two
Figure 9.2a Overview of collocates of high price
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
The overview of collocates needs to be supplemented by checking the entire concordance, because patterns could be missed, in particular: –
–
Collocates which have a number of inflections may appear less significant than they actually are. For instance, pay is a frequent collocate of price, but appears as pay, pays, paid, and paying, each of which is seen as a different word form by the software. It is possible that none of these individual inflections would appear especially frequent, whereas taken together they may be significant. Some collocates can appear in a number of slots; pay and its inflections can appear three or two words to the left of price, and two or three words to its right, in pay a high price, pay a price, a price to pay, a price has been paid. Again, this may lead to a word that is a relatively important collocate appearing low down in the lists of collocates for each slot.
For these reasons, although an overview of collocates is a very useful starting point, it tends to highlight very fixed expressions, and underemphasize collocations which are more flexible morphologically and syntactically. For example, the phrase at any price will be found more readily than combinations of pay and price, because the former has no variants, and may therefore be perceived as having greater significance than more flexible collocates, perhaps erroneously. Because earlier studies, reported in Chapter 7, had suggested that there are often different patterns across different inflections, concordances for prices, and for rose (verb), rising and rises were also studied. Having extracted concordances for price, rise and their most frequent collocates using the methodology described, I tried to determine whether the meaning was literal or metaphorical for each citation, and in this way built up a picture of detailed syntactic and lexical patterns in which the different meanings appear. A large amount of detail about uses of each word was extracted, and this is not all reported; the following sections describe the main patterns found and give typical examples of each from the two studies.
Patterns of collocation In this subsection, I describe the main meanings of price and rise that I found, and then outline three ways in which collocates can be associated with meaning. The full concordance of price consists of 17,148 citations. A randomly selected extract from the concordance (Concordance 9.3), gives a first impression of a mix between literal and metaphorical meanings, the main metaphorical
price crash in the early 1990s. price for US budget row; Analysis price freeze as they posted record price he’s prepared to pay to get price is at a fantastical 530 times price of £ 180m in 1984. Full price of a local phone call. And even price of milk and other dairy price-tags.
When you watch the price. We were always stretching
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Fares will not be allowed to ncome from their properties will nd employment in an economy will electricity prices are sure to here the temperatures, which can . Give him a challenge and he’ll own fancy bids, assuming it will self-sustaining. Investment must opinion energy demand will still to go forward, but she did not
rise above the rate of inflation for rise an average 6 percent over the next rise. If savings are greater than rise, plus a 10 per cent increase in road rise to 120-130 degrees here, frequently rise to it. It’s what it would be like rise to the occasion, for certainly I rise to a level in excess of 10 per cent rise to some extent and by 2020 could rise. Was she put off by the empt
Concordance 9.4 Sample from concordance for verbal rise, right-sorted
1. District property, culminating in the 2. risk.
World’s poor could pay 3. yesterday promised a 10-month stamp 4. Bush to determine what political 5. and General Dynamics. Its share 6. pound; 600m compared with a purchase 7. other users around the world for the 8. and the effect that it has had on the 9. mosaic. Neither show off their lofty 10. But artistic integrity comes at a
Concordance 9.3 Sample of concordance for price, right-sorted
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
the is are and that of
they was would to it will rates he
expected set continue prices rates began continues continued the as and it will they likely
to will would could not can rates and should may profits they prices t must
NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE NODE
to and above by from in up again
as the at if over or
the a pound and fall in from to of dollar
it this as an
the to per
and in occasion pound of as challenge he 5 is it
Figure 9.3 Overview of collocates of verbal rise
meaning referring to the penalty that someone incurs as a result of particular behaviour. This is overwhelmingly negative in connotation. Citations 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 seem to be literal, although it is always important to confirm first impressions by examining more of the co-text. Citation 4 seems to be metaphorical. Citations 2 and 10 seem likely to be metaphorical, in the sense that the price that is referred to is not monetary but another kind of penalty; an examination of co-text confirms this. From such a small sample, it is not easy to decide whether particular collocates are associated with each sense, especially as there are unexpected links. For instance, it was predictable that share and purchase, in citations 5 and 6, are usually associated with the literal sense; however, two of the three metaphorical citations, 2 and 4, include the word pay, a collocate from the same source domain that might be expected to appear with literal uses. The initial analysis of the verb rise is a little more complicated, in that there are two main metaphorical meanings in addition to the literal one, realizing the conceptual metaphors of more is up and status/ good is up. The partof-speech tagger makes it possible to isolate the verb use, and the following is a random sample of the 1546 citations of verbal rise (Concordance 9.4). Here it can be seen that the literal use is relatively infrequent, accounting for only one citation (10). More is up accounts for citations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9, while good is up accounts for 6 and 7. The overview of collocates is given in Figure 9.3. There are three ways in which collocates might be expected to behave. Firstly, they may be associated primarily with the literal meaning. Secondly,
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
they might be associated primarily with the metaphorical meaning, and thirdly, they might collocate with both literal and metaphorical meanings. In the first stage of the analysis, all three of these possibilities were found, applying to different collocates. However, when citations that seemed to show the third possibility, of collocating with both literal and metaphorical uses, were studied more closely, it was found that there are patterns that seem to disambiguate literal from metaphorical at a finer level of detail. These patterns are mainly lexical, that is, collocational, but also grammatical. (Grammatical patterns at this level of detail are often referred to by applied linguists using Firth’s (1957) term, colligation.) In the following sections, I exemplify and explore the three central possibilities.
