Western
  • Black, Max. 1993. "More about metaphor." In Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 431-445. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.

    1 Metaphor, language, and thought / Andrew Ortony 1 2 More about metaphor / Max Black 19 3 Figurative speech and linguistics / Jerrold M. Sadock 42 4 The semantics of metaphor / L. Jonathan Cohen 58 5 Some problems with the notion of literal meanings / David E. Rumelhart 71 6 Metaphor / John R. Searl 83 7 Language, concepts, and worlds: Three domains of metaphor / Samuel R. Levin 112 8 Observations on the pragmatics of metaphor / Jerry L. Morgan 124 9 Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy / Donald A. Schon 137 10 The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language / Michael J. Reddy 164 11 The contemporary theory of metaphor / George Lakoff 202 12 Process and products in making sense of tropes / Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. 252 13 Metaphor induction and social policy: The convergence of macroscopic and microscopic views / Robert J. Sternberg, Roger Tourangeau, Georgia Nigro 277 14 Psychological processes in metaphor comprehension and memory / Allan Paivio, Mary Walsh 307 15 The interpretation of novel metaphors / Bruce Fraser 329 16 The role of similarity in similes and metaphors / Andrew Ortony 342 17 Images and models, similes and metaphors / George A. Miller 357 18 How metaphors work / Sam Glucksberg, Boaz Keysar 401 19 Metaphor and irony: Two levels of understanding / Ellen Winner, Howard Gardner 425 20 The shift from metaphor to analogy in Western science / Dedre Gentner, Michael Jeziorski 447 21 Metaphor and theory change: What is "metaphor" a metaphor for? / Richard Boyd 481 22 Metaphor in science / Thomas S. Kuhn 533 23 Metaphorical imprecision and the "top-down" research strategy / Zenon W. Pylyshyn 543 24 The instructive metaphor: Metaphoric aids to students' understanding of science / Richard E. Mayer 561 25 Metaphor and learning / Hugh G. Petrie, Rebecca S. Oshlag 579 26 Learning without metaphor / Thomas F. Green 610 27 Educational uses of metaphor / Thomas G. Sticht 621




  • Brown, Theodore L. 2003. Making truth: Metaphor in science. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

    1 Scientific Thought and Practice 1 2 Introduction to Metaphor 14 3 The Theory of Conceptual Metaphor 31 4 The Classical Atom 53 5 The Modern Atom 74 6 Molecular Models in Chemistry and Biology 100 7 Protein Folding 122 8 Cellular-Level Metaphors 146 9 Global Warming 160 10 Science's Metaphorical Foundations: The Social in Science 183




  • Cameron, Lynne. 1999. "Operationalising metaphor for applied linguistics." In Lynne Cameron & Graham Low (eds.), Researching and Applying Metaphor, 3-28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Cameron, Lynne & Graham Low. 1999a. Researching and applying metaphor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    1 Operationalising 'metaphor' for applied linguistic research / Lynne Cameron 3 2 Researching metaphor / Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. 29 3 Validating metaphor research projects / Graham Low 48 4 Getting your sources right: What Aristotle didn't say / James Edwin Mahon 69 5 Metaphor and discourse: Towards a linguistic checklist for metaphor analysis / Gerard Steen 81 6 Identifying and describing metaphor in spoken discourse data / Lynne Cameron 105 7 Who framed SLA research? Problem framing and metaphoric accounts of the SLA research process / David Block 135 8 Bridges to learning: Metaphors of teaching, learning and language / Martin Cortazzi, Lixian Jin 149 9 Corpus-based research into metaphor / Alice Deignan 177 10 "Captain of my own ship": Metaphor and the discourse of chronic illness / Richard Gwyn 203 11 "This paper thinks ...": Investigating the acceptability of the metaphor an Essay is a Person / Graham Low 221 12 When is a dead rainbow not like a dead rainbow? A context-sensitive method for investigating differences between metaphor and simile / Zazie Todd, David D. Clarke 249




  • Chateris-Black, Jonathan. 2005. Politicians and rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Charteris-Black (applied linguistics, Univ. of Surrey, UK) undertakes a "critical metaphor analysis" of the speeches of leading English and American political figures of the last 50 years. Arguing that "metaphor is vital to the language of leadership because it mediates between the conscious and rational basis of ideology and its unconscious mythical elements," the author demonstrates how "metaphors heighten the ethical qualities of the speaker by self-representation as a judge of ethical issues." Most of the book is devoted to chapter-length case studies of the rhetoric of major political leaders who successfully invoked metaphors as a tool of public leadership. Among his subjects are Churchill (who invoked a heroic myth), Martin Luther King, Jr. (a messianic myth), and Margaret Thatcher (the myth of the female fighter). The author discusses how Tony Blair's metaphors portray a rhetoric of conviction and how, in employing finance and crime-and-punishment metaphors, George W. Bush presents a rhetoric of "moral accounting." Although Charteris-Black ably examines the logical structure of these leaders' rhetoric, he is on shakier ground in assessing the empirical effects of their rhetoric--as, for example, when he asserts that Bill Clinton's rhetoric of image restoration probably saved his presidency; surely additional causes lie behind that outcome. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty. Reviewed by S. E. Schier.




  • Eubanks, Philip. 1999. "The story of conceptual metaphor: What motivates metaphoric mappings?" Poetics Today 20(3). 419-442.

    Research into conceptual metaphor has improved our understanding of metaphoric mapping, but because researchers have largely ignored the concrete expressions that constitute metaphoric groupings, little or no heed has been paid to discursive and rhetorical influences that bear upon mapping processes. Because metaphors are always uttered by historically and culturally situated speakers, metaphoric mappings are subordinate to the speakers' political, philosophical, social, and individual commitments. These ideological commitments are often expressed as, and may be constituted as, stories. Presenting evidence from focus groups, this article shows that metaphors and metaphoric mappings are guided by "licensing stories." Much has been explained about conceptual metaphor since George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) first introduced the idea. Indeed, research has supplied abundant evidence that most of our metaphors are based on conceptual metaphors such as ARGUMENT IS WAR, HAPPY IS UP, LIFE IS A JOURNEY, and many others (see Gibbs 1994; Johnson 1987, 1993; Lakoff and Turner 1989; Sweetser 1992; Turner 1991). Yet there is good reason to investigate further the ways conceptual metaphors operate in our writing and talk. ...




  • Gibbs, Raymond W. 2004. "Metaphor is grounded in embodied experience." Journal of Pragmatics 36. 1189-1211.
  • Gibbs, Raymond W. 1994. The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Ch. 1 Introduction and Overview 1 Ch. 2 Thinking and Speaking Literally 24 Ch. 3 Figurative Language Understanding: A Special Process? 80 Ch. 4 Metaphor in Language and Thought 120 Ch. 5 Understanding Metaphorical Expressions 208 Ch. 6 Idiomaticity 265 Ch. 7 Metonymy 319 Ch. 8 Irony 359 Ch. 9 The Poetic Minds of Children 399 Ch. 10 Implications and Future Directions 434
  • Gibbs, Raymond W. 1992. "Categorization and metaphor understanding." Psychological Review 99(3). 572-577.




  • Low, Graham D. (2008). "Metaphor and education." In The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    A comprehensive collection of essays in multidisciplinary metaphor scholarship that has been written in response to the growing interest among scholars and students from a variety of disciplines such as Linguistics Philosophy, Anthropology, Music, as well as Psychology. These essays explore the significance of metaphor in language, thought, culture, and artistic expression. There are five main themes of the book: the roots of metaphor, metaphor understanding, metaphor in language and culture, metaphor in reasoning and feeling, and metaphor in non-verbal expression. Contributors come from a variety of academic disciplines, including psychology, linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, literature, education, music, and law.




  • Ortony, Andrew (ed.). 1993. Metaphor and Thought, 2nd edn. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.

    1 Metaphor, language, and thought / Andrew Ortony 1 2 More about metaphor / Max Black 19 3 Figurative speech and linguistics / Jerrold M. Sadock 42 4 The semantics of metaphor / L. Jonathan Cohen 58 5 Some problems with the notion of literal meanings / David E. Rumelhart 71 6 Metaphor / John R. Searl 83 7 Language, concepts, and worlds: Three domains of metaphor / Samuel R. Levin 112 8 Observations on the pragmatics of metaphor / Jerry L. Morgan 124 9 Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy / Donald A. Schon 137 10 The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language / Michael J. Reddy 164 11 The contemporary theory of metaphor / George Lakoff 202 12 Process and products in making sense of tropes / Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. 252 13 Metaphor induction and social policy: The convergence of macroscopic and microscopic views / Robert J. Sternberg, Roger Tourangeau, Georgia Nigro 277 14 Psychological processes in metaphor comprehension and memory / Allan Paivio, Mary Walsh 307 15 The interpretation of novel metaphors / Bruce Fraser 329 16 The role of similarity in similes and metaphors / Andrew Ortony 342 17 Images and models, similes and metaphors / George A. Miller 357 18 How metaphors work / Sam Glucksberg, Boaz Keysar 401 19 Metaphor and irony: Two levels of understanding / Ellen Winner, Howard Gardner 425 20 The shift from metaphor to analogy in Western science / Dedre Gentner, Michael Jeziorski 447 21 Metaphor and theory change: What is "metaphor" a metaphor for? / Richard Boyd 481 22 Metaphor in science / Thomas S. Kuhn 533 23 Metaphorical imprecision and the "top-down" research strategy / Zenon W. Pylyshyn 543 24 The instructive metaphor: Metaphoric aids to students' understanding of science / Richard E. Mayer 561 25 Metaphor and learning / Hugh G. Petrie, Rebecca S. Oshlag 579 26 Learning without metaphor / Thomas F. Green 610 27 Educational uses of metaphor / Thomas G. Sticht 621




  • Paprotte, Wolf & Rene Dirven. 1985. The ubiquity of metaphor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Series Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory ; v. 29 Subject Metaphor. Semiotics. Psycholinguistics.




  • Ritchie, David. 2006. Context and Connection in Metaphor. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    This book details the accumulated shortcomings and gaps in current theories of metaphor and resolves them in a new theory drawn from recent work in cognitive science "Context-Limited Simulation Theory." How do people understand metaphorical language? How do metaphors affect the way people experience their social interactions? Do people always interpret metaphors? Does a metaphor necessarily have the same meaning to different people? Can a commonplace metaphor affect the way people think even if they don't interpret it? Why does it matter how people interpret metaphors? In this book, Ritchie proposes an original communication-based theory of metaphor that answers these and other questions about metaphors and metaphorical language.




  • Sacks, Sheldon. 1979. On Metaphor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    On Metaphor, a collection of fourteen essays by eminent philosophers, literary critics, theologians, art historians, and psychologists, illustrates and explores a striking phenomenon in modern intellectual history: the transformation of metaphor from a specialized concern of rhetoricians and literary critics to a central concept in the study of human understanding. These lively and provocative essays probe the nature, function, and meaning of metaphor and collectively demonstrate the multidisciplinary implications of the concept. Because of its comprehensive scope, the volume is useful both as a resource for those interested in contemporary philosophy and theories of language and as a text for courses in such areas as the philosophy of language, critical theory, and the philosophy of knowledge. Originally published as a special issue of Critical Inquiry, the present collection includes two new contributions by Max Black and Nelson Goodman, along with a comprehensive index to the work. Library of Congress.




