Audrey Vandeleene, François Randour, Jérémy Dodeigne, Pauline Heyvaert, Thomas Legein, Julien Perrez, Min Reuchamps
The framing impact of political discourses has long been attested for. Metaphors in particular are known to ease the understanding of complex concepts and processes. Yet, the question remains to what extent metaphors do work the same on different recipients? Based on an experimental design, we test a potentially key moderating variable in the study of political metaphors: political knowledge. Our experiment aims at determining the extent to which the confrontation of individuals to arguments and metaphors impacts their preferences regarding the implementation of a basic income in Belgium. In particular, we hypothesize that the marginal effect of metaphors as cognitive shortcuts decreases when political knowledge increases. Our findings suggest that some metaphorical frames are more successful than others, hereby supporting the idea that the aptness of the metaphorical frame is a key factor when conducting experiments. We conclude that political knowledge is an important variable when analyzing the framing effect of metaphors, especially when it goes about very low or very high levels of political knowledge. The insertion of metaphors in political discourses may easily succeed in rallying individuals behind a given cause, but this would only work if participants have a lower knowledge of politics.
{"title":"Metaphors, political knowledge and the basic income debate in Belgium","authors":"Audrey Vandeleene, François Randour, Jérémy Dodeigne, Pauline Heyvaert, Thomas Legein, Julien Perrez, Min Reuchamps","doi":"10.1075/msw.20015.van","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.20015.van","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The framing impact of political discourses has long been attested for. Metaphors in particular are known to ease\u0000 the understanding of complex concepts and processes. Yet, the question remains to what extent metaphors do work the same on\u0000 different recipients? Based on an experimental design, we test a potentially key moderating variable in the study of political\u0000 metaphors: political knowledge. Our experiment aims at determining the extent to which the confrontation of individuals to\u0000 arguments and metaphors impacts their preferences regarding the implementation of a basic income in Belgium. In particular, we\u0000 hypothesize that the marginal effect of metaphors as cognitive shortcuts decreases when political knowledge increases. Our\u0000 findings suggest that some metaphorical frames are more successful than others, hereby supporting the idea that the aptness of the\u0000 metaphorical frame is a key factor when conducting experiments. We conclude that political knowledge is an important variable when\u0000 analyzing the framing effect of metaphors, especially when it goes about very low or very high levels of political knowledge. The\u0000 insertion of metaphors in political discourses may easily succeed in rallying individuals behind a given cause, but this would\u0000 only work if participants have a lower knowledge of politics.","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44359342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reliable identification of metaphors from multimodal discourse has attracted scholarly attention in recent years. However, the role of individual differences in identifying creative metaphors from video ads is underexplored from an empirical perspective. This includes the extent to which individual differences influence metaphor identification in multimodal discourse and how the individual differences result in divergent identification. Our study contributes to addressing these issues by investigating how the background of researching metaphors influences identifying creative metaphors from video ads. We compared results of creative metaphor identification from three metaphor analysts and three external annotators who were novice to metaphor research and probed into the underlying reasons for divergent identification through discussions among six annotators. Both groups of annotators applied Creative Metaphor Identification Procedure for Video Advertisements (C-MIPVA) (Pan & Tay, 2021) into the same 20 Chinese video ads through a systematic process of inter-rater reliability examinations. Results from Fleiss’ Kappa and Percentage Agreement provided substantial support for reliable identification, regardless of the metaphor research background. Discussions among annotators revealed that the interplay between the individual differences in life experience and the influences of temporal and dynamic discourse lead to extra identification, different content, and missing cases of metaphors.
{"title":"Individual differences in identifying creative metaphors from video Ads","authors":"M. Pan, D. Tay","doi":"10.1075/msw.20016.pan","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.20016.pan","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Reliable identification of metaphors from multimodal discourse has attracted scholarly attention in recent years. However, the role of individual differences in identifying creative metaphors from video ads is underexplored from an empirical perspective. This includes the extent to which individual differences influence metaphor identification in multimodal discourse and how the individual differences result in divergent identification. Our study contributes to addressing these issues by investigating how the background of researching metaphors influences identifying creative metaphors from video ads. We compared results of creative metaphor identification from three metaphor analysts and three external annotators who were novice to metaphor research and probed into the underlying reasons for divergent identification through discussions among six annotators. Both groups of annotators applied Creative Metaphor Identification Procedure for Video Advertisements (C-MIPVA) (Pan & Tay, 2021) into the same 20 Chinese video ads through a systematic process of inter-rater reliability examinations. Results from Fleiss’ Kappa and Percentage Agreement provided substantial support for reliable identification, regardless of the metaphor research background. Discussions among annotators revealed that the interplay between the individual differences in life experience and the influences of temporal and dynamic discourse lead to extra identification, different content, and missing cases of metaphors.","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48101764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Pérez-Sobrino (2017): Multimodal Metaphor and Metonymy in Advertising","authors":"Pernilla Boström","doi":"10.1075/msw.22009.bos","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.22009.bos","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59009980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Di Biase-Dyson & Egg (2020): Drawing Attention to Metaphor","authors":"María Muelas-Gil","doi":"10.1075/msw.22011.mue","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.22011.mue","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46089579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Barnden & Gargett (2020): Producing Figurative Expression: Theoretical, Experimental and Practical Perspectives","authors":"Britta C. Brugman","doi":"10.1075/msw.22010.bru","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.22010.bru","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49399981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper investigates the metaphorical framing of the concept of democracy in Nigerian Senate debates (henceforth, NSD) in a mini-corpus of 214 meta-discursive commentaries on democracy by legislators, with insight from metaphor scenario theory. Three source concepts – “ erect structure”, “living organism”, “dividends” and their associate scenarios are analysed. These scenarios are exploited by legislators to effect specific argumentative and ideological conclusions, such as Nigerian democracy is weak, positive-self-presentation by legislators amongst others. The paper reveals the conceptual, evaluative and ideological structures that dominate the discourse about democratization in Nigeria, especially in the Fourth Republic, from the perspective of legislators.