Collocates associated with literal meanings Starting from the overview of collocates of price, in the first of the three central patterns that were noted above, there is a group of words that occur in the immediate left slot, and that are only used with the literal meaning. These include share, cut, half, sale, purchase and retail. In collocation with price they form items that behave semantically and intonationally like compounds, such as share price, cut price, and half price. These do not appear to have metaphorical uses. Price is followed by of in 1772 citations, and in this collocation is almost always literal, the main exceptions being the expressions the price of fame (9 citations) and price of failure (8 citations). Some collocates of rise also seem to be generally associated with the literal meaning. For instance, the simple past tense, rose, occurs in the phrase rose and, which is almost invariably followed by another verb in the simple past, and almost always literal, in citations such as the following: (1) Houston rose and began to pace the floor. (2) Wolfe’s shoulders rose and fell a fraction of an inch.
Sea is also associated with literal meanings of rise, occurring in slots two and three words to the left a total of 13 times, in citations such as (3) If it breaks up, sea levels could rise by three metres or more.
Examples of literal collocates are less frequent for rise than for price, probably because its literal meaning is much less frequent in proportion to its metaphorical meanings. For both words, exceptions to these literal patterns are rare. For
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
a study of metaphor these collocations are of little interest, but it is worth noting that they do occur – that is, that there are some linguistic combinations that are not mapped.
Collocates mainly associated with metaphorical meaning For each of the two words examined, a large group of words was found which collocate principally, but not always uniquely, with the metaphorical sense. This suggests that metaphorical uses of words may have a stronger tendency to occur in fixed patterns than literal uses. One mainly metaphorical collocate of price is heavy, which is the immediate left collocate of price 31 times in the concordance, and all but two of these citations are metaphorical. The non-metaphorical citations appear in a different grammatical pattern. Examples of the metaphor are: (4) He paid a heavy price for victory, for in return for the dismantling of the missiles, the Americans withdrew their own missiles from Turkey. (5) Her 20 million pound fortune would set me up for life. But she seems to have to pay a heavy price in the time she has with her family.
There is a tendency for collocations like this to also attract further metaphorical uses, forming semi-fixed strings of varying length. For instance, 23 of the 29 metaphorical citations of heavy price also collocate with pay. This produces expressions such as pay a heavy price or a heavy price to pay. These are idiomlike in that they are multi-word, non-literal and have a prototypical form, pay a heavy price, but unlike classical idioms they are not grammatically fixed. They are not completely fixed lexically either: the metaphorical meaning of price is also found in citations where either pay or heavy is absent, and other corpus citations show that cost is sometimes used with heavy and/or pay as an approximate synonym of price. In other words, none of the three key words in the expression is irreplaceable. Pay a heavy price is therefore unlike a pure idiom, because it can undergo linguistic change without losing its metaphorical meaning. In these features, the expression is typical of a phenomenon that recurs again and again in this sort of corpus investigation: strong lexico-grammatical patterning that is closely associated with a metaphorical meaning, but which stops short of forming an idiom in the classical sense. Another collocation of price which is almost always metaphorical is price to pay. There are 107 citations of this, including:
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
(6) Environmental damage from motorways. . . is seen as an acceptable price to pay for the profitability of the motor trade. (7) There might be a price to pay for having white skin in a black country.
Like heavy price, this attracts other metaphorical collocates; 47 of the 107 citations of price to pay also include small, in the expression small price to pay. 46 of these 47 are metaphorical; the following is typical: (8) The delay was a small price to pay for her safety.
This discussion shows another difficulty in trying to apply the notion of idiom to such expressions: as well as being less fixed that classical idioms, it can be difficult to determine where one expression ends and another begins. In the corpus data discussed here, a number of frequent expressions which have some degree of fixedness have emerged, including pay a price, a price to pay, a heavy price and a small price. These are often fused to form longer collocations such as pay a heavy price and a small price to pay. In these cases it would be very difficult to decide which string or strings should be regarded as the core expression, from which the other expressions deviate. On the other hand, regarding each single word as a freely forming component is clearly not satisfactory either, because this would predict expressions such as pay a small price, which is not found.
Collocates apparently shared by literal and metaphorical meanings In the above subsections, I described collocations which had a very strong tendency to be either literal or metaphorical. Not all collocations behave in this way; some are apparently shared between both senses. However, when closer linguistic context is examined, there is almost always a lexical or grammatical feature that distinguishes one meaning from the other. For instance, the collocation high + price is apparently ambiguous, around three quarters of citations being literal and the other quarter metaphorical. More detailed context shows that there are features that distinguish the meanings, most importantly the collocation of pay, which is only associated with the metaphorical meaning: (9) Some of these goals are based on myths or cognitive errors. As long as you continue to cling to them you’ll pay a high price in terms of insecurity, shame and body loathing.
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
(10) Top cop Dr. Ian Oliver appears to have paid a high price for the scandal surrounding his police force. The under-pressure Chief Constable, 58, looks ten years older than he should.
The same pattern is found when high appears two slots to the left of price, as in the following citation: (11) Some staff members had paid a high personal price for their dedication and conscientiousness.