  • Scott, Mike. 1994. "Metaphors and language awareness." In Leila Barbara & Mike Scott (eds.), Reflection on Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

    1 Towards a Theory of Participatory Evaluation: Insights from Applied Linguistics / J. Charles Alderson 1 2 The Importance of the Affective Domain in ELT Projects / Maurice Broughton 14 3 Aspects of Awareness Raising in Reading Courses / Celia A. Figueiredo 23 4 Influencing Research and Research Design: The Brazilian ESP Project / Angela B. Kleiman 30 5 Managing Change in Education: A Teacher Development Project for Primary and Secondary School Teachers / Vilma Sampaio de Oliveira 41 6 The Virtues of Untrained Teachers / John Holmes, Patricia Crossley 54 7 Teacher-Researchers at the Pivot Between Tradition and Innovation in the Foreign Language Classroom / Luiz Paulo da Moita-Lopes 66 8 Classroom Interaction and Strategic Reading Development / Maria Cecilia C. Magalhaes, Roxane H. R. Rojo 75 9 Metaphors and Language Awareness / Mike Scott 89 10 A Thesis 20 Years On: Principles of Linguistics and the Theory-Praxis of the Rights of Language-learners / Francisco Gomes de Matos 105 11 Describing and Teaching Speech Act Behaviour: Stating and Changing an Opinion / Andrew D. Cohen, Elaine Tarone 110 12 Metalinguistic Reflections on Code-switching / Mary Aizawa Kato 122 13 Cognitive Skills and Individual Differences in Reading / Abuendia Padilha Pinto 138 14 Introspection in Applied Linguistics: Meta-research on Verbal Protocols / Marilda C. Cavalcanti, Mara S. Zanotto 148 15 The Value of Accessing Translation as a Process / Nelia Scott 157 16 From Writer Roles to Elements of Text: Interactive, Organisational and Topical / Florence Davies 170 17 The Place of In-house Journals in Business Interaction: A Case Study / Anthony F. Deyes 184 18 The Analysis of Verbal Interaction: A Meeting / Maria Cecilia Perez de Souza e Silva 195 19 Laughter and Interpersonal Management in a Business Meeting / Susan Thompson 204 20 Modal Profiling in Oral Presentations / Heloisa Collins 214




  • Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago/London: U of Chicago P., 1980.

    The authors base their arguments on the idea that we all share a basic understanding of UP/DOWN spatial ordering. 1 Concepts We Live By 3 2 The Systematicity of Metaphorical Concepts 7 3 Metaphorical Systematicity: Highlighting and Hiding 10 4 Orientational Metaphors 14 5 Metaphor and Cultural Coherence 22 6 Ontological Metaphors 25 7 Personification 33 8 Metonymy 35 9 Challenges to Metaphorical Coherence 41 10 Some Further Examples 46 11 The Partial Nature of Metaphorical Structuring 52 12 How Is Our Conceptual System Grounded? 56 13 The Grounding of Structural Metaphors 61 14 Causation: Partly Emergent and Partly Metaphorical 69 15 The Coherent Structuring of Experience 77 16 Metaphorical Coherence 87 17 Complex Coherences across Metaphors 97 18 Some Consequences for Theories of Conceptual Structure 106 19 Definition and Understanding 115 20 How Metaphor Can Give Meaning to Form 126 21 New Meaning 139 22 The Creation of Similarity 147 23 Metaphor, Truth, and Action 156 24 Truth 159 25 The Myths of Objectivism and Subjectivism 185 26 The Myth of Objectivism in Western Philosophy and Linguistics 195 27 How Metaphor Reveals the Limitations of the Myth of Objectivism 210 28 Some Inadequacies of the Myth of Subjectivism 223 29 The Experientialist Alternative: Giving New Meaning to the Old Myths 226 30 Understanding 229




  • Blasko, Dawn G, and Deborah S. Briihl. "Reading and Recall of Metaphorical Sentences: Effects of Familiarity and Content." Metaphor and Symbol 12.4 (1997): 261-285. Rpt. by EBSCO. 2002.

    Tracing the root metaphor will help us understand cognitive movement from novel to familiar metaphoric usages, or the linguistic metaphor (262); eye movements of low-to-high familiar metaphors (266); familiarity of metaphor did not necessitate easier recall, but did ease comprehension--perhaps synaptic tools were not developed for familiar metaphor recall as meaning is already stored in a varied, mental state (272).




  • Boers, Frank. "'No Pain, No Gain' in a Free Market Rhetoric: A Test for Cognitive Semantics?" Metaphor and Symbol 12.4 (1997): 231-241. Rpt. by EBSCO. 2002. PDF file.

    Cognitive semantic analysis of metaphors used in free market ideology. Focus on metaphors related to health, fitness, and racing. Being exposed to certain metaphors affects participants' decision making process with regards to an economic scenario. Revival of dead metaphors (234). Discusses source domains, and mapped target domains (233).




  • Fitzgerald, Thomas K. "Understanding Diversity in the Workplace: Cultural Metaphors or Metaphors of Identity?" Business Library: Business Services Industry. Business Horizons, July - Aug. 1997: 1 - 7. BNET. Web. 4 Aug. 2009.

    The author is interested in training of American culture of foreign nationals, and since what concerns contemporary business is not necessarily about culture, the idea is to understand diversity in the workplace through a look at metaphors used in the domains of culture and identity. Author uses a tripartite theoretical model using constructs of motivation, knowledge and ability to identify the complex ways culture, identity, and communication interact.




  • Forbes, Kenneth D., Dedre Gentner, and Mary Jo Rattermann. "The Roles of Similarity in Transfer: Separating Retrievability from Inferential Soundness." Cognitive Psychology 25 (1993): 524 - 575.

    As similarity is central to transfer, present research tries to isolate and compare what determines similarity-based assess to memory, and what determines the subjective soundness and similarity of a match. Structure-mapping theory was used to predict that subjective soundness would depend on degree of shared relational structure; whereas, memory retrieval would be sensitive to surface similarities like common object attributes. Four tests were given to assess retrievability, using the MAC/FAC (many are called, but few are chosen) model to verify findings. This article/experiment deals primarily with similes (as opposed to metaphors) (eg Sermons are like sleeping pills) (530).




  • Glucksberg, Sam, Boaz Keysar, and Matthew S. McGlone. "Metaphor Understanding and Accessing Conceptual Schema: Reply to Gibbs (1992)." Psychological Review 99.3 (1992): 578 - 581.

    The article argues against both Gibbs' notion that metaphoric expressions are a result of pre-existing conventional mapping of long-term memory, and the class-inclusion model which suggests that conceptual creation occurs and becomes available in memory as metaphors are understood. Instead, it is argued that conceptual metaphors may not be identifiable until after the metaphor has been interpreted.




  • Goatly, Andrew. The Language of Metaphors. London/New York: Routledge, 1998.

    Amongst other things, examines the boundary between metaphor and literal language and how words cross over. Chapter Two: Metaphor and the Dictionary--Root Analogies. Six different metaphorical patterns in the English lexion are studied: general reifying; specific reifying; animizing and personifying; materializing abstract process; process equals process; and object/substance equals object/substance. These are useful terms when discussing conceptual and dead metaphors.




  • Hussey, Karen A., and Albert N. Katz. "Metaphor Production in Online Conversation: Gender and Friendship Status." Discourse Processes 42.1 (2006): 75 - 98.

    Study in controlled environment, using Undergrads in Canada, discovering whether men use more metaphors with friends, or women with strangers, in online conversations. Slang is also lexicalized (76), and can be seen as used mostly amongst this generation's youth. Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) is sociopsychological theory used to discern convergence (eg merging of communication styles, such as vocal intensity or tendency to self-disclose) and divergence (emphasize differences within dyads to establish individuality, both linguistically and in non-verbal communication; occurs both for lower level speech characteristics such as accents, and high level language processes like slang) (76). Second framework for understanding language use in conversation (similar to CAT) is communal common ground and personal common ground (as proposed by Clark) (77). Conventional metaphor (M= 12.31) was produced more often than slang (M= 4.87) (86). 60% of the produced metaphors came from relatively few conceptual metaphors, namely: A COURSE IS AN OBJECT WITH PHYSICAL PROPERTIES, A COURSE IS A JOURNEY, A COURSE IS A BODILY STATE (embodied), and A COURSE IS A CONTAINER (88).




  • Keysar, Boaz, et al. "Conventional Language: How Metaphorical is it?" Journal of Memory and Language 43 (2000): 576 - 593. Ideal Web. http://www.idealibrary.com.

    Refutes Lakoff's and Johnson's theory that people used conceptual mapping (argument is war) in order to understand conventional expressions in ordinary discourse; however, this same mapping could be used to understand non-conventional expressions. Three experiments are used: Experiment one: making mapping explicit (through stock phrasing)¡Xa lifetime is a day = life is short, as opposed to death is dusk (as a definition of the mapping). Experiment two: do novel expressions elicit conceptual mappings? ([586] He was running like the wind vs. he was running like a Porsche on a German highway). Yes: (588) possible alternate explanations for this--(1) The results could be explained as an outcome of lexical priming; and (2) it is possible that the novel condition facilitated the comprehension of the target sentence because of its discourse structure. Experiment three: conceptual mapping or priming? Semantic priming at lexical level of novel condition not more than any other condition (target word in novel condition not primed greater than any other condition) (591).




  • Koller, Veronika. "Businesswomen and War Metaphors: 'Possessive, Jealous and Pugnacious'?" Journal of Sociolinguistics 8.1 (2004): 3 - 22.

    Using WAR metaphor to affirm the hegemonic masculinity found in the business world--this is done through cognitive metaphor theory and critical discourse analysis in magazines featuring executives (e.g. Business Week, Forbes). Metaphors describing female executives are compared to those describing male counterparts; as well as discovering any unique terms applied to women. Additional focus on business discourse and gender identity. Business people are soldiers and caregivers; but female executives are more so fighters and parents than men (10, 17 - 18). Spoken and context (magazine/location specific) discourse are not addressed.




  • Maus, Derek C. "The Changing Metaphors of Education." Class GECD 601 (Introduction to Research Methods). State University of New York: College at Postdam, n.d: 1 - 10.

    1999: Education is no longer directed, but discovered. This is shown through 1) traditional ideas of the role of education, 2) current MLA paper titles showing progressive/inclusive change in perception towards education, and 3) pos/neg outcomes of this change. Regardless of the metaphor, there is always a purpose to education (2); even our English words related to education have Latin roots pertaining to formation/production. Inward moving vs. outward moving models of education (5). How students view scholarship depends on pre-existing ideas of models of education (7).




  • McGlone, Matthew S. "What is the Explanatory Value of a Conceptual Metaphor?" Language & Communication 27 (2007): 109 - 126. Science Direct.

    Attempts to critique the conceptual metaphor frameworks used to infer attitudes and beliefs of people who use figurative expressions to describe personal experiences; concluding that this framework is not a viable mechanism to understand figurative language. Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of language mastery and genius (110)—the Arestotilian comparion view: X is a Y is understood by converting into the simile form: X is like a Y (allows literal truth and analogical comparison); vehicle = term used metaphorically (eg gem); tenor = term to which it’s applied (eg journal); ground = meaning of metaphor (eg the journal is a gem? What does this mean?). Murphy's (1996) strong and weak model theories.Philologists = tidy superordinate object concepts (eg fruit); CM theorists = complex concepts (love) (122). Etymology does not equal epistemology (123).




  • Mead, Dana Gulling, and Kerri K. Morris. "The Bewitching of Composition: Metaphors of our Discourse." JAC 14.2 (2006): n. pag. Web archive. 4 Aug. 2009.

