Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies

Introduction to the Special Issue "The Social Impact of Metaphor: Cross-Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives" (STUDIES IN COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS 3)

Justyna Wawrzyniuk, Daniel Karczewski — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Challenges and procedures in transferring fully metaphorical terms in the EU’s multilingual institutional setting

Kätlin Järve, Koen Kerremans — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The use of figurative language in European political jargon can pose a significant translation challenge, particularly given the European Union’s 24 official languages. This study examines fully metaphorical terms such as whistleblower, gatekeeper, and greenwashing, aiming to identify issues of interlingual transfer from English into Italian and Estonian – a rare language combination in multilingual terminology research. Following a descriptive, cognitive approach, the research combines qualitative and quantitative observations of terminological data taken from IATE, the terminology database of the European institutions. The objective is to propose a concrete set of procedures that can be put into practical use by language professionals in the processes of term creation and translation. As a result of analysing the way fully metaphorical English terms are rendered, our study identifies five main interlingual transfer procedures. The findings reveal that direct metaphor transfer, the most common method, is not applied when the transferred metaphor would have culture-specific connotations incompatible with the source language’s unit of understanding. In such cases, the metaphor may be lost, adapted, changed, or the English term borrowed. The study highlights the importance of well-considered terminological choices in multilingual institutional settings where political decisions have a significant social impact.

Developing productive metaphoric competence through a frame-inspired task-based teaching model

Thomai Dalpanagioti — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The paper reports preliminary findings from applying a frame-inspired task-based approach to metaphor teaching in an EFL classroom. The teaching model used combines Frame Semantics, a cognitive linguistic theory that takes a usage-based view of meaning, with Task-Based Language Teaching, which emphasizes second/foreign language learning through interactionally authentic language use. In this paper we examine students’ productions in terms of the amount, type and function of metaphor use with a view to identifying the stages the students went through in developing their metaphoric competence in L2 writing. We illustrate how their metaphor awareness skills seem to develop along a continuum from non-deliberate isolated figurative instances to deliberate extended metaphor used as a conceptual and discursive framework for their writing. We thus provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of the proposed frame-inspired task-based approach to metaphor teaching.

Where there’s a proverb, there are many conceptual mappings

Caroline Girardi Ferrari, Maity Siqueira — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This paper explores how metaphorical and metonymic mappings are recognised as part of proverbs’ meanings in Brazilian Portuguese. Six proverbs were analysed from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The underlying conceptual mappings of these proverbs were suggested and categorised into primary metaphorical, complex metaphorical, and metonymic. Two psycholinguistic tasks were conducted with 112 adults aiming at determining to what extent these mappings were identified as part of the proverbs' meanings. Results suggest that underlying conceptual mappings were well identified and associated with the proverbs’ meanings. For some items, complex mappings generated lower identification rates as compared to primary and metonymic ones. Statistical differences in participants’ judgments were found when contrasting the three types of mappings. Our results support the idea that participants can identify conceptual mappings and associate them with their meanings in proverbs when prompted to do so. However, their judgments vary across different types of mappings.

A new understanding of metaphors: From collective data to individual cases

Josie Helen Siman, Thiago Oliveira da Motta Sampaio — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Most theories on metaphor processing are categorical, focus on semantics, and ignore important empirical findings. In this paper, we show how complex systems science can help us understand the apparently contradictory findings in the literature. We claim that metaphors are best understood as processed by the dynamic interaction between different factors, with dynamically shifting weights, in different time scales. To understand what a metaphor means, we must consider the multidimensional aspects of meaning: a) schemas, frames, scenarios, etc.; b) attributes (e.g., big, cruel, etc.); c) phenomenological schemas (e.g., mappings of visceral sensations); d) valence (positive, neutral, negative), etc. These constructs are not an object in the mind or the same for everyone. They are formed by experiences - with some overlaps, depending on people’s sharing of cultural and embodied similarities. We never know how one person will interpret a metaphor but can make informed guesses based on empirical findings.