The expression at any price occurs 47 times in the corpus, of which 14 citations are literal. This apparent ambiguity is resolved by the collocates of the literal uses, which always include references to buying and selling. (12) All the great works of that period are either owned by museums or private collectors who won’t sell at any price.
Citations of the metaphorical sense did not show significant shared collocates: (13) In court she was portrayed as jealous, violent, paranoid, spiteful, bent on destroying her spouse at any price.
In most cases, lexical patterns were the disambiguating feature, but occasionally grammatical patterns disambiguate. The expression at a price occurs 114 times in the corpus, 24 of which are metaphorical. The citations are disambiguated by syntax: where price is post-modified by a clause it is almost always literal. In spoken language, this syntactic distinction would also be reflected in intonation. The following citation is clearly literal: (14) Supermarkets are getting a huge mark-up while we are having to sell at a price that does not even cover costs.
The following two citations show un-postmodified price, with metaphorical meaning. (15) Gorbachev has imposed a will, but at a price. It’s the price of his own authority. (16) The single life has a lot to offer but it comes at a price.
In these cases, apparent ambiguity gives way to apparent clarity, and, with enough citations to examine, the pattern may be repeated as the analysis becomes more detailed.
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Discussion General tendencies In this section some tendencies that have emerged from the data are summarized and discussed. Firstly, it will have been noticed that in several cases collocates that are found consistently with metaphorical meanings of a word are not in fact words originating in the target domain but are words from the source domain. This is notable in the case of pay and price, where both words seem to originate in the source domain of money, but in several linguistic structures, such as small/heavy/high price to pay are only found together in the target domain. Similarly, it was found that the string rise and fall is almost always metaphorical, despite both rise and fall originating in the source domain of orientation. The same phenomenon was found in a study of collocates of the noun blow (Deignan 1999c); words from the source domain of physical violence, such as body and death appear in the immediate left slot of blow far more commonly with a metaphorical meaning than with a literal one; that is, body blows or death blows are usually metaphorical. It was also noted in studies in the previous chapter, where plant and seeds were found to collocate with a metaphorical meaning more commonly than with a literal meaning. This phenomenon may have significance for our ideas about how polysemous words are interpreted, in that it suggests that detailed linguistic patterns are significant. The words pay and price in themselves might trigger either a literal or metaphorical interpretation, but the string price to pay is probably firmly associated with a metaphorical meaning for experienced users of English, because they will rarely have encountered it used with a literal meaning. If we assume that in order to read or listen at a normal speed, people cannot afford to spend much time trying to decide between literal and metaphorical interpretations, it is possible that detailed syntactic structures like these are used as cues. This again calls into question the use in psycholinguistic experiments of invented texts which lack cues like this (see Chapter 5). A second tendency that has emerged is that for almost every collocation, whether strongly associated with either literal or metaphorical meaning, a small number of counter examples exist. For instance, while the collocation of small with price is very largely metaphorical, there are a few literal citations. Exceptions such as these might be regarded as evidence of language change: they may be either left over from an earlier pattern, or the forerunners of a newer pattern that will eventually become more widespread. In other cases, they seem to be examples of language users’ creativity; a speaker has deliberately broken
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
the usual meaning-language connection, for a particular effect. For instance, it was noted above that small price to pay is almost entirely metaphorical, only one citation in 47 being literal: (17) 22 pounds: a small price to pay for such peace of mind.
It could be argued here that the writer has deliberately used a pattern that is usually metaphorical in order to trigger the metaphorical meaning alongside the literal meaning of price. Counter-examples such as this are found at all levels, including the most detailed, just as linguistic features which disambiguate are found at all levels.
Collocations and metaphorical mapping Conceptual Metaphor Theory suggests that at the linguistic level, individual lexical items from the source domain have been extended metaphorically into the target domain. As discussed in the previous chapter, it is implied that semantic relations between individual words are also metaphorically mapped, and so the relationships between collocating words in the target domain are roughly analogous to their meanings in the source domain. If this happens, each word that is extended metaphorically would take on an independent value in the target domain, and this would suggest that collocations found in the target domain can be analyzed into their constituent parts. Words would be freely combining within the constraints of the overall mapping. There is evidence from literary texts that this type of mapping probably does take place. It could be considered intellectual in that it draws on the process of analogy, and it can be used consciously and creatively to develop new meanings, and for stylistic effect. It would also allow for individual lexical items to be metaphorically extended at different points in time, gradually enlarging the cluster of semantically-related conventional metaphors. This model of metaphorical mapping explains some, but not all the patterns found. It accounts for the cases of ambiguity between literal and metaphorical language patterns, because when concepts and the relations between them are mapped from the source to target domain, their linguistic realizations might be identical in each domain. However, this model does not account for the counter tendency found in the data, for lexical and syntactic patterns to disambiguate between metaphorical and literal meaning.