    Explores the metaphors that former Chairs of the Conference on College Composition and Communication have used to describe educators. Literature faculty are presumably the men to whom we turn for identity, in whom we find a willingness to powerfully determine our fates. Maxine Hairston foresees an independence, however, when "we will come of age," stating that "we must cut our psychological dependence in order to mature." We must find identity within, and not without, via family (literature faculty) approval (para 5). Berlin has called cognitivists "capitalists" and North has called the knowledge of teachers "lore," both words with negative connotations. "What counts in the family romance is not, alas, what the parents actually were or did, but the child's fantastic interpretation of its parents" (para 11). The new metaphors used to replace the old ones of identity, are simply cyclical in nature (para 17).




  • Nerlich, Brigitte. "Semantic Development and Semantic Change." Psychology Research. University of Leeds: Institute of Psychological Sciences, n.d: 1 - 13.

    At the time when feature-theories of meaning were being proposed by linguists, a phenomenon that had a central place in 19th-century historical-philological semantics and in early theories of child language acquisition, namely metaphor, was cast aside by linguists as linguistic anomaly, deviance, a violation of selection-restrictions, or a phenomenon of language use, i.e. performance. Studies on left/right brain aphasia (both sides assist in metaphor retention and utterance) (3). Winner: Metaphoric capacity is transient, not progressive (5). Metaphor is mostly cognitive, but has some social prerequisites as well (7). Elbers: Metaphor, in childhood, should not be mistaken for overextension; metaphor is a progressive state that simply occurs outside of the classroom (9). Pearson: Uses “elicited repetition" to prove metaphor comprehension and verbalization occur by age three (11).




  • Sampson, Geoffrey. "The Resurgence of Metaphor." Rev. of Metaphor and Thought, by Andrew Ortony. Lingua 54 (1981): 211 - 226.

    Review of Andrew Ortony’s book, Metaphor and thought, as a study of figurative language. Discusses how metaphor (compared to other disciplines) has not been studied responsibly within Linguistics, as evinced via the treatment of it by Chomskyan learners. At the time of the printing, the 1980 book by Lakoff and Johnson had not yet been published. Michael Reddy is interested in the “cconduit metaphor?(216): communication is an activity whereby meaning is transmitted between people via words as a vehicle. Moreover, as metaphors can be misleading, Reddy proposes the toolmaker’s paradigm."




  • Yero, Judith Lloyd. "Metaphors in Education." Teacher's Mind Resources, 2001 - 2002. Web.

    Discusses mainly Lakoff's and Johnson’s theories that metaphors are based primarily on an individual’s bodily senses and experiences. Note is made pertaining to students/people not being tabula rasas.




    Asian
  • Chateris-Black, Jonathan. 2002. "Second language figurative proficiency: A comparative study of Malay and English." Applied Linguistics 23(1). 104-133.

    This paper explores the potential of cognitive linguistic notions such as conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonym for comparing the figurative phraseologies of English and Malay and anticipating second language learner difficulty. A comparative analysis is undertaken that identifies six types of relationship between figurative expressions in the two languages. It is suggested that identification of linguistic and conceptual similarities and differences in figurative expressions enable us to anticipate the types of problems that may be encountered by Malay-speaking learners of English in the acquisition of English figurative language. A comparative analysis is used to develop a set of production and comprehension tasks that aim to measure figurative proficiency. This is tested with a group of 36 Malay-speaking tertiary learners of English. It is found that figurative expressions with an equivalent conceptual basis and linguistic form are the easiest. The most difficult are those with (1) a different conceptual basis and an equivalent linguistic form and (2) culture specific expressions that have a different conceptual basis and a different linguistic form. There is some evidence that learners may resort to the L1 conceptual basis when processing unfamiliar L2 figurative language. There is also evidence of intralingual confusion between higher and lower frequency L2 figurative expressions. It is more advantageous to draw learners' attention to the conceptual bases of L2 figurative expressions in circumstances where they differ from those of the L1 than when the conceptual bases are similar (especially where learners' L1 is unrelated to their L2).




  • Li, Lan. 2008b. "An empirical study on students' metaphorical awareness in multilingual Hong Kong." Paper presented at the 15th World Congress of Applied Linguistics, 24-29 August, Essen, Germany.

    Metaphoric skills intertwines with linguistic skills and cogniti ve procedures, but its awareness seems to be rather low among students today. Three types of writi ng, both in English and in Chinese, were investigated to find out to what extend and in what situati on students can use metaphors in written communication. It is supposed that in a multi lingual environment learners could learn more metaphors if given proper guidance.




  • Yu, Ning (1998; PhD Thesis), The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor: a perspective from Chinese, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    The primary objective of this dissertation is to contribute to the contemporary theory of metaphor from the viewpoint of Chinese, so as to help place the theory into a wider cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. Aiming at this primary objective, it explores two major questions faced by the contemporary theory: (1) if abstract reasoning is at least partially metaphorical in nature; and (2) what conceptual metaphors are universal, widespread, or culture-specific. It focuses on two conceptual metaphors--the scTIME-AS-SPACE metaphor and the Event Structure Metaphor--which have been proposed as candidates for metaphorical universals. The study shows how time in Chinese is conceptualized in terms of space and motion, fit into the two-case model proposed by Lakoff for English. In case 1, time is conceptualized as moving objects toward and past a stationary Observer; in case 2, time is conceptualized as bounded locations through which the Observer travels. It also suggests that a third case, in which the Observer travels along with a time-object through time-locations, is necessary for both Chinese and English. It is shown that Chinese and English not only follow the same principle of spatialization of time, but also share the same directionality parameter: the future is ahead of, and the past is behind, the Observer. This study also shows that in Chinese various aspects of event structure such as states, changes, causes, actions, purposes, means, and difficulties are conceptualized metaphorically in terms of space, motion, and force, just as in English. The conceptual mappings at a high hierarchical level of the metaphor system are found the same in both English and Chinese, whereas the specific linguistic instantiations of those conceptual mappings may be similar or different between the two languages. This study reinforces the view that metaphor is the main mechanism through which we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning. It also supports the candidacy of the scTIME-AS-SPACE metaphor and the Event Structure Metaphor for metaphorical universals. These two conceptual metaphors are grounded in some basic human experiences that may be universal to all human beings.




  • Chung, Ahrens & Huang, 2005 S. F. Chung, K. Ahrens and C. R. Huang. "Source Domains as Concept Domains in Metaphorical Expressions." Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing, 10 (2005), pp.553-570.

    The use of lexical resources in linguistic analysis has expanded rapidly in recent years. However, most lexical resources, such as WordNet or online dictionaries, at this point do not usually indicate figurative meanings, such as conceptual metaphors, as part of a lexical entry. Studies that attempt to establish the relationships between literal and figurative language by detecting the connectivity between WordNet relations usually do not deal with linguistic data directly. However, the present study demonstrates that SUMO definitions can be used to identify the source domains used in conceptual metaphors. This is achieved by identifying the relationships between metaphorical expressions and their corresponding ontological nodes. Such links are important because they show which lexical items are mapped under which concepts. This, in turn, helps specify which lexical items in electronic resources involve conceptual mappings. Looking specifically at the concept of PERSON, this work also establishes connectivity between lexical items which are related to "Organism". Therefore, the methodology reported herein not only aids the categorizing of lexical items according to their conceptual domains but also can establish links between these items. Such bottom-up and top-down analyses of lexical items may provide a means of representing metaphorical entries in lexical resources.




  • Cortazzi, Martin, and Lixian Jin. "Images of Teachers, Learning and Questioning in Chinese Cultures of Learning." Metaphors for Learning: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Ed. Erich A. Berendt. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2008. 177 - 202. Print. Vol. 22 of Human Cognitive Processing. Marcelo Dascal, et al, gen. ed.

    Essay mostly focuses on Chinese students in mainland China. Contemporary metaphors uses in the classroom (by teachers, educators, students), related to classroom practices/beliefs about learning. Focus: educational expectations of learning (external)—not cognitive systems; photographic data of physical representation of metaphor by students as they learn (179). Summary: Teaching is an upright stance (metaphor: the teacher is upright; the teacher is the model/embodiment of authoritative learning and moral behaviour) (181). Compared to Lebanese studying (relaxed, informal) (183). How metaphors have changed over time: 1) Great Leap Forward (1958 ?1959)—negative (obstacles, common labourers); 2) Cultural Revolution (1966 ?1976)—negative (freaks, monsters, stinking number nines); 2) 1990s’s—consolidated modernization (candles, lamps, engineers of the soul; Xia Hai: plunging into the sea; Chao Geng: second jobs at night); and 4) 2000’s—market system (conductor, parent, friend, guide) (186). 2003: A good teacher is a father. 2005: A good teacher is a tool/resource (a pair of glasses: through the teacher sometimes an unclear world comes into focus and vice versa), animals (a silkworm in the Spring; a robot cat: has a small bag with a treasure hoard of tricks—can take out magic spells to control students [exams are powerful spells].




  • Leung, Winifred Yuk Ying. "A Contrastive Study of Chinese and English Metaphors of Marriage." LCOM Papers 1 (2008): 21 - 35. The University of Hong Kong: Department of English. Web PDF file.

    The paper analyses how comparing marriage metaphors in contemporary Chinese and English reflect the differences in Chinese and English marriage beliefs. Roughly 300 articles from both Chinese (eg Beijing Morning Post) and English (Nashik News Line India) newspapers are sampled for expressions about marriage. 16% are metaphorical. Marriage is a journey is most prevalent (the bumpy road of marriage? The Chinese "yu" can be defined as road, path, and journey; direct, literal translations can be made (25). Under Marriage is a Cuisine, however: In the west, it is generally accepted that there are only four tastes: sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and saltiness. In contrast, the Chinese believes that there are five tastes (sweetness, bitterness, sourness, saltiness and piquancy), which correspond to the five elements namely water, fire, wood, metal, and earth in the Five Elements Theory of Chinese philosophy (30). Such metaphors that exist only in Chinese include (31) Marriage is Ying Yuan Cultivated from Previous Life. While there is the idiom “Marriage Made in Heaven," Ying Yuan is based on pre-destination, as opposed to marriage founded upon love.




  • Furuoka, Fumitaka, and Larisa Nikitina. "'A Language Teacher is Like...': Examining Malaysian Students' Perceptions of Language Teachers through Metaphor Analysis." Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 5.2 (2008): 192 - 205. Web.

    The study focuses on how Malaysian university students perceived their language teachers via metaphor analysis. Oxford et al offered four main visions of education (sec 3.3): Social Order, Cultural Transmission, Learner-Centered Growth, and Social Reform. The fourteen distinct metaphors for teachers that fit into the above groupings included manufacturer, competitor, hanging judge, doctor, and mind-and-behaviour controller; gatekeeper, conduit, repeater; nurturer, lover or spouse, scaffolder, entertainer, and delegator; and learning partner (respectively). While most of the comments fell under Learner-Centered Growth, it can also be argued that in the Asian context this is an inappropriate cultural concept, as the teacher is a disperser of knowledge, respected, and formal, as opposed to providing warmth and compassion. No responses fall under Social Reform, indicating that there is no idea of a democratic, give-and-take classroom environment.




    Other Cultures & Literature
  • Steger, T. 2007, "The Stories Metaphors Tell: Metaphors as a Tool to Decipher Tacit Aspects in Narratives." Field Methods, 19 (2007), pp.3-23.

    Metaphors are often unconscious and taken-for-granted parts of our daily life and common communication. This article deals with the explorative and descriptive aspects of metaphors used in organizational settings. I introduce a three-step metaphor analysis including several particular tools that focus on the specific metaphor meaning. Two case studies of East German managers' narratives will demonstrate how metaphors can help us better understand highly emotional contexts and complex situations within organizations.