Feminists are warriors: Framing effects of war metaphors

Florencia Reali, Lucien Avellaneda — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Metaphors influence general attitudes towards political and social ideas (Otieno et al. 2016). In particular, war metaphors are very common in political discourse. Their framing effects, however, depend on the context in which war metaphors are used, rendering positive or negative outcomes (Flusberg et al. 2018; Thibodeau, 2018). Reali (2021) explored metaphorical framing of feminism and women in feminism-related news in online media in Spanish, finding that war metaphors depicting women as warriors fighting for their rights were the most prevalent ones. Here, we use an experimental paradigm to explore whether the use of war metaphors affects the perception of issues defended by the feminist movements. Spanish-speaking participants were exposed to a vignette describing a hypothetical case of elective abortion. Two variables were manipulated in a 2X2 between-subjects design: 1.the use of warfare framing (war metaphors/neutral frames), and 2.the use of inclusive language in Spanish (gender inclusive/gender neutral language). Additionally, participants´ sociodemographic data were collected. A series of regression analyses showed an effect of metaphorical framing on the perception of the right to decide, perception of the partner´s right to opine, and the perception of the main character´s coldness when controlling for sociodemographic variables. The use of inclusive language had little effect on perception. Consistent with previous findings, sociodemographic factors strongly affected perception: men, and conservative and religious participants rated the right to decide lower, and character´s coldness as higher.

A spiderweb of human trafficking: An empirical linguistic study

Elina Paliichuk — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The state of the art in human trafficking (HT) prevention requires the elaboration of subtle verbal techniques that can enhance informative awareness campaigns. The paper explores the representations of metaphors in the media about HT through the SPIDERWEB construal and its impact on the youth in Ukraine. Compared to previous decades (Paliichuk 2011), the SPIDERWEB metaphor can be observed more frequently in recent publications, encouraging the study of whether it contributes to a stronger reader response. The methods embrace conceptual analysis and an experiment, in which 60 undergraduates (grouped into G1, G2, and G3) took part. Four media fragments were used in three modes: authentic (A), weakened (W), and enhanced (E). In total, twelve variables were tested. The Paired Samples T Test revealed the changes in student post-reading perceptions, with the highest response to E texts (identifying oneself with trafficked persons; imagining oneself being in the same situation; imagining sounds/voices; being emotionally affected). Used for the differences between A–W; A–E; and W–E, the Independent Samples T Test revealed higher degrees for imagining oneself being enslaved in the HT situation; being secluded or isolated; emotionally affected; and being more careful about personal safety, which points to the feasibility of designing anti-trafficking educational content based on the SPIDERWEB metaphor.

Understanding and evaluation: A cross-linguistic study of the evaluative collocates of English and Armenian verbs of understanding

Yelena Yerznkyan, Diana Movsisyan — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The paper studies the correlation between understanding and evaluation in the light of social interactions, and aims at exploring the metaphorical mapping of the process of understanding in the English and Armenian languages. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the two cognitive processes, based on the contrastive study of verbs of understanding in terms of the evaluative meaning of their collocates, thus explaining the dynamics of understanding-evaluation relations, fully manifested in the metaphorical patterns underlying the sense of the verb. It is shown that the evaluative meaning of the collocates plays a pivotal role in shaping how understanding is emotionally and rationally assessed. A corpus driven analysis of the English and Armenian factual material reveals the collocations that metaphorically confer different dimensions to the process of understanding and points out a clear tendency to mark understanding as positive when evaluated rationally and negative when evaluated emotionally. The research detects and determines three types of evaluation in the axiological system under study and classifies them as emotional, rational or orientational. Their relative positioning on the axiological scale correlates with the accepted norm viewed as the deictic centre (reference point) of the whole process. The main findings of the research make a novel contribution to the study of understanding-evaluation correlation, offering insights into the metaphorical nature of how understanding is perceived and evaluated in both English and Armenian.