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Linguistic forces and constraints The corpus studies discussed here suggest that a description of linguistic metaphor must allow for tendencies that operate separately to conceptual metaphorical mapping. The existence of metaphorical mapping does not explain why many linguistic collocations are unique to one domain, despite it being feasible in theory for them to have meanings in other domains; this was seen above by collocations such as pay a price. The reason for this may lie in the human desire to communicate efficiently, avoiding ambiguity, and the consequent tendency for groups of words to settle into pre-packaged chunks (Sinclair 1991). It seems possible that once particular collocations become associated with a particular sense of a word, speakers are reluctant to use them with a different sense of that word. To do so might lead hearers to process a different sense from the one intended. Some collocations may become associated with a target domain sense of their component words, and speakers then avoid using these collocations in the source domain unless intending to be deliberately ambiguous, as sometimes occurs in advertising or humorous texts. This may be why speakers seem to choose utterances such as “He paid a lot of money for his car” or just “he paid a lot for his car” in preference to “He paid a high price for his car” or “The car came at a high price” if a literal sense of price is meant. Thus the tendency to map creatively and intellectually from source to target domains is restrained by a conflicting tendency, to fix and reuse conventionalized strings. The pattern of oscillation between ambiguity and clarity that was found at different levels of analysis may therefore be a replication of etymological processes. It is possible that when a metaphorical mapping first takes place, a linguistic expression becomes ambiguous between literal and metaphorical. Eventually, the regular association of the expression with its metaphorical meaning means that speakers start to avoid using it with a literal meaning. However, at some point, speakers’ urge to exploit language to create new meanings and effects may encourage them to break the now-established relationship between meaning and linguistic expression, leading to the creation of new ambiguity. This may take the form of deliberate punning, or of drawing further collocates and syntactic structures from the source domain into the target domain. In time, these will either be dropped or will again settle into recognized associations with a particular metaphorical meaning. Thus there is a constant pull between creativity and communicative efficiency. It should be stressed that the existence of this process remains speculation and could not be proved or disproved without a corpus of a kind not yet
Chapter 9. Metaphor and collocation
available. To trace such patterns in detail over time would require a very large corpus, carefully divided into periods of time, perhaps as short as a year. This would enable the researcher to trace the relative frequency of particular expressions over short periods of time. All that is possible using current corpora is to speculate as to what forces might have led to the patterns evident; as Cameron and Deignan argue, the researcher takes the perspective of an evolutionary biologist, reconstructing processes using fossil evidence (2003).
Conclusion This chapter described work attempting to determine to what extent collocational relations are preserved in the mapping from source to target domain and to consider the implications of these for a model of metaphorical mapping. The analysis suggested that there are opposing tendencies, which may be general to many aspects of language use. These are firstly towards creativity, the intellectual exploitation of lexical relations, and secondly towards the packaging of ideas, leading to unanalyzed strings. Each of these tendencies influences patterns of linguistic metaphor, sometimes in conflicting ways. This chapter concludes Part III, which has discussed some detailed corpus studies of different linguistic features of metaphor. I now draw some conclusions from these studies, and relate them to earlier chapters considering different approaches to the study of metaphor.
Chapter 10
Conclusion
Introduction Part I of this book began with a discussion of some of the key aspects of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and then considered related concepts such as metonymy, particularly from a linguistic perspective. In Part II, some of the most widely used research methods were discussed, and it was argued that corpus linguistics, as well as being a methodology in its own right, could inform other approaches. Part III described a number of corpus studies, researching different properties of linguistic metaphor. In the first part of this chapter, I draw together some features of linguistic metaphor that have emerged through the studies, and discuss some questions that have been raised by these. The second part considers the implications of this work for metaphor theory.
Language and metaphor In Chapter 1, I discussed a small scale corpus study and claimed that: . . . detailed study of this group of linguistic metaphors suggests that they are held together in a way that is both more dynamic and more restricted than a narrow understanding of Conceptual Metaphor Theory would suggest.
This also proved to be the case for the many other groups of linguistic metaphors that were explored in the series of studies described in Chapters 7, 8 and 9. Although each chapter aimed to research a different aspect of linguistic metaphor, some common themes recurred throughout, all contributing to the view that metaphors are both restricted in use, and at the same time, dynamic. In this section, these themes have been drawn together, and are discussed under six headings. Beginning with those that are concerned with restrictions and moving to those that concern the dynamic features of linguistic metaphor, these are:
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
– – – – – –
the restrictions on linguistic mapping; the absence of ambiguity; the importance of syntagmatic relations; the frequency of source domain collocates in the target domain; the relationship between idiom and metonymy; the apparent interaction between source and target domain.
The restrictions on linguistic mapping It was noted by Lakoff (1991, 1993) that not all aspects of the source domain are mapped onto the target domain. His explanation for this forms part of the Invariance Hypothesis, which states that metaphorical transfer is limited by the inherent structure of the target domain. This explains why life is a journey metaphors do not include retracing one’s steps; the action is possible in the source domain, but no equivalent can be done in the target domain of a human life. Corpus studies are consistent with Lakoff ’s observations about the limited nature of metaphorical mappings, but some of the limitations on linguistic metaphors that were found in the corpus do not seem to be explainable by the Invariance Hypothesis. For instance, in Chapter 8 it was shown that blossom tends to be used to talk about relationships, especially romantic ones, careers and businesses, while flower tends to be used to talk about creative projects. There is nothing obvious in the target domain that would prevent blossom being used about creative projects or flower being used about businesses, yet this happens rarely if at all. Similarly, the mapping discussed in Chapter 1, an election is a horse-race, is inconsistent in the way it maps; some expressions, such as neck-and-neck apply almost exclusively to politics, but others, such as against the odds apply to personal rather than public competition. Grady offers an explanation for the partial mapping of theories are buildings in terms of primary metaphors (1997), which holds well for his examples, but does not seem to explain the uneven distribution across different target domains found here. The true explanation may be more mundane; as for collocation and many other aspects of language, we say what we have heard other speakers say; as a result, there arise conventional ways of expressing ideas that are generally motivated but not always predictable from a knowledge of word meaning and general semantic processes.