  • Vaara, E., Tienari, J., & Santti, R. 2003. "The International Match: Metaphors as Vehicles of Social Identity-Building in Cross-Border Mergers." Human Relations, 56 (2003), pp. 419-451.

    This article focuses on cultural identity-building in the cross-border merger context. To provide an alternative to the dominant essentialist analyses of cultures and cultural differences, cultural identity-building is conceptualized as a metaphoric process. The focus is on two processes inherent in the cross-border merger context: construction of images of Us and Them and construction of images of a Common Future. Based on an analysis of a special metaphor exercise carried out in a recent Finnish-Swedish merger, the article illustrates how the metaphoric perspective reveals specific cognitive, emotional and political aspects of cultural identity-building that easily remain `hidden' in the case of more traditional approaches.




  • St. Clair, Robert N. "Visual Metaphor, Cultural Knowledge, and the New Rhetoric." Learn in Beauty: Indigenous Education for a New Century. Ed. Jon Reyhner, et al. Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University, 2000: 85 - 101. Web.

    Modern Western European ways of thinking are based on a print culture that tends to use verbal metaphors, and indigenous ways of thinking are based on oral culture that tends to use visual metaphors. This paper focuses on the Quaternity, a common recurring theme of the sacred number four in oral cultures that can be seen in the Mayans' four pillars, the Navajos' four sacred mountains, and the Plains Indians' Medicine Wheel. Metaphors can be used to understand cultural differences. They tell us how some cultures envision space. Of note is the educational cognitive styles: Relations of Child to the Curriculum—i) Print culture (Curriculum is made to incorporate details & structures. It uses impersonal content & structured subroutines. It stresses facts & formal knowledge. The discovery approach works best); ii) Oral Culture (The curriculum incorporates the gestalt approach. It uses a humanized format. Its focus is on wisdom, and group attitudes are emphasized. The experience approach works best). There are two dominant metaphors among most indigenous groups in the Americas. One of them is the journey and the other is the Quaternity.




    Context-specific Business:
  • Amernic, J., Craig, R., & Tourish, D. 2007. "The transformational leader as pedagogue, physician, architect, commander, and saint: Five root metaphors in Jack Welch's letters to stockholders of General Electric." Human Relations, 60 (2007), pp.1839-1872.

    We analyse the corpus of CEO letters to stockholders that were signed by a widely revered business leader, Jack Welch, during his tenure as CEO of the General Electric Company [GE], 1981¡X2000. Our discussion is located within theory pertaining to transformational leadership. We examine Welch's language from the standpoint of how transformational leadership can be conceived as a rhetorical artefact of one-sided dialogue emanating from a powerful leader. We give particular attention to the saturation of Welch's discourse with metaphors, and argue that metaphors illuminate how transformational leadership and the accompanying construct of charisma manifest themselves in practice. Five root metaphors that heightened Welch's persuasive and rhetorical impact on his audience are identified and discussed: Welch as pedagogue , physician, architect, commander and saint . We advocate greater awareness of the rhetorical techniques employed by transformational leaders in attempts to broker compliance with their views.




  • Anderson, A. R. 2005 A. R. "Enacted Metaphor: The Theatricality of the Entrepreneurial Process." International Small Business Journal, 23 (2005) pp. 587-603. The article proposes the value of theatricality as an additional conceptual tool to aid analysis and understanding of the entrepreneurial process. It explores the application of dramatism and dramaturgy and argues that such application is a useful addition to our repertoire. In particular, the ideas of spanning the boundaries of space and time and of truth and fiction, and the liminality of entrepreneurship lend themselves to such theatrical analysis. This allows a fuller appreciation of the entrepreneurial act in the duality of the concepts of the world as stage and the world as staged. The metaphors of theatricality offer an alternative medium for understanding.




  • Cacciaguidi-Fahy, S., & Cunningham, J. 2007. "The Use of Strategic Metaphors in Intercultural Business Communication." Managing Global Transitions, 5 (2007), pp.133-155.

    This paper contends that the use of strategic metaphors can help deliver the effective intercultural business communication necessary for global success. Using the Renault-Nissan Alliance as an example, the authors argue that an appropriate metaphor can help provide the global glue which captures the essence of the organisation¡¦s activities, encapsulates its strategic intent, incorporates the national and global cultures, and portrays its ethical and business stance. Indeed, as is the case in the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the appropriate use of metaphor allowed the firmto bind a diverse group of stakeholders to a common goal by using the inherent ambiguity and multiplicity of meaning of the metaphor to overcome Asian and Western intercultural differences and at the same time maximise goal congruence.




  • Cardon, M. S., Zietsma, C., Saparito, P., Matherne, B. P., & Davis, C. (2005). "A tale of passion: New insights into entrepreneurship from a parenthood metaphor." Journal of Business Venturing, 20 (2005), pp.23-45.

    As part of an attempt to make entrepreneurship more congruent with everyday experiences, the founding of a new firm is compared to the birth of a child.Following a discussion of the role of metaphors in the study of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial process is compared methodically to the social cycle of dating, commitment, and the bearing and upbringing of children.The entrepreneur is regarded as a parent, and his or her commitment to the venture is pictured as conception. In this scheme, the startup is a newborn that develops its own simple routines during its "childhood."By the time the firm reaches maturity, it separates from its parent.Other important figures in the firm's life cycle include "grandchildren" (corporate spinoffs), "foster parents" (professional managers put in place by investors), and prenatal care providers (incubators, networks, and family members).A new firm that fails before emergence is regarded as a miscarriage. The parenthood metaphor highlights the importance entrepreneurial passion, as well as deep identity connections between an entrepreneur and an idea or opportunity and the resulting business.The relational view implied by this metaphor raises a number of engaging questions, including whether entrepreneurs with strong identity connections to their ventures have trouble delegating tasks such as decision making. (SAA)




  • Charteris-Black, J., & Musolff, A. 2003. "'Battered hero' or 'innocent victim'? A comparative study of metaphors for euro trading in British and German financial reporting." English for Specific Purpose, 22 (2003), pp.153-176.

    This is a corpus based study that compares the use of metaphor in the reporting of the euro in the English and German financial press during a period of turbulent financial trading. While the approach to metaphor is broadly cognitive linguistic, metaphors are identified using two criteria: a broad semantic one that includes cases of reification and personification and a narrow one in which metaphor is treated as pragmatically motivated. This is when the use of a word or phrase is determined by the need to persuade the reader. Metaphors that describe euro trading in terms of (1) up/down movement and (2) health, characterise financial reporting in both English and German. However, English reporting also employs many combat metaphors in which the euro is an active agent. This is represented by a conceptual metaphor: EURO TRADING IS COMBAT. However, German reporting characterises the euro as a passive beneficiary of the actions of institutional bodies (banks and governments). The pragmatic approach to metaphor highlights the rhetorical importance of metaphors because they influence opinions. It is important for ESP learners to be aware of the cognitive and pragmatics differences in the purposes to which metaphors can be put.




  • Cornelissen, J. P. 2003. "Metaphor as a method in the domain of marketing." Psychology and Marketing, 20 (2003), pp.209-225.

    Prior research has laid the groundwork for a discussion of the role of metaphor in marketing, but has fallen short of offering a clear-cut method for guiding and evaluating its use. This article outlines such a method, and illustrates its use through extended discussions of the heuristic status of corporate identity and relationship marketing as metaphors for the generation of knowledge about the subjects that both supposedly illuminate. Implications of this methodology of metaphor for marketing research are outlined. ? 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.




  • Dodd, S. D. 2002. "Metaphors and meaning: A grounded cultural model of us entrepreneurship." Journal of Business Venturing, 17(2002), pp. 519-535.

    A grounded cultural model of US entrepreneurship is developed by analysing the metaphors that entrepreneurs use to give meaning to entrepreneurship in their life-and-business narratives. The resultant cultural model is coherent and internally consistent, and is helpful in providing stronger insights into entrepreneurs' own perspectives, aspirations, and cognition of the entrepreneurial process. Close to Schumpeter's conception of the entrepreneur, it nevertheless contains elements that are markedly American, and can be contrasted both with European mental models of entrepreneurship, and metaphorically derived models of organisational behaviour. Author Keywords: Metaphor; Entrepreneur; Culture; USA Walter Derzko NewBizDev.org wderzko@pathcom.com




  • El-Sawad, A. 2005. "Becoming a'lifer'? Unlocking career through metaphor." Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 78 (2005), pp.23-41.

    Despite growing interest in the adoption of metaphor analysis as a method of studying organizational and working life, there have been few, if any, empirical studies of career metaphors. Although career scholars have imposed their own metaphors to help illuminate their conceptions of career, the metaphors employed by those having careers and the conceptual insight this might generate has been all but ignored. This paper seeks to address this gap. Drawing on the career accounts of graduate level employees within a large blue-chip corporation, the metaphors they employ are analysed. The dominant metaphors contained within the careers literature ¡V spatial, journey, horticultural, and competition metaphors ¡V are drawn on heavily by participants. So too are other groups of metaphors not acknowledged within the literature. These are revealed as imprisonment, military, school-like surveillance, Wild West and nautical metaphors. An analysis of these metaphors generates fresh insights into the concept of career and leads to the `unlocking' of important, but to date neglected features of career. On the basis of this metaphor analysis, the paper argues that career may be better understood in terms of a politicized process in which discipline and control are key dimensions.




  • Eubanks, P. 2005. "Globalization, Corporate Rule,and Blended Worlds: A Conceptual-Rhetorical Analysis of Metaphor, Metonymy, and Conceptual Blending." Metaphor & Symbol, 20 (2005), pp.173-197

    This article analyzes the phrase "corporate rule" and related expressions as they occur in the discourse of globalization. It argues that the cognitive dimension of conceptual figures depends substantially on the figures' rhetoricity. The analysis has three parts: conceptual metaphor analysis that considers metonymy, primary metaphors, and rhetoricity; rhetorical analysis that considers intensity, responsiveness, and the role of the utterer; and analysis of "licensing stories" that are formed through conceptual blending of The Developed World and The Developing World. This article claims that rhetorical analysis is an important method for metaphor studies because it allows us to see connections between metaphoric expressions and relevant discourse and to recognize the patterns of variation that attend figurative expressions.




  • Gardiner, J. J. 2006. "Transactional, Transformational, And Transcendent Leadership: Metaphors Mapping The Evolution Of The Theory And Practice Of Governance." Leadership Review, 6 (2006), pp.62-76.

    Shared governance is a process of making decisions that involves broad participation of diverse groups. The metaphors of transactional, transformational, and transcendent leadership provide a map to understanding the evolution of theory and practice of governance. These metaphors, seen as a continuum, offer a tool for the analysis of the theory and practice of shared governance as defined by its six major characteristics:a climate of trust; information sharing; meaningful participation; collective decision making; protecting divergent views; and redefining roles. The prevailing model of governance that sets the leader apart from the rest of the organization must be challenged if true shared governance is to emerge. We must move from decision making by a leader to one by a leadership circle and, beyond, to leadership by the collective will ¡K from transactional, to transformational, to transcendent governance.




  • Gilstrap, D. L. 2005. "Strange Attractors and Human Interaction: Leading Complex Organizations through the Use of Metaphors." An International Journal of Complexity and Education, 2 (2005), pp. 55-69.