{"title":"‘As democracy grows’","authors":"Onwu Inya","doi":"10.1075/msw.21022.iny","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.21022.iny","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper investigates the metaphorical framing of the concept of democracy in Nigerian Senate debates\u0000 (henceforth, NSD) in a mini-corpus of 214 meta-discursive commentaries on democracy by legislators, with insight from metaphor\u0000 scenario theory. Three source concepts – “\u0000 erect structure”, “living organism”,\u0000 “dividends” and their associate scenarios are analysed. These scenarios are exploited by legislators to\u0000 effect specific argumentative and ideological conclusions, such as Nigerian democracy is weak, positive-self-presentation by\u0000 legislators amongst others. The paper reveals the conceptual, evaluative and ideological structures that dominate the discourse\u0000 about democratization in Nigeria, especially in the Fourth Republic, from the perspective of legislators.","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44436136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study examines love and beloved metaphors from the cross-cultural perspective of Jordanian Arabic (JA) and English. The conceptual models suggested by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) and Kövecses (2014) and force dynamics proposed by Talmy (1988) are adopted as the theoretical frameworks for this study. The data was collected from contemporary songs by Jordanian and English-speaking artists. Unlike previous comparative studies on love and beloved metaphors, this study demonstrates that source domains found in JA songs such as pain/suffering, sadness, weakness, wound, stupid endeavour, cruelty and deadly force also exist in English songs to conceptualise love. It is argued that while the use of these source domains in JA is expected as they form part of the prototypical cognitive model of love or the love matrix in JA, they could be viewed as nonprototypical in English. The analysis also revealed certain JA culture-specific source domains used to conceptualise the object of love [beloved], i.e. arabian oryx and basil. We argued that despite the existence of similar conceptual metaphors in the two languages, geographical, historical and ideological factors may have an effect on the prevailing conceptual frames in a certain speech community creating some differences in the metaphorical conceptualisations of love and beloved.
{"title":"love and beloved metaphors in Jordanian Arabic and English songs","authors":"Aseel Zibin, A. R. Altakhaineh, Hady J. Hamdan","doi":"10.1075/msw.21027.zib","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.21027.zib","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study examines love and beloved metaphors from the cross-cultural perspective of Jordanian Arabic (JA) and English. The conceptual models suggested by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) and Kövecses (2014) and force dynamics proposed by Talmy (1988) are adopted as the theoretical frameworks for this study. The data was collected from contemporary songs by Jordanian and English-speaking artists. Unlike previous comparative studies on love and beloved metaphors, this study demonstrates that source domains found in JA songs such as pain/suffering, sadness, weakness, wound, stupid endeavour, cruelty and deadly force also exist in English songs to conceptualise love. It is argued that while the use of these source domains in JA is expected as they form part of the prototypical cognitive model of love or the love matrix in JA, they could be viewed as nonprototypical in English. The analysis also revealed certain JA culture-specific source domains used to conceptualise the object of love [beloved], i.e. arabian oryx and basil. We argued that despite the existence of similar conceptual metaphors in the two languages, geographical, historical and ideological factors may have an effect on the prevailing conceptual frames in a certain speech community creating some differences in the metaphorical conceptualisations of love and beloved.","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47080476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study examines the use of metaphors of war and journey in a million-word corpus of Spanish-language blogs written by patients with severe mental disorders and by mental health professionals. Quantitative results indicate that both metaphors are more prevalent among patients than professionals, supporting the idea that they are mostly used in this context for communicating complex and emotionally intense experiences. From a qualitative perspective, our results show that patients use both metaphors to deal with exactly the same ontological elements of the situation (the disorder, symptoms, negative emotions, everyday problems, social prejudice, medical activity, people close to the patients and the patients themselves) but framing them differently. Further analysis shows that both metaphors have positive and negative uses in terms of emotions conveyed, empowerment and suitability for coping with the situation. In light of this, we conclude with a discussion of proposals promoting the positive uses of these metaphors.