Chapter 10. Conclusion
The absence of ambiguity In Chapter 5, some research from the cognitive school was discussed, and concordance data for disarmed were used to argue that true ambiguity is rare in naturally-occurring language. The studies discussed in Chapter 9 confirm this impression. It was shown that prior context creates a strong expectation of either the literal or the metaphorical sense of disarmed, and this is the case for most words which have literal and figurative uses. For instance, the following examples of blossomed have no potential for ambiguity, because the subject of the verb always makes it clear which meaning is intended: (1) It was a romance that blossomed over tea dancing. (2) The frost came after the trees blossomed early this year. (3) Her career blossomed after she arrived in London.
As well as contextual clues to meaning, it was shown in Part III that many figurative uses of words are associated with relatively fixed lexical and/or grammatical patterns, of three types. Firstly, Chapter 7 showed that some metaphors are associated with a different part of speech from literal meanings of the same word, as for many animal metaphors. Wolf, for instance, is typically a noun when literal and a verb when metaphorical. In Chapters 7 and 9, a second type of pattern, fixedness at a more detailed grammatical level, was demonstrated using examples such as the association of metaphorical meaning with the use of price in at a price. A third type of restriction, lexical was found in studies in Chapter 9 which revealed a tendency for figurative uses to form relatively restricted collocations, such as the collocation of heavy and price. It seems very likely that the presence of one of these three types of patterns may trigger a non-literal interpretation for a hearer, and so further reduce the possibility of ambiguity. It was noted in Chapter 9 that patterns like these can be deliberately exploited to create stylistic effects. Tabloid journalism, particularly headlines, contains numerous such examples. A single edition of the British tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mirror (February 14th 2004) included the following examples: (4) “Slow to flower”: headline of an article about a new species of orchid that has recently been discovered. (5) “Atkins’ diet to die for”: headline of an article suggesting the possible dangers of a diet. (6) “On the ball”: title of an advertisement for soccer training camps for children.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
In each case, the italicised expression tends to be associated with a metaphorical interpretation; verbal flower in this structure evokes the metaphorical meaning of “develop”; the string “to die for”, when clause-final tends to have a hyperbolic and metaphorical meaning of “wonderful”, while “on the ball” often has a metaphorical meaning of “alert, aware”. However, in the Daily Mirror citations, each was used as a headline for a story associated with the literal meaning. In journalism, this device seems mainly to be confined to relatively light-hearted articles, possibly because it signals playfulness that would be inappropriate in connection with a news item about more serious issues. The existence of these examples does not disprove the hypothesis that many or most figurative uses are signalled by lexico-grammatical form as well as by context. On the contrary, the fact that they cluster in genres known for creativity, and that they seem to be marked, can be seen as evidence for the hypothesis.
The importance of syntagmatic relations A theme that emerges again and again from the different studies of linguistic data is the overriding importance of syntagmatic relations. It is probably not putting the case too strongly to say that there are relatively few figurative expressions that appear in isolation, and that the majority form part of a lexical string. 100 citations of each inflection of ROCK: rock, rocks, rocked and rocking; were analyzed; examples of figurative uses found are as follows: rock (7) . . . his rock-solid defence of traditional values. (8) . . . heroin abuse at the rock-bottom of society. (9) . . . regarded in Washington as a rock of stability.
rocks (10) Her marriage hit the rocks.
rocked (11) Riots rocked Britain’s inner cities. (12) . . . if the mortgage bombshell had not rocked the boat.
rocking (13) [He] has no interest in rocking the boat.
Chapter 10. Conclusion
The only one of these figurative expressions that is completely freely combining is the verbal sense of rock, meaning “destabilize”, in citation (12). The third sense of nominal rock, in citation (10) is freely combining from a lexical perspective, but not grammatically: it is usually post-modified by a prepositional phrase beginning with of. This pattern is repeated again and again in the corpus searches; many of the words studied, such as shadow, light and fruit(s) are like rock in that they appear in several figurative expressions and have few or no freely-combining figurative uses. By comparison, the paradigmatic relations of synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy seem to be far less fundamental to figurative language. In Chapter 8, two highly structured target domains were identified, from the conceptual metaphors argument is war and ideas/relationships/businesses/people are plants. Paradigmatic relations were found to hold between some of the key words realizing the mappings, but even within these domains there were some inconsistencies, and strong syntagmatic relations were also found. The other studies discussed in Chapter 8 showed that paradigmatic relations do not hold consistently for all mappings, especially metonymy-based ones. It was found in Chapter 9 that syntagmatic relations may be more significant for metaphorical meanings of words than for literal ones, that is, metaphorical language tends to be more fixed than literal. A large scale corpus study focussing on this question would be needed to confirm this. If true, this could be of importance conceptually as well as linguistically, because it would provide clues about the production and processing of non-literal language.