    This article is intended to explore the theoretical background behind complexity science in management and leadership and provide ways to approach educational leadership research through the use of strange attractor metaphors. Historical and contemporary leadership strategies have incorporated modernistic models that sometimes perpetuate problematic aspects of educational management rather than provide progressive solutions. Several leadership researchers have shown, however, there is tremendous potential for the emergent properties of complexity theory in organizational dynamics. The recognition and utilization of strange attractors as metaphorical constructs of chaos theory also provide us with an elaboration of teaching and educational leadership theory. Strange attractors seem to exist metaphorically in many aspects of the organizational dynamics of our educational institutions. The use of metaphors in lived experience is described, the scientific background behind strange attractors is introduced, and connections are made between strange attractors and human interaction. Strange attractors are then metaphorically described in organizational settings as shared vision, team processes, and information flows used as positive feedback mechanisms.




  • Inkson, K. 2004. "Images of career: Nine key metaphors." Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65, pp.96-111.

    This article examines theorists', practitioners', and workers' extensive use of metaphors in the conceptualization of careers. Metaphor constrains career thinking to powerful stereotypes, yet also extends views through the consideration of alternative metaphors and the creation of new ones. Morgan's (1986) method of multiple metaphor is used to develop an eclectic view of career studies. Nine key metaphors for career are considered¡Xthe career as inheritance, construction, cycle, matching, journey, encounters and relationships, roles, resource, and story. These metaphors act as frameworks for much career theory, and each presents specific career issues. Together they have the potential to advance thinking about careers beyond the framing of familiar metaphors, and provide a broader and more inclusive understanding of career phenomena.




  • Jacobs, C. D., & Heracleous, L. T. 2006. "Constructing Shared Understanding: The Role of Embodied Metaphors in Organization Development." The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47, pp.207-226.

    The authors present a novel metaphorical approach to organization development, the use of embodied metaphors, and in so doing extend current understandings and uses of metaphor in organization development (OD). The authors discuss an intervention technology that emphasizes induced rather than naturally occurring metaphors, builds on a developed theoretical base of collaborative diagnostic technologies, and can be employed in a targeted manner for issue diagnosis and intervention. Implications for the use of embodied metaphors in OD are discussed.




  • Khoury, G. R., & Simoff, S. J. 2004. "Enterprise Architecture Modelling Using Elastic Metaphors." Proceedings of the first Asian-Pacific conference on Conceptual modeling, New Zealand, 2004.

    Despite the hype surrounding enterprise architectures, they have delivered little on their promise. In this paper, we argue that enterprise architectures built using component-based frameworks are fundamentally flawed, in that they model the enterprise as a set of independent structures with discrete boundaries. Disparate concrete metaphors are used to describe each of these structures, with the result that enterprise architectures can only achieve partial success, at best, in providing a unified view of the enterprise. This paper introduces the concept of ¡¥elastic metaphors¡¦ as society-sourced metaphors for the conceptual modelling of information systems. By modelling the organisation using elastic metaphors sourced from naturally occurring enterprise structures, the enterprise architecture approach presented in this paper avoids the framework segmentation problem.




  • Koller, Veronika. 2004. Metaphor and gender in business media discourse: A critical cognitive study. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke.
  • Koller, V. 2004 V. "Businesswomen and war metaphors: 'Possessive, jealous and pugnacious'?" Journal of Sociolinguistics, 8 (2004), pp. 3-22.
  • Koller, V. 2005. "Designing cognition: Visual metaphor as a design feature in business magazines," Information Design Journal, 13, pp.136-150.

    This paper investigates the correlation between the use of dominant verbal metaphors and the use of visual forms in business-media discourse. The study is based on a corpus of English-language articles published between 1996 and 2003. This corpus was first searched for illustrations on marketing as well as mergers and acquisitions, and categorized into different types of visual metaphor. The visualizations of metaphor were subsequently compared to verbal metaphoric expressions in the same discourse domain to check for qualitative and quantitative congruence between the verbal and visual modes. Illustrations in business magazines employ the same metaphors as do verbal texts. Moreover, the frequency patterns ascertained for verbal metaphors are largely maintained in visual representation, with war/fighting being most dominant. Alternative metaphors are marginal in both modes. In terms of classification, the study shows that the majority of visual metaphoric expressions integrate the source and the target domain into a single gestalt. These results indicate that the visual design of business magazines support the verbal metaphors, thus producing the dominant models underlying business-media discourse.




  • O'Malley, L., Patterson, M., & Kelly-Holmes, H. 2008 L. O'Malley, M. Patterson and H. Kelly-Holmes. "Death of a metaphor: reviewing the marketing as relationships' frame." Marketing Theory, 8, pp.167-187.

    The frame ¡¥marketing as relationships¡¦ is central to contemporary marketing thought and informs both research and practice in marketing. It is underpinned by the ¡¥interpersonal relationship¡¦ metaphor, which, at the superordinate level relies upon social exchange theory (SET) and, at the subordinate level, reinforces the ideological values of Judeo-Christian marriages. The current pervasiveness of the ¡¥marketing as relationships¡¦ frame suggests that this view of marketing has become commonsensical, taken-for-granted, and recognized by marketers as simply part of their discourse. In this presentation, I will; trace the evolution of the ¡¥marketing as relationships¡¦ frame, and analyze its current position. Using insights drawn from conceptual metaphor theory and critical discourse analysis, I argue that it is necessary to reactivate this metaphor in order to investigate whether it is relevant to current theory and practice in marketing. Of course, given the pervasiveness of metaphor within marketing, this analysis has wider implications for marketing theory.




  • McGoun, E. G., Bettner, M. S., & Coyne, M. P. 2007 "Pedagogic metaphors and the nature of accounting signification." Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 18, pp. 213-230.

    This paper concerns three metaphors for financial statements associated with accounting education: lenses, photographs, and the board game, Scrabble. These metaphors not only describe financial statements but also affect our interpretations of them and our behavior towards them. The lens metaphor has many implications that accounting cannot live up to; however, that does not mean that it is an inappropriate metaphor to express our aspirations for accounting and to inspire our students. The Scrabble metaphor is a somewhat pejorative metaphor that we may cynically apply to accounting, but it may also be an effective means of criticizing mindless manipulation of financial statement elements. The photographic metaphor, occupying a middle ground, might be the most intriguing of the three. At an elementary level, it captures some simple truths about accounting, or at least some simple statements we would like to be true. But as the complexities of the metaphor are explored, they reveal a variety of intriguing ontological issues that concern financial statements.




  • Milne, M. J., Kearins, K., & Walton, S. 2006. "Creating Adventures in Wonderland: The Journey Metaphor and Environmental Sustainability." Organization, 13 (2006) pp.801-839.

    This paper provides a critical exploration of the journey metaphor promoted in much business discourse on sustainability¡Xin corporate reports and advertisements, and in commentaries by business and professional associations. The portrayal of ¡¥sustainability as a journey¡¦ evokes images of organizational adaptation, learning, progress, and a movement away from business-as-usual practices. The journey metaphor, however, masks the issue of towards what it is that businesses are actually, or even supposedly, moving. It is argued that in constructing ¡¥sustainability as a journey¡¦, business commentators and other purveyors of corporate rhetoric can avoid becoming embroiled in debates about future desirable and sustainable states of affairs¡Xstates of affairs, perhaps, which would question the very raison d¡¦?tre for some organizations and their outputs. ¡¥Sustainability as a journey¡¦ invokes a subtle and powerful use of language that appears to seriously engage with elements of the discourse around sustainable development and sustainability, but yet at the same time, paradoxically, may serve to further reinforce business-as-usual.




  • Morris, M. W., Sheldon, O. J., Ames, D. R., & Young, M. J. 2007. "Metaphors and the market: Consequences and preconditions of agent and object metaphors in stock market commentary." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 102, pp.174-192.

    We investigated two types of metaphors in stock market commentary. Agent metaphors describe price trajectories as volitional actions, whereas object metaphors describe them as movements of inanimate objects. Study 1 examined the consequences of commentators¡¦ metaphors for their investor audience. Agent metaphors, compared with object metaphors and non-metaphoric descriptions, caused investors to expect price trend continuance. The remaining studies examined preconditions, the features of a price trend that evoke agent vs. object metaphors. We hypothesized that the rate of agentic metaphors would depend on the trend direction (upday vs. downday) and steadiness (steady vs. unsteady). Two archival studies tracked the metaphoric content in end-of-day CNBC commentary as a function of daily price trajectories. As predicted, agent metaphors occurred more frequently on updays than downdays and especially so when the trends were relatively steady as opposed to unsteady. This held for both bull (Study 2) and bear market periods (Study 3). Study 4 replicated these findings in a laboratory experiment where participants took the role of stock market commentator.




  • Oberlechner, T., Slunecko, T., & Kronberger, N. 2004. "Surfing the money tides: Understanding the foreign exchange market through metaphors." British Journal of Social Psychology, 43, pp. 133-156.

    This study describes metaphorical conceptualizations of the foreign exchange market held by market participants and examines how these metaphors socially construct the financial market. Findings are based on 55 semi-structured interviews with senior foreign exchange experts at banks and at . nancial news providers in Europe. We analysed interview transcripts by metaphor analysis, a method based on cognitive linguistics. Results indicate that market participants¡¦ understanding of . nancial markets revolves around seven metaphors, namely the market as a bazaar, as a machine, as gambling, as sports, as war, as a living being and as an ocean. Each of these metaphors highlights and conceals certain aspects of the foreign exchange market and entails a different set of implications on crucial market dimensions, such as the role of other market participants and market predictability. A correspondence analysis supports our assumption that metaphorical thinking corresponds with implicit assumptions about market predictability. A comparison of deliberately generated and implicitly used metaphors reveals notable differences. In particular, implicit metaphors are predominantly organic rather than mechanical. In contrast to academic models, interactive and organic metaphors, and not the machine metaphor, dominate the market accounts of participants. This




  • Paulson, S. K. 2005. "Teaching International Business Concepts Through the Exchange of Cultural Metaphors." Journal of Teaching in International Business, 16, pp.81-98.

    The objectives of this paper are (1) to review the concept of cultural metaphors, (2) to propose a specific application of cultural metaphors in the teaching of international business concepts and (3) to report two situations in which this application was used. The paper concludes with recommendations for further development of this teaching methodology. The applications involved the exchange of metaphors between students at a French university and students at a university in the United States, in 2001 and 2004, which they had developed to describe their respective cultures. The courses were in the field of international business management.




  • Smith-Ruig, T. 2008. T. "Making sense of careers through the lens of a path metaphor." Career International Development, 13, pp.20-32.

    The purpose of this article is to understand how participants make sense of career through the lens of a path metaphor. Inkson¡¦s three types of career paths are used as a framework to determine whether the participants followed either a traditional and/or boundaryless career. Design/methodology/approach ¡V The research is based on interviews with 59 men and women employed in the accounting profession in Australia. The participants were asked to describe their career development to date. Findings ¡V During the interview the participants often used metaphoric language to describe their career development, especially ¡§path¡¨, ¡§journey¡¨, or ¡§road¡¨ metaphors. Analysis of these career metaphors revealed that the participants experienced aspects of both a traditional and a boundaryless career. On the one hand, the professional structure of an accounting career required some participants to follow a more traditional career path, whilst, on the other hand, the increasing desire for a better work-life balance and for stimulating work meant that other participants followed a boundaryless career. Research limitations/implications ¡V The study has implications for organizations trying to recruit, retain, and develop accounting professionals. The dilemma for individuals appeared to be focused on whether to follow a traditional career path, or pursue their own individual goals and carve out their own unique or boundaryless career. Originality/value ¡V The benefit of using the journey or path metaphor is that it helps to explain and illustrate the various career options open to individuals. The journey metaphor was derived from the participants¡¦ own explanation of their career trajectories, and thus was not a metaphor imposed by the researcher.