{"title":"Enemies or obstacles?","authors":"Marta Coll-Florit, S. Climent","doi":"10.1075/msw.21035.col","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.21035.col","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study examines the use of metaphors of war and journey in a million-word corpus of Spanish-language blogs written by patients with severe mental disorders and by mental health professionals. Quantitative results indicate that both metaphors are more prevalent among patients than professionals, supporting the idea that they are mostly used in this context for communicating complex and emotionally intense experiences. From a qualitative perspective, our results show that patients use both metaphors to deal with exactly the same ontological elements of the situation (the disorder, symptoms, negative emotions, everyday problems, social prejudice, medical activity, people close to the patients and the patients themselves) but framing them differently. Further analysis shows that both metaphors have positive and negative uses in terms of emotions conveyed, empowerment and suitability for coping with the situation. In light of this, we conclude with a discussion of proposals promoting the positive uses of these metaphors.","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41289771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Research into the persuasive quality of metaphor has a long standing tradition, with the topic of migration embodying one of its pet discourse genres. Yet, only few studies have recognized the existence of identical metaphors occurring across the ideological divide. The present paper explores the way in which three US-based news outlets with broadly different group alignments and overall attitudes in relation to the issue of migration wield metaphor to frame the Mexican migration debate in the US. The data suggests that, contrary to what one might expect, the mayor point of variation between these news instances does not consist in a predilection for idiosyncratic source domains. Rather, the three news sources appear to diverge most significantly in their situational use of similar metaphors. On a methodological plane, this case study illustrates the necessity of inspecting metaphor frames more closely, attending to their semantic roles and broader context, if we want to make assertions about the ideological implications and potential social impact of metaphor on public opinion formation. On a social and theoretical level, it sheds light on the ways in which these three news outlets employ metaphors to construct the social identity of ‘Mexican migrants’ living in the US in line with their stance on the matter, and to a possibly persuasive effect.
{"title":"The persuasive potential of metaphor when framing Mexican migrants and migration","authors":"Laurence De Backer, Renata Enghels","doi":"10.1075/msw.21001.bac","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.21001.bac","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Research into the persuasive quality of metaphor has a long standing tradition, with the topic of migration embodying one of its pet discourse genres. Yet, only few studies have recognized the existence of identical metaphors occurring across the ideological divide. The present paper explores the way in which three US-based news outlets with broadly different group alignments and overall attitudes in relation to the issue of migration wield metaphor to frame the Mexican migration debate in the US. The data suggests that, contrary to what one might expect, the mayor point of variation between these news instances does not consist in a predilection for idiosyncratic source domains. Rather, the three news sources appear to diverge most significantly in their situational use of similar metaphors. On a methodological plane, this case study illustrates the necessity of inspecting metaphor frames more closely, attending to their semantic roles and broader context, if we want to make assertions about the ideological implications and potential social impact of metaphor on public opinion formation. On a social and theoretical level, it sheds light on the ways in which these three news outlets employ metaphors to construct the social identity of ‘Mexican migrants’ living in the US in line with their stance on the matter, and to a possibly persuasive effect.","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44201852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Konrad Juszczyk, Barbara Konat, Małgorzata Fabiszak
Numerous studies on political discourse claim that metaphors help politicians to construct coherent arguments to convince their voters. Yet, most of them, with a few notable exceptions, do not adhere to any theory of argumentation. In this paper, we integrate Discourse Dynamic Approach to Metaphor with Inference Anchoring Theory to enhance our understanding of the interaction of metaphors and arguments in dynamic discourse. Our data come from three pre-election debates: Two in Poland and one in the US. The focus is on the reform of the health service. We show how discourse participants co-construct metaphors and arguments in an attempt to achieve their illocutionary goals. Their interaction is curbed by a number of discursive forces identified in the data. We propose a classification of types of interaction between metaphors and arguments, which can be further used for developing tools for automatic or semi-automatic identification of these types in large corpora.
{"title":"Speakers who metaphorize together – argue together","authors":"Konrad Juszczyk, Barbara Konat, Małgorzata Fabiszak","doi":"10.1075/msw.21016.jus","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.21016.jus","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Numerous studies on political discourse claim that metaphors help politicians to construct coherent arguments to\u0000 convince their voters. Yet, most of them, with a few notable exceptions, do not adhere to any theory of argumentation. In this\u0000 paper, we integrate Discourse Dynamic Approach to Metaphor with Inference Anchoring Theory to\u0000 enhance our understanding of the interaction of metaphors and arguments in dynamic discourse. Our data come from three\u0000 pre-election debates: Two in Poland and one in the US. The focus is on the reform of the health service. We show how discourse\u0000 participants co-construct metaphors and arguments in an attempt to achieve their illocutionary goals. Their interaction is curbed\u0000 by a number of discursive forces identified in the data. We propose a classification of types of interaction between metaphors and\u0000 arguments, which can be further used for developing tools for automatic or semi-automatic identification of these types in large\u0000 corpora.","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46486858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}