The frequency of source domain collocates in the target domain In many cases, the most significant collocates of metaphors or metonyms are words from the same source domain. This emerged in the study of price in Chapter 9, where it was found that pay, price and high tend to cluster in expressions with a metaphorical meaning rather than a literal one. Other examples are plant and seed, which tend to have a figurative meaning when they collocate in expressions like “plant the seed of an idea” and fertile, which is always metaphorical in the expression fertile ground. The same phenomenon is noted for a number of war expressions, such as all guns blazing, and shoot down in flames, which are always metaphorical when used in full, in citations such as: (14) Everybody has to have an opinion, everyone must have their say. Platoons of journalists go in with all guns blazing.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
(15) Fugard has been surprised, he says, by the almost complete absence of hostile criticism, especially in America, “I expected to be shot down in flames.”
The same applies to some heat expressions, such as fanning the flames, which is always metaphorical in the corpus as in: (16) . . . extremist groups . . . are fanning the flames of intolerance and bigotry.
Literal uses are found when the words collocate in a different order, such as “flames were fanning outwards”, but for the sequence fan the flames, only a metaphorical meaning is found. No explanation has been found for this for this within writing on Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Expressions like these resemble idioms, the next issue to be considered here.
The relationship between idiom and metonymy The notion of idiom was touched on in Chapter 9, and it was seen that many figurative uses found in the corpus are neither pure idiom nor freely combining words, but something in between. A cline was suggested, with quite a lot of figurative collocations positioned at various points between its extremes. This applies to the expressions discussed in the above two subsections; they have some of the characteristics of idiom: lexical fixedness, grammatical fixedness and semantic opacity; but only to a degree. One possibility that has emerged from the corpus studies in Chapter 8 is that metonymic mappings in particular are likely to result in idiom-like expressions. For instance, figurative uses of the words light and dark tend to occur in fixed expressions such as come/bring to light and in the dark. This also applied to the figurative expressions derived from the words for parts of the body discussed in Chapter 7, including face, nose, eye and shoulder. These usually appear in relatively fixed, idiom-like expressions such as to have teeth / to save face / to lose face / a nose for / an eye for / to rub shoulders. It would make sense for metonymic mapping to result in more than one figuratively-used word in an utterance: metonymy is often the mapping of an experience, and experiences typically require more than one word to be explained- unlike, say entities or behaviour, which can often be described using a single word. However, this argument does not explain why there is a tendency for the same sequence of words or a very narrow range of substitutes to be used to express the mapping, and the resulting idiom-like expressions, why we rub shoulders not touch shoulders.
Chapter 10. Conclusion
The evidence from the corpus studies in this book is suggestive rather than conclusive, and further corpus research is needed to establish the link between metonymy and idiom. If the link is demonstrated, it would have implications for our knowledge of thought as well as language. It would suggest that there is an association between a micro-level experience, or gestalt, and a particular sequence of words; when we think metonymically we map not only the experience but that specific word sequence. It would also support the position that not every linguistic metonym that we produce is the result of online metonymic processing (as Gibbs argues for metaphor, 1999b). The fixedness of metonyms provides a short-cut to their figurative meaning: it is part of our knowledge of English that have an eye for has a conventional associated meaning of “be good at judging on the basis of visual information”, and we therefore do not have to process creatively, online to produce or arrive at this meaning.
The apparent interaction between source and target domains In Chapter 7, a number of source and target domains were examined using corpus techniques with a specific focus on grammar, both at the major level of part of speech, and at the detailed level of lexical grammar. Conceptual Metaphor Theory claims that the source domain structures the target domain, implying that relationships between entities in each would be equivalent. This would suggest that words denoting actions or entities in the source domain would have the same roles in the target domain. However, the corpus data showed that target domain words take on grammatical roles following the inherent domain structure, and that these do not necessarily echo their source domain grammatical roles. Thus animal lexis, predominantly nominal in the source domain, takes the form of verbs and adjectives when used to talk about human behaviour and characteristics. It was argued that this is evidence of the influence of the target domain on the linguistic form of a metaphor, and of interaction between source and target domains in the generation of linguistic metaphors. The points discussed in this section all point, in slightly differing ways, to a picture of metaphorical language that is both fixed and dynamic, and that in some respects may be more so than literal language. Some implications beyond language description have been hinted at; in the following section, the theoretical implications are looked at more specifically.
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
Corpus linguistics and cognitive metaphor theory The corpus data described in this book are not, in the main, inconsistent with theories of metaphor and metonymy developed in the cognitive school, and in many ways they support them. However, it has also been argued that corpus data call into question some details of the theory.
Conceptual Metaphor Theory Many corpus studies reported here are generally consistent with Conceptual Metaphor Theory. For instance, studies of argument is war and plant mappings showed linguistic metaphors related to each other and to literal meanings in ways very close to those predicted and described by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The main challenge to Conceptual Metaphor Theory that arises from this work is the systematicity that it suggests; although present for some groups of metaphors, it is not found to the degree that is suggested. What are found instead are metaphorically and metonymically used words that seem to develop their own life and linguistic associations in the target domain. If our linguistic metaphor systems can be likened to street maps, then the corpus data suggest that they are not the logical grid networks of planned modern cities, but collections of different sized and merging villages, with interconnecting roads. Perhaps this expresses the underlying conceptual patterns too; if metaphorical language is an expression of metaphorical thought, then rather than large-scale networks covering whole conceptual areas, we may operate with much smaller conceptual networks, loosely related to each other.