  • Shoib, G., Henneberg, S. C., Mouzas, S., & Naude, P. 2003. "Meta-phrasing Information and Communication Technology Metaphors to Business Networks: Reflections on How We Make Sense of Business Relationships." 19th IMP Conference, Lugano. September, 2003.

    Recent developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have clearly been much focused on how best to design and manage complex Inter-Organisational Information Systems. But in the same way that the IMP Group has traditionally used metaphors to facilitate our understanding of how companies interact, so too have researchers in Information Systems used different metaphors to aid their own. Both disciplines also overlap in their interest in networks, although this metaphor itself serves different purposes to the two groups. In this paper we look at some of the metaphors used within Information and Communication Technology and comment upon what we may be able to learn from these in terms of designing and operating within complex inter-organisational business relationships. This paper is structured around three broad themes. First, based upon earlier work, we look at the role of metaphors in management studies in general. We then go on to comment upon some of the metaphors used by researchers working with Information and Communication Technology and finally we assess the extent of their applicability in aiding us to make sense of complex business relationships.




  • Skorczynska, H., & Deignan, A. 2006. "Readership and Purpose in the Choice of Economics Metaphors." Metaphor & Symbol, 21, pp. 87-104.

    The findings described in this article suggest that writers¡¦ choices of linguistic metaphors are importantly influenced by two factors: the text¡¦s intended readership and its purpose. We describe a corpus comparison of metaphor use in scientific and popular business discourse. Frequency measures and concordancing techniques were used to identify the differences in metaphorical use between the two corpora. A narrower range of metaphors was found in the scientific business corpus than in the popular business corpus. Functions of the genre-specific metaphors in each corpus were then examined using a framework based on work by Henderson (1986), Lindstromberg (1991) and Goatly (1997). Despite their having related subject matter, the two corpora shared relatively few linguistic metaphors, and metaphors appeared to be used for a different range of functions in each corpus.




  • Sznajder, H. S., & Pique-Angordans, J. 2005. "A corpus-based description of metaphorical marking patterns in scientific and popular business discourse." Metaphorik.de, 9, pp.112-129.

    This article describes the variations in the use of metaphorical markers, as defined and classified by Goatly (1997), in two corpora: one consisting of business research articles and another of business periodical articles. Marker categories, the occurrences of individual markers, as well as cases of multiple marking are analysed using concordancing techniques to determine the patterns of metaphorical marking in the two corpora. It is shown that a wider range of marker types, a larger number of individual markers and of multiple marker clusters can be found in the corpus of business periodical articles. The frequency of a relatively small number of overlapping markers is also higher in this corpus. The differences described could indicate the varying attitudes towards the use of metaphor in the mentioned corpora.




  • Teichert, T., Wartburg, I., & Braterm, R. 2006 "Tacit meaning in disguise: Hidden metaphors in new product development and market making." Business Horizons, 45, pp.451-461.

    Explores the role of metaphor in product development processes and market making. Based on a sociocognitive perspective of innovation dynamics and required learning by market actors, the potential of metaphors for mental model development during new product development (NPD) processes is investigated. Three roles for metaphors as cognitive focusing devices for the co-evolution of producers' and consumers' mental models are inferred: mental model communication, mental model matching, and mental model creation. These roles are illustrated by examples that reinforce the need for creativity in applying metaphors as cognitive focusing devices in NPD and market making.




  • Tracy, S. J., Lutgen-Sandvik, P., & Alberts, J. K. 2006. "Nightmares, Demons, and Slaves: Exploring the Painful Metaphors of Workplace Bullying." Management Communication Quarterly, 20, pp.148-145.

    Although considerable research has linked workplace bullying with psychosocial and physical costs, the stories and conceptualizations of mistreatment by those targeted are largely untold. This study uses metaphor analysis to articulate and explore the emotional pain of workplace bullying and, in doing so, helps to translate its devastation and encourage change. Based on qualitative data gathered from focus groups, narrative interviews, and target drawings, the analysis describes how bullying can feel like a battle, water torture, nightmare, or noxious substance. Abused workers frame bullies as narcissistic dictators, two-faced actors, and devil figures. Employees targeted with workplace bullying liken themselves to vulnerable children, slaves, prisoners, animals, and heartbroken lovers. These metaphors highlight and delimit possibilities for agency and action. Furthermore, they may serve as diagnostic cues, providing shorthand necessary for early intervention.




  • Von Ghyczy, T. 2003 "The fruitful flaws of strategy metaphors." Harvard Business Review, 9, pp.86-94,133.

    The business world is rife with metaphors these days, as managers look to other disciplines for insights into their own challenges. And metaphors can--despite their somewhat flaky image--be powerful catalysts for generating new business strategies. But metaphors are often improperly used, their potential left unrealized. We tend to look for reassuring parallels in business metaphors instead of troubling differences, the author contends.




  • Walters, M., & Young, J. J. 2008. "Metaphors and accounting for stock options." Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 19, pp. 805-833.

    This essay explores the role that metaphor has played in the conceptualization of the controversial accounting for stock options issue. We explore the particular metaphors engaged within the stock options discourse over time through reference to dialogues appearing in the professional and popular business press and related hearings. Our analysis begins with the 1993 issuance of a FASB exposure draft (to require expense recognition) and ends with the reconsideration of the accounting for stock options issue by the FASB in 2003. We find that the dominant metaphors engaged change over time and differ markedly in their renderings of stock options and stock options accounting. Metaphors appearing earlier in the debate, engaged against the backdrop of a stalled economy and high hopes for an economic recovery driven by the tech industry, carry positive attitudes with respect to the use of options with corollary rational prescriptions for accounting policy. In contrast, later metaphors, engaged within a markedly different socio-economic frame, carry derogatory attitudes with respect to the use of stock options implying decidedly different rationalizations regarding accounting policy. We close by discussing the significance of metaphor in accounting policy debates.




  • Weick, C. W. 2003. "Out of Context: Using Metaphor to Encourage Creative Thinking in Strategic Management Courses." Journal of Management Education, 27, pp.323- 343.

    Business strategy requires skills in thinking creatively as well as analytically. Materials commonly used in teaching strategic management¡Xtraditional texts, case analyses, and simulations¡Xare effective at exposing students to the analytical dimensions of strategy. However, materials that foster creative thinking are scarce. This article presents an approach to teaching strategic management based on metaphors from a variety of nonbusiness realms. A reading list is described that has been developed and used successfully over the past several years in the strategic management course at University of the Pacific. Specific ways to integrate these materials into an existing curriculum are detailed. Business strategy requires skills in thinking creatively as well as analytically. Materials commonly used in teaching strategic management¡Xtraditional texts, case analyses, and simulations¡Xare effective at exposing students to the analytical dimensions of strategy. However, materials that foster creative thinking are scarce. This article presents an approach to teaching strategic management based on metaphors from a variety of nonbusiness realms. A reading list is described that has been developed and used successfully over the past several years in the strategic management course at University of the Pacific. Specific ways to integrate these materials into an existing curriculum are detailed.




  • White, M., Soler, H. H., Villacajas, B., & Pizarro, M. A. 2007. "Grammar as focal point of metaphor in business press headline." Proceedings of the 5th International AELFE Conference, 2007.

    Previous work on business press headlines has identified and analysed patterns, mainly from the semantic point of view (Herrera Soler 2006a, 2006b). In the present study, we take grammar as our starting point. A major issue is where the focal point of metaphor is located, that is, on the verb or on the noun, which is to say, on entities or processes and what trends or patterns are evident within this division. While researching this issue, we have been struck by the fact that many headlines are in point of fact verbless phrases. Additional research has enabled us to quantify such use and to establish patterns within that use. Our methodology follows Deignan¡¦s (2005) call for greater emphasis on naturally occurring language use, supported by corpus evidence, rather than on introspection. Hence, we have built up our own corpus of authentic Spanish and English business press headlines, comprising 981 entries. We then isolated all the cases of verbless phrases, providing a sub-corpus of quantitative data for this paradigm and proceeded to analyse its specific characteristics. To this end, we concentrated on the focal point of metaphor, establishing patterns of use both from the semantic and syntactic points of view. At the same time, we consider the communication impact or potential of these kinds of verbless phrases and their respective patterns. Our conclusion, in this respect, is that the absence of verbs seems to be compensated by the presence of elements which due to shared knowledge¡Xfor example, idioms, near idioms, salient culturally specific reference, embodiment or different grammatical devices¡Xare likely to have added communicative potential or impact and thus positively contribute to the persuasiveness of these headlines.
  • White, M. 2003. "Metaphor and economics: the case of growth." English for Specific Purposes, 22, pp. 131-151.




  • Li, Lan & Bilbow, Grahame, T. 2004. "Cultural similarities and dissimilarities of business metaphors and their translation." In Sin-Wai Chan (ed.), Translation and bilingual dictionaries, 141-149 (Lexicographica Series Maior). Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.

    Is the bilingual dictionary really the translator¡¦s best friend? Or is it the case that all translators hate all dictionaries? The truth probably lies half-way. It is difficult to verify anyway, as the literature on the subject(s) is limited, not helped by the fact that Lexicography and Translation have stood apart for decades despite their commonality of purpose. Here is a volume, based on the proceedings of a successful conference at Hong Kong, that may at last provide some answers.
  • Li, Lan & Bilbow, Grahame, T. 2002. "Business metaphors in a bilingual business lexicon." Lexikos 12. 171-180.




  • Soler, H. H. 2008. "A metaphor corpus in business press headlines." IBIRICA, 15, pp.51-70.

    In linguistics a corpus typically involves a finite body of texts which are considered to be representative of a particular variety of language at a specific time (McEnery & Wilson, 2001). Those are the assumptions we have had in mind in this metaphor corpus based on business press headlines. Our body of texts is a finite number of headlines drawn from the specific field of the business sections of three newspapers: Financial Times, El Pa?s and El Mundo, published over a period running from January to July 2003. Compiling a small corpus of non-literal instantiations as different authors have done (Cort?s de los R?os, 2001; K?vecses, 2002; Charteris-Black, 2003; Koller, 2004; Deignan, 2005; and others) will enable us first to identify whether the contextual meaning of a word or a multiword unit of headline contrasts with its basic meaning and whether the contextual meaning can be understood by comparison with that basic meaning, and then to categorize, both in the Spanish and in the British press, the different linguistic realizations of a headline in terms of their syntactic structure, metaphor foci and source domains.




    Education-specific
  • Cameron, Lynne. 2003. Metaphor in educational discourse. London: Continuum.