Blending Corpus data cannot give us information about mental representations of metaphors, but signals such as grammatical class are suggestive. The discussion of the grammatical behaviour of metaphors in Chapter 7 suggested that the target domain plays a role in shaping the linguistic metaphor. This runs counter to a strong version of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which suggests that the target domain takes its entire structure from the source domain, simply acting as a restraint against logically impossible mappings. However, the notion from Blending Theory, that a third mental space is created by a metaphor, is much more satisfactory, as this allows input from both source and target domains to shape a newly structured mental space. This could explain the existence of lin-
Chapter 10. Conclusion
guistic patterns that are clearly influenced by the source domain but are unique to metaphorical language.
Metonymy During the last decade, a number of scholars have argued that metonymy is very important, and may underlie many mappings that have generally been considered metaphorical (e.g. Barcelona 2000). Evidence has been taken from dictionary entries (Goossens 1995; Niemeier 2000), and from intuitivelyderived data (Barcelona 2000). The corpus data examined here have supported these arguments, and have shown that in terms of types (different figurative expressions) as well as frequency (numbers of occurrences of each), metonymy is very important. Corpus data allow for examination of large numbers of naturally occurring examples of different figurative expressions, from which different linguistic types emerge. In Chapters 3 and 8, it was shown that corpus data can be used to develop a linguistic typology of metaphor, metonymy and different kinds of interaction between the two. This is potentially a very important step, because it is very difficult to develop theoretically-based tests for metaphor and metonymy. In the past, such tests have started from the assumption that metonymy is an intra-domain mapping while metaphor is cross-domain, a sound distinction in theory but one which is slippery to operationalize because of the difficulty of defining and setting boundaries on a “domain”.
The role of linguistic theory and data While corpus data are rarely, if ever, inconsistent with Conceptual Metaphor Theory, many of the detailed linguistic features of metaphor described in the previous section are not easily explained by it. Approaching these data from a linguistic perspective, it seems that a theory of thought is not sufficient to account for what has been observed. A complementary theory of communication is required; among other things, this would propose that language tends to be maximally efficient, and thus ambiguity is a disadvantage. This can explain why different meanings of words tend to be associated with different forms, the specific form of a word probably triggering the intended interpretation for hearers and readers. It might also explain the more general tendency for linguistic metaphors to be limited to certain topics and linguistic forms. Throughout, I have put the corpus linguist’s viewpoint, that natural language data is vastly preferable to invented or elicited data. Much writing on
Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics
metaphor is concerned with what people can say; the argument behind this book is that more specific, illuminating and possibly more accurate findings are to be made when we forget what people can say, and instead study in detail what they do say.
Further work This book has used corpus data to study linguistic features of metaphor. Corpus methodology is in an early stage of development, and has potentially very wide applications. One application that has not been explored here is the comparative. A large corpus can be broken into sub-corpora which can be compared, allowing for genre comparisons, such as the use of metaphor in spoken and written texts. Similarly, corpora of texts produced at different points in time can allow diachronic comparisons, showing the development of figurative language expressions over time. This would add another dimension to the examination of the implications of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, in that the literature seems at times to assume the existence of etymological forces which are not demonstrated empirically. The majority of corpora still consist of English texts, but the development of corpora in other languages allows for the comparison of figurative expressions in different languages, complementing studies based on intuition and elicitation. Corpus linguists have only begun to move from the detailed study of lexis to explore and challenge theories of language and cognition, and much remains to be done.
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Index
A abstract language 16–17, 19, 43–45 adjectival metaphors 147, 151–152 adverb metaphors 50 ambiguity 65–67, 68–69, 114–117, 211, 212, 217 antonymy 172, 189 authenticity 120–122 see also intuitions and linguistic metaphor B Bank of English 6, 77–78, 91, 199 Barcelona, Antonio 60 blending theory 164–166, 222–223 bodily experience see physical grounds for metaphor body part metaphors 63–64, 65–67, 160–162 Boers, Frank 98 Boers, Frank and Demecheleer, Murielle 99–100 Brooke-Rose, Cristina 145–146 C Cameron, Lynne 2, 39, 50, 57, 131–133, 146 Charteris-Black, Jonathan 96–98, 100 Charteris-Black, Jonathan and Musolff, Andreas 101 chunks see fixed expressions colligation 206 concordance 6–8, 78–79 concrete metaphors 45–46 connotation see evaluation