    1 An applied linguistic approach to metaphor in discourse 1 2 Talking, thinking and learning: theoretical background 27 3 Researching metaphor in classroom discourse 51 4 The linguistic form of metaphor in classroom discourse 86 5 Deliberate and conventionalized metaphor in classroom discourse 100 6 Metaphor in classroom activity 120 7 Researching metaphor interpretation 144 8 Metaphors in text 1: 'The Ozone Layer' 167 9 Metaphors in text 2: 'The Heart' 200 10 Systematicity, metaphor and metonymy 239 11 Metaphor in educational discourse: review and discussion 265




  • Cortazzi, Martin, & Jin, Lixian. 1999. "Bridge to learning: Metaphors of teaching, learning and language." In Lynne Cameron & Graham Low (eds.), Researching and Applying Metaphor, 149-176. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    1 Operationalising 'metaphor' for applied linguistic research / Lynne Cameron 3 2 Researching metaphor / Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. 29 3 Validating metaphor research projects / Graham Low 48 4 Getting your sources right: What Aristotle didn't say / James Edwin Mahon 69 5 Metaphor and discourse: Towards a linguistic checklist for metaphor analysis / Gerard Steen 81 6 Identifying and describing metaphor in spoken discourse data / Lynne Cameron 105 7 Who framed SLA research? Problem framing and metaphoric accounts of the SLA research process / David Block 135 8 Bridges to learning: Metaphors of teaching, learning and language / Martin Cortazzi, Lixian Jin 149 9 Corpus-based research into metaphor / Alice Deignan 177 10 "Captain of my own ship": Metaphor and the discourse of chronic illness / Richard Gwyn 203 11 "This paper thinks ...": Investigating the acceptability of the metaphor an Essay is a Person / Graham Low 221 12 When is a dead rainbow not like a dead rainbow? A context-sensitive method for investigating differences between metaphor and simile / Zazie Todd, David D. Clarke 249




  • Danesi, Marcel. 1994. "Recent research on metaphor and the teaching of Italian." Italica 71. 453-464.

    The Italian language classroom today has never before been so so-phisticated from the standpoint of instructional methodology and in the use of advanced technology (audio-visual aids, computer-as-sisted learning materials, etc.). The teaching of Italian in classroom environments, like that of other modern languages, has been shaped throughout this century by theories and findings coming out of the cognitive and social sciences, especially psychology and linguistics. It is no exaggeration to claim that the interplay between the research in these sciences and pedagogical practices has produced practitioners who are among the most informed and pedagogically-knowledgeable teachers of all time. As we approach the end of the twentieth century it is, in fact, difficult to think of the Italian classroom in high school, college, or university as anything but a highly advanced learning en-vironment.




  • Li, Lan. 2008. "A preliminary study of metaphor use by Hong Kong university students." Paper presented at the 18th International Congress of Linguists, 21-26 July, Seoul, Korea.

    Metaphoric competence ¡V the knowledge of and ability to use metaphor appropriately and effectively ¡V contributes to all aspects of communicative competence, and is therefore ¡¥highly relevant to second language learning, teaching and testing.¡¦ (Littlemore & Low, 2006: 268). This paper reports an investigation into the use of metaphor by Hong Kong university students who are advanced learners of English. There were two parts to the study: data mining of a learner corpus which comprised communicative and argumentative writing, and analysis of a metaphor elicitation test. The discussion focuses on the frequency and types of conceptual metaphors produced in different contexts. It is argued that students¡¦ metaphoric competence should be enhanced because metaphors can make communication more effective and impressive.
  • Li, Lan. 2007. "Metaphorical mapping on campus: An investigation on students' metaphorical ability." Paper presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Teaching English at Tertiary Level, 9-10 June, Hong Kong.




  • Munby, Hugh. 1986. "Metaphor in the thinking of teachers, an exploratory study." Journal of Curricular Studies 18(2). 197-209.

    This study examined a teacher's use of metaphors in the language she employed when talking about her work. Results show that metaphorical figures can be studied with a view to comprehending a teacher's construction of professional reality.




  • Offstein, E. H., & Neck, P. C. 2003. "From 'Acing the Test' to 'Touching Base': The Sports Metaphor in the Classroom." Business Communication Quarterly, 66, pp.23-35.

    The use of sports metaphors to convey business lessons both within and outside the classroom is a common phenomenon. The sports metaphor, however, is prone to misuse and can often inadvertently exclude large segments of the student popula tion. To address these issues, we put forth an innovative and novel pedagogical approach that attempts to capitalize better on the shared meanings between athlet ics and certain business practices. Using the sports of tennis and basketball, we demonstrate how sports metaphors can he responsibly used to aid in the under standing of business lessons, such as managerial decision making.




    ESL/EFL/ESP
  • Boers, Frank. 2000. "Enhancing metaphoric awareness in specialised reading." English for Specific Purposes 19. 137-147.
  • Boers, Frank, & Demecheleer, Murielle. 2001. "Measuring the impact of cross-cultural differences on learners' comprehension of imageable idioms." ELT Journal 55(3). 255-262.

    Imageable idioms are figurative expressions that tend to call up a conventional scene in the native speaker's mind. However, do these imageable idioms call up the same scene in the language learner's mind? We report an experiment in which 78 French-speaking students were asked to 'guess' the meaning of unfamiliar English idioms, without the benefit of contextual clues. The results invite teachers and learners to approach the semantics of many imageable idioms as non-arbitrary, while giving due attention to obstacles to comprehension raised by both cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation. The article concludes with a set of guidelines to anticipate and remedy those comprehension problems.




  • Cameron, Lynne, & Low, Graham. 1999. "Metaphor." Language Teaching 32. 77-96.




  • Danesi, Marcel. 1995. "Learning and teaching languages: The role of conceptual fluency." International Journal of Applied Linguistics 5. 3 - 20.

    Despite considerable research in second language learning in classroom environments in this century, and despite the many pedagogical applications that such work has made possible, teachers and learners alike still complain about the fact that autonomous student discourse lacks the conceptual richness that characterizes native speaker discourse. The purpose of this essay is to suggest that the notion of "conceptual fluency", which has been derived from the current research on the role of metaphor in language and cognition, can be used to draft a teaching curriculum around the notion that metaphor is the organizing principle of common discourse.




  • Deignan, Alice, Danuta, Gabrys, & Agnieszka, Solska. 1997. "Teaching English metaphors using cross-linguistic awareness-raising activities." ELT Journal 51. 352-360.

    Now that metaphor is recognized as being pervasive in language, it is argued that more attention should be given to the teaching of strategies for comprehending and generating metaphors in L2. In this article we report on a translation exercise undertaken by advanced Polish learners of English which revealed ways in which metaphorical expressions vary between the two languages, and the problems this raises for learners. It is suggested that awareness-raising through discussion and comparison of metaphors in LI and L2 is a useful approach to helping learners to understand and appropriately produce metaphors. This is followed by some sample teaching materials which have been designed to encourage learners to investigate and compare metaphors in L1 and L2




  • Irujo, Suzanne. 1986. "Don't put your leg in your mouth: The effects of transfer on the acquisition of idioms in a second language." TESOL Quarterly 20. 287-303.

    This study investigated whether second language learners use knowledge of their first language to comprehend and produce idioms in their second language. It used identical, similar and totally different idioms in English and Spanish, to see which were comprehended and produced most correctly, which caused the most negative transfer, what strategies learners used to produce unknown idioms, and what the characteristics of the best known idioms were Subjects were 24 Venezuelan advanced learners of English. Comprehension of 15 identical, 15 similar and 15 different idioms was tested with a multiple choice test (correct paraphrase chosen from four choices) and a definitions test (definition of the idiom was written). Production of the same 45 idioms was tested with a discourse completion test (missing word written in an idiom in a contextualized paragraph) and a translation test (a Spanish paragraph including an idiom was translated to English without the idiom; the idiom which would be used in that situation was provided). Two groups of 12 subjects took the tests in different orders. Statistical analysis was done on each group separately because there were interaction between group and type of idiom. Group one subjects showed a learning effect on the translation test; they had previously seen the whole idiom on the multiple choice test. Results showed identical idioms were the easiest to comprehend and produce. Similar idioms were comprehended almost as well, but showed interference. (For group one, maximum learning effect occurred with similar idioms; this decreased the amount of interference.) Different idioms were the most difficult to comprehend and produce, but showed less interference than similar idioms. TOEFL scores correlated significantly with total idiom test score, but no other background variable did. Subjects used both inter- and intralingual strategies to produce idioms they did not know. Within each type, best known idioms were those which were frequent, transparent, and had simple vocabulary and structure. It was concluded that these subjects used their knowledge of Spanish in comprehending and producing English idioms. Implications for second language teaching were discussed, as well as suggestions for teaching idioms.




  • Li, Thomas. (2003) "The acquisition of metaphorical expressions, idioms and proverbs by Chinese learners of English: a conceptual metaphor and image schema based approach." Unpublished PhD thesis at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

    This book argues for an innovative approach to the systematic learning of metaphorical expressions, idioms and proverbs.Based on conceptual metaphor and image schema theory,a 4-level hierarchical framework is established,which originates from embodied experiences,and surfaces in linguistic expressions including metaphorical expressions,idioms,and proverbs.Because conceptual metaphors,image,and image schemas posess special cognitive features,it is claimed that they can facilitate the learning of linguistic expressions organized or motivated by them.Supports are identified from the following sources of evidence: The Dual Coding Theory,the Psychological Reality of Image Schema,and the Psychological Reality of Hierarchical Structure.The effectiveness of the current approach is experimentally explored and examined by means of five studies with the participation of four hundred plus Chinese undergraduate students.The present research represents an attempt to bridge the gap between the theoretical study of conceptual metaphors and image schemas in cognitive linguistics and their pedagogical applications in applied linguistics.




  • Sacristan, M. V. 2004. "Metaphor and ESP: metaphor as a useful device for teaching L2 Business English learners." IBIRICA, 10, pp.115-131.

    Metaphor, as a widespread feature of everyday thought and language, represents a central issue for both L2 ESP instructors and learners. In this paper we argue for the idea that including metaphor in a specific English language programme can provide students with a useful device to raise awareness of key concepts, models and issues and to improve their reading and translating skills. We put forward different exercises taken from an example of L2 ESP programme, the optional course 'Business English I', currently taught at the University of Valladolid (Spain). These exercises can prove revealing, telling us that metaphor has a useful function in teaching L2 ESP students effectively, thus leading us to conclude that metaphor should be included as part of any L2 ESP programme and, probably, as part of any foreign-language learning process.




  • Boers, Frank. "Enhancing Metaphoric Awareness in Specialised Reading." English for Specific Purposes 19 (2000): 137 - 147. Pergamon. Web.

    Focuses primarily on metaphors in economic discourse. Explores potential benefits of enhanced metaphoric awareness on the part of the learner. (140) Teaching students “models?may achieve questioning attitudes and differing perspectives (140). Experimentation performed on French students (be able to read and discuss articles in The Economist and The Financial Times)—metaphors cannot have any direct equivalence to French; in control group, participants were able to find figurative meaning from literal meaning, and make inferences from the literal meaning (141).




  • Charteris-Black, Jonathan. "Metaphor and Vocabulary Teaching in ESP Economics." English for Specific Purposes 19 (2000): 149 - 165. Science Direct. Web.

    Focus is on using a metaphor-based lexis to teach vocabulary to ESP economics students. The Economist is discussed as containing a high frequency lexis, as opposed to the more general section found in the Bank of English. Here, animate metaphors are used to describe the economy (growth) and economic organisations (parent/sister company)—regarded as under control by experts; and inanimate objects to describe market movements (rebounds, slides, etc)—bbeyond human control. Both architectures and teachers (in general) use "building" language in their discourses (150).




  • Henderson, Willie. "Metaphor, Economics, and ESP: Some Comments." English for Specific Purposes 19 (2000): 167 - 173. Science Direct. Web.

    Focuses on methods to help EFL students accelerate understanding of economics through linguistic devices (such as metaphor). The applied linguist prefers concrete to conceptual metaphors; so, source domains are more useful than target domains (vehicles?) (2). Economic journalism (as found in the Economist) as opposed to economic texts, provide devices better suited to real world understanding, and extensively use metaphors understandable to both the general public and economics specialists (4).