context 118–119 conventional metaphors 2–3, 35, 40–47 conventional metonyms 57–58 conversion see part of speech corpora, types of 75–77 corpus-driven and corpus-based research 88–90, 174, 198 Cortazzi, Martin and Jin, Lixian 133 creativity 213 see also innovative metaphors Critical Discourse Analysis 125 cross-linguistic metaphors 20, 22, 62–63, 99–101 see also culture and metaphor Cruse, Andrew 42 culture and metaphor 22, 24, 99–101 see also cross-linguistic metaphors
D dead metaphor 15, 36–39, 40–47, 138–139 decorative views of metaphor 2–3 delexical words 35, 49–51, 83 derived forms 49 distribution of metaphors 31 dictionaries 62–63
E elicited data see intuitions and linguistic metaphor emotion metaphors 18–20, 59, 65–67, 68, 95–96, 104–105, 165, 172 empty words see delexical words etymology 25, 33, 35, 36, 38
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evaluative meaning 46, 100, 135–137, 205 experimental work 53, 108–109, 111–114 eye movement data 113 F fixed expressions 62, 207–208, 212, 218 fixedness 31, 121–122, 155–157, 177, 217 see also idioms frequency 9, 15, 28–29, 40, 51, 63–64, 94, 117–118, 124, 194 Frisson, Stephen and Pickering, Martin 113, 114–115 G Gibbs, Raymond W. 19, 56, 107, 108, 109, 111–112, 166, 196 Giora, Rachel 107–108, 113 Goatly, Andrew 38–39, 41, 146–147 Goossens, Louis 60–62, 173 Grady, Joseph 105, 216 Gwyn, Richard 133–134 H health metaphors 133–134 historical metaphor 25–26, 36–37, 40, 212–213 historical views of metaphor 2–4, 35, 40 humorous use of metaphor 29–30 hyponymy 182–183 I identifying metaphors in corpora 92–93 ideology and metaphor 23–24, 125–131 gender 126 politics 27–29, 100, 127 race 126–127, 135–137 war 23, 128–129 idioms 22, 62, 195–197, 220–221 inflections 79, 157–159, 203 innovative metaphor 35, 38–39, 40, 217
see also literary metaphor innovative metonymy see non-conventional metonyms intuitions and linguistic metaphor 27, 85–87, 94–96, 109–110, 120–122 Invariance Principle 162–164, 169–170 invented examples see intuitions and linguistic metaphor J journalistic metaphors 217 K Keysar, Boaz 109, 112 Kittay, Eva 33, 170 Kövecses, Zoltán 18, 30, 59, 104–105, 109–110, 121, 165–166, 176 knowledge and metaphor 15–17, 134 see also thinking and metaphor L Lakoff, George 23, 36–37, 41, 53, 59, 128, 162–163, 216 Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark 2, 4–5, 14, 26–27, 53, 56, 174, 197, 222 Lakoff, George and Turner, Mark 18, 29–30, 94 language teaching 169 Lehrer, Adrienne 170 lexical decision texts 111–112 lexical grammar 159–162, 209, 210, 217 lexical relations 26–27, 169, 170, 219 lexicography 197–198 Liebert, Wolf-Andreas 134 Linstromberg, Seth 51, 147 linguistic metaphor 14–15 literary metaphor 29–30, 135, 170–171, 190 see also innovative metaphor literary metonymy 55 M McGlone, M.
108–109
Index
mapping 14, 26, 60, 170–174, 221 metonymic mapping 54–56 mental process metaphors 19, 23, 59–60 metaphor from metonymy 61 metonym-metaphor overlap 59–70, 173, 183–184, 191–192, 223 metonymy within metaphor 61 metonymy-based metaphors 67–69, 183–184 Meyer, Charles 76, 88, 90 monitor corpora 77 Moon, Rosamund 195–197 N naturally-occurring language data intuitions and linguistic data nominal metaphors 152–155 non-conventional metonyms 57
see
O one-shot metaphors 37, 46 P Pancake, Ann S. 128–129, 139–140 part of speech 35, 47–48, 50, 79–80, 146–148 paradigmatic relations see lexical relations Patthey-Chavez, G. Genevieve et al. 126 pedagogic uses of metaphor 131–133 physical grounds for metaphor 19–22, 59–60 poetry 55 prepositions 33, 50, 147 primary metaphors 105, 216 processing metaphors 106–113, 121–122, 159 R Reddy, Michael 18 register 58, 76, 119–120 representativeness 5–6, 90–92 Ritchie, David 106
Rohrer, Tim 129–130 S semantic relations see lexical relations sampling and corpora 77 Sandikcioglu, Esra 129 Santa Ana, Otto 126–127, 135–137, 138 Semino, Elena 100, 127 Shen, Yeshayahu and Balaban, Noga 98–99 Sinclair, John 48–49, 87–88, 94, 118, 121–122, 212 source domain 14, 45, 55, 165–166, 221 standard pragmatic view 106–107 Sweetser, Eve 19, 26 synecdoche 56 synonymy 172, 189 T target domain 14, 16, 45, 55, 165–166, 221 thinking and metaphor 14–15 see also knowledge and metaphor Tognini-Bonelli, Elena 88–89, 159, 174 Tomlinson, Barbara 1–2 topic 14 transparency 62 V Van Teeffelen, Toine 126, 139 vehicle 14 verbal metaphors 146, 148–150 Voss, James et al. 130, 140–141 W Wee, Lionel 128 word class see part of speech word fragment experiments 113 WordNet 175 Y Yu, Ning 95–96
In the series Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1 2 3 4 5 6
HORIE, Kaoru (ed.): Complementation. Cognitive and functional perspectives. 2000. vi, 242 pp. ALBERTAZZI, Liliana (ed.): Meaning and Cognition. A multidisciplinary approach. 2000. vi, 270 pp. LOUWERSE, Max and Willie van PEER (eds.): Thematics. Interdisciplinary Studies. 2002. x, 448 pp. KERTÉSZ, András: Cognitive Semantics and Scientific Knowledge. Case studies in the cognitive science of science. 2004. viii, 261 pp. JOHANSSON, Sverker: Origins of Language. Constraints on hypotheses. 2005. xii, 346 pp. DEIGNAN, Alice: Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. 2005. x, 235 pp.