  • Liberali, Fernanda Coelho. (2008) "School Teachers in Favela Contexts." In Zanotto, Mara Sophia, Lynne Cameron and Marilda C. Cavalcanti (eds.), Confronting Metaphor in Use.

    This timely publication reacts to the long-standing tendency of the cognitive linguistic community to focus on conceptual metaphor theory to the exclusion of natural language data, and is a welcome contribution to the study of metaphor in discourse. [...] It may be of special interest to readers working in or researching educational setting. It will also appeal to a wider audience because of the range of theoretical framework, mehods, and both quantitative and qualitative studies it offers, and the general theoretical discussions arising from the data.? Tina Krennmayr, VU University, Amsterdam, in Metaphor and Symbol 24 (2009)




  • Philip, Gill. "From Concept to Wording and Back Again: Features of Learners' Production of Figurative Language." University of Bologna, Italy, n.d.: 1 - 8.

    Encouraging students to refer to macro-metaphors and conceputalisations in order to comprehend new language items has beneficial effects on their ability to interpret and store new vocabulary. With the understanding that there are challenges to understanding metaphoric meaning from L1 to L2, the article attempts to analyze how Italian advanced students?conceptual disfluency can explain errors and phraseological oddities that appear in non-native language production. L1 collocations may not translate into L2 collocations—this, then, is a conceptual issue, as linguistically, the phraseology is sound (4). So, even in the L1, metaphoric meaning underlying a phraseology could also be imprecise? (6)




  • Prodromou, Luke. "Bumping into Creative Idiomaticity." English Today 89.23.1 (Jan 2007): 14 - 25.

    In recent years, the area of phraseology has evolved from its peripheral Chomskyan status to a fundamental role in language discussion, description, and acquisition that can be said to focus on "creative idiomaticity." The metaphors we use to describe idiomaticity in the learning context reflect the frequently observed phenomenon of L2 learners/users attempting to deploy idiomaticity in spoken language and ending up sounding dysfluent and unnatural. L2 users will have a tougher time engaging in word play when L1 cultural norms are not understood: echoic mention, fixed expressions, pop songs, an allusion, and ironic echo (18). Rule breaking allowances for L1 users does not extend towards L2 users (22). Efficient and effective use of collocations, semantic prosody, speech routines (etc) requires diligent immersion in L1 culture and community (easier said than done) (23).




  • Piquer-Piriz, Ana M. "Young Learners' Understanding of Figurative Language." In Zanotto, Mara Sophia, Lynne Cameron and Marilda C. Cavalcanti (eds.), Confronting Metaphor in Use.

    This timely publication reacts to the long-standing tendency of the cognitive linguistic community to focus on conceptual metaphor theory to the exclusion of natural language data, and is a welcome contribution to the study of metaphor in discourse. [...] It may be of special interest to readers working in or researching educational setting. It will also appeal to a wider audience because of the range of theoretical framework, mehods, and both quantitative and qualitative studies it offers, and the general theoretical discussions arising from the data.? Tina Krennmayr, VU University, Amsterdam, in Metaphor and Symbol 24 (2009)




    Other Corpora
  • Cameron, Lynne, & Deignan, Alice. 2003. "Combining large and small corpora to investigate tuning devices around metaphor in spoken discourse." Metaphor and Symbol 18. 149-160.

    We studied metaphorical language in spoken discourse from a number of settings to explore the words and expressions that regularly appear in the cotext of both conventional and innovative metaphors. We found that expressions that we call "tuning devices" are frequent in all the data consulted. Tuning devices have a number of different functions, clustered around the central notion of suggesting to the hearer how to interpret a metaphor. Our data was drawn from 2 computerized corpora, 1 small enough to be handsearched as well as concordanced, the other very large. Both small and large corpora present research problems, and we argue that combining the 2, by using a small corpus as a starting point for searches in a large corpus, may reduce the disadvantages of each.




  • Salager-Meyer, Francoise. 1990. "Metaphors in medical English prose: A comparative study." English for Specific Purposes 9. 145-159.

    Determines the patterns of analogy underlying medically terminologized words that carry a metaphorical status. Study results show that the patterns of analogy underlying medical metaphors are language independent and differ from those underlying nonscientific metaphors. Pedagogical guidelines are provided encouraging new vocabulary usage to existing knowledge structures. (63 references) (GLR)




  • Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Pt. I Metaphor background and theory 5 1 Metaphor and thought 7 2 Critical approaches to metaphor 25 Pt. II Metaphor in political discourse 45 3 The metaphors of new labour 47 4 Metaphor in British party political manifestos 65 5 Metaphor in American presidential speeches 87 Pt. III Metaphor in press reporting 111 6 Metaphor in sports reporting 113 7 Metaphor in financial reporting 135 Pt. IV Metaphor in religious discourse 171 8 Metaphor in the Bible 173 9 Metaphor in the Old Testament 202 10 Metaphor in the Koran 218 Pt. V A discourse theory of metaphor 241 11 Critical metaphor analysis 243




  • Deignan, Alice. 1999. "Corpus-based research into metaphor." In Lynne Cameron & Graham Low (eds.), Researching and Applying Metaphor, 177-199. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Deignan, Alice, & Potter, Liz. 2004. "A corpus study of metaphors and metonyms in English and Italian." Journal of Pragmatics 26. 1231-1252.

    A powerful claim of conceptual metaphor theory is that the most central metaphors are grounded in bodily experience. It might be expected that these metaphors would be shared by different languages. In this paper, we use large computerised corpora of English and Italian to examine the power of conceptual metaphor theory to explain the non-literal senses of lexis from the field of the human body. We find a number of equivalent expressions across the two languages which seem to be traceable to the body-mind mappings described in work by Sweetser [From Etymology to Pragmatics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990] and others. We also find that metonymy is a significant force for generating non-literal expressions, and that a large number of expressions are apparently generated by a combination of metaphor and metonymy [Cogn. Linguist. 1 (1990) 323]. This cross-linguistic study suggests that while universal bodily experience may motivate many figurative expressions, the process is sometimes complex, and will not necessarily result in equivalent expressions in different languages, for cultural and linguistic reasons.




  • Sardinha, Tony B. 2008. "Metaphor probabilities in corpora." In Mara Sophia Zanotto, Lynne Cameron & Marilda C. Cavalcanti (eds.), Confronting metaphor in use: An applied linguistic approach, 127-147. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    This timely publication reacts to the long-standing tendency of the cognitive linguistic community to focus on conceptual metaphor theory to the exclusion of natural language data, and is a welcome contribution to the study of metaphor in discourse. [...] It may be of special interest to readers working in or researching educational setting. It will also appeal to a wider audience because of the range of theoretical framework, mehods, and both quantitative and qualitative studies it offers, and the general theoretical discussions arising from the data.? Tina Krennmayr, VU University, Amsterdam, in Metaphor and Symbol 24 (2009)




  • Chung, S. F., Ahrens, K., & Sung, Y. H. 2003. "Stock market as Ocean Water: A Corpus-based, Comparative Study of Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish." The Proceedings of the 17th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computational (PACLIC) 2003. Singapore. pp.124-133.
  • Chung, S. F., Ahrens, K., & Huang, C. R. 2003. "ECONOMY IS A PERSON: A Chinese-English Corpora and Ontological-based Comparison Using the Conceptual Mapping Model." Proceedings of the 15th R. O. C. Computational Linguistics Conference, 2003. Taiwan. pp.87-110.

    This paper proposes a corpora-based approach in comparing the Mapping Principles for economy metaphors in English and Chinese. The Mapping Principles are validated using an upper ontology (SUMO). This research extends on the work of Ahrens, Chung and Huang (2003) by examining the ‘economy?metaphors in Chinese and English. In Ahrens, Chung and Huang (2003), they proposed to delimit the Mapping Principle via two steps: First, they used a corpora-based analysis on the word jingji ‘economy?to find out the most prototypical mappings in a metaphor Second, they used an upper ontology (SUMO) to examine whether the mapping principle is a representation of conceptual knowledge in the ontology. This paper goes a step further by examining the similarities and differences of source domains in English and Chinese. Using the Conceptual Mapping Model, this paper looks particularly into the example of ECONOMY IS A PERSON. This paper observes the representation of shared knowledge in the source domain in different languages and explains the similarities and differences by looking into the definition of inference rules in the upper ontology of SUMO.




    Global Languages
  • Yang, Yun, & Zhou, Chang-le. (2007) "Linguistic Characteristics of Chinese Metaphors and the Impact on Metaphor Computation." ????. 1(3). 223 - 245. (chinese)




  • Phan, Dinh Dieu. (2008) "Tu duy he thong va doi moi tu duy." Cafe Sangtao.vn. (vietnamese)




  • Roongthip. (2009) "????????????????????????????????????? ."("Using Language Daily") Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, The Phranakhon Si Ayutthaya Rajabhat University, Malaysia. (malaysian)




  • Bjelic, Dusan. (2004) "Balkanite kato metafora : mez?du globalizacijata i fragmentacijata" ("Balkan as Metaphor") Sofija Knigoizdat, kasta Trud. (bulgarian)




  • Al Asfarayini, Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Isam, Al Fattah Mullawi, Ahmad ibn Abd, & Khatib, Adnan. (2006). "??? ??????? ??????????? ?? ??????????" ("Sharh? al-Risalah al-Samarqandiyah fi al-isti?arat") Dimashq, Suriya; Dar al-Taqwa. (arabic)




  • Kriskovic, Arijana. (2009) "Metaforicka osnova za metonimijska preslikavanja u jeziku medicinske struke i u opcem jeziku" ("Metaphor-based metonymies: Evidence from Croatian scientific medical discourse") Croatian Philological Society. (croatian)




  • Chrz, V. (2009) "Narativnu'i imaginace a metafora" ("Narrative imagination and metaphor") Ceskoslovenska Psychologie 53(4), 325 - 335. (czech)




  • Hansbol, Gorm. (2001) "Paedagogens sprog og metafora" ("The language of the social educator and metaphor") Institut for Paedagogisk Filosofi, Danmarks Paedagogiske Universitet. (danish)




  • Tzonis, Alexander, & van Bergeijk, Herman. (2003) "MEDIA: Le Corbusier. The Poetics o Machine and Metaphor." De Architect 34(1), 69. (dutch)




  • Miro, Joan. (2008) "La metaphore de l'objet" ("The metaphor of the object") Angers: Expressions Contemporaines Editions. (french)




  • Tanzler, Dirk. (2007) "Korruption als Metapher" ("Corruption as a metaphor") Crime & Culture, 8. (german)




  • De Man, Paul. (1990) "He epistemologia tes metaphoras ; Anthropomorphismos kai tropos ste lyrike poiese" ("The epistemology of metaphor; anthropomorphism and trope in the lyric") Athena: Agra. (modern greek)




  • Vertenberg, Zemirah Hindes. (2005) "Zemirah Hindes-V?et?enberg : te?at?ron u-met?aforah ke-vit?ui ba-tsiyur" ("Theater and metaphor in pictorial expression") Tel Aviv. (hebrew)




  • Christian Literature Society for India. (1892) "Upamaracana" ("Teaching by metaphor") Allahabad. (hindi)




  • Abduh, Arrafie. (2000) "Unsur metafor dalam syair Abdurrahman Shiddiq : laporan penelitian" Pekanbaru: Pusat Penelitian, Institut Agama Islam Negeri Sulthan Syarif Qasim. (indonesian)




  • Stein, J. B. (2007) "Cicero's Cosmos: The universe as metaphor" Memorie della Societa astronomica italiana 78, 108 - 111. (italian)




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