Vlado Sušac

University of Zadar, Croatia

vsusac@unizd.hr

METAPHOR IDENTIFICATION PROBLEM

OR CAN WE EXTRACT WATER FROM THE LAKE?
WHAT IS A METAPHOR?
modern
traditional
approach:
view:
 cognitive
linguistic phenomenon

 matter of concepts
words andbased
style on
(language
experience
ornament)

 mostly
deliberately
unconsciously
used used

 inevitable
obstacle topart
clearofcommunication
communicationand
andunderstanding
understanding(can
(omnipresent
or should
be thought
in avoided)and language)
Distinction between conceptual and linguistic
metaphors:

Conceptual metaphor is a natural part of human

thought

Linguistic metaphor is a natural part of human

language
CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR
“The essence of metaphors is understanding and
experiencing one kind of things in terms of another.” (Lakoff
and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 1980)

AFFECTION IS WARMTH

Target Source

mapping
Linguistic metaphors deriving from the concept
AFFECTION IS WARMTH:

Come on baby, light my fire

Keep me burning for your love
You spark the fire in me
I only have to gaze into her eyes and she melts
she was distant at first but soon her attitude began to
thaw
Identification (demarkation) of metaphor
The main methodological problem of corpus analysis:
- If metaphors are omnipresent in language and
thought, how can we separate ‘trees from the
forest’ or ’water from the lake’?

7
I supposed he’d be here around 9, but the pig evaporated.
------------ --------- ---- --------------

THINKING IS SEEING
TIME IS SPACE
HUMAN IS ANIMAL
HUMAN IS LIQUID

Do we see all the underlined words as metaphors?

Diacronic (etymological) approach can discover
hidden metaphorical motivation in most abstract
lexical units and catachreses , which are not seen any
more as metaphors.

Where is the boundary line between ‘real’ and

‘fossilized’ metaphors?

The necessity for synchronic approach to the metaphor

analysis – ‘now and here’ (pragmalinguistic dimension)
MIP (Metaphor identification
procedure)
Peter Crisp
Ray Gibbs
Pragglejaz group (2007): Alan Cienki
Graham Low
-Intuition alone leads us to differences in Gerard Steen
Lynne
recognizing what is and what isn’t Cameron
metaphorical in the same text even among Elena Semino
Joe Grady
experts in the field. Alice Deignan
Zoltan
- We need firm criteria of identification Kövecses

susan.nacey@hihm.no
 1. Read the entire 2. Determine the 3a. For each lexical
text/discourse to lexical units in the unit in the text
establish a general text/disourse establish its
understanding of the
meaning in context
meaning

4. If yes, mark 3c. Decide whether 3b. For each lexical

the lexical the contextual item determine if it
unit as meaning contrasts has a more basic
metaphorical with the basic meaning in other
meaning contexts

The Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP)

The paradox of metaphor : it is likely that most metaphors are not
processed metaphorically by a cross-domain mapping through
comparison, but through categorization (creating polysemic
superordinate categories).

One crucial property of metaphor that affects whether it is

processed by comparison or categorization is its degree of
conventionality.

All deliberate metaphors are processed by comparison.

How can we distinguish deliberate from non-deliberate metaphors?

12
A new three-dimensional approach to
the metaphor analysis – MIPVU (Steen):
3 dimensions of metaphor:

 linguistic (direct and indirect)

 conceptual (conventional and novel)
 communicative (deliberate and non-deliberate)

 The communicative (discourse-analytical) approach

‘reconciles’ the old rhetoric tradition with modern
cognitive theories.

13
Linguistic dimension:
indirect metaphors (no direct mental link between source
and target domains):

- a large majority of metaphors

- recognizable only in context bearing difference from the
basic meaning

She defended her thesis yesterday.

basic meaning: reject or resist an attack

contextual meaning: elaborate an academic piece of work
direct metaphors (not included in the MIP ):

- clearly visible cross-domain mapping

- mostly similes and analogies (clear language
markers)

His brain works like a computer.

- Linguistic metaphors are affected and distinguished

by certain language forms (markers)
Conceptual dimension:
conventional metaphors (intepreted as comparisons or
as categorizations): involve base terms that refer both to a
literal concept and to an associated metaphoric category:
- A gene is a blueprint (the conventional base term
blueprint is polysemous with the literal and metaphoric
meanings.

novel metaphors (interpreted as comparisons only):

- Science is a glacier (have a literal sense but no related
metaphoric sense that would form a category per se)
Communicative dimension
deliberate metaphors: novel metaphors and direct
metaphors are typically deliberate , but deliberate
metaphors can also be conventional and indirect.

 “A metaphor is used deliberately when it is expressly meant to change the

addressee’s perspective on the referent or topic that is the target of the
metaphor, by making the addressee look at it from a different conceptual
domain or space, which functions as a conceptual source.” (Steen, 2008: 222)
non-deliberate metaphors: they do not draw
addressees’ conscious attention to other conceptual
domains.
MIPVU corpus analysis:
(Steen, 2011)
1 3.6% of words in natural discourse are metaphorical
(18.5 % in academic discourse)
1 % of metaphorical words are direct (0.5 % possessing
lexical signals)
1% is novel metaphors (99% is conventional)
deliberate metaphor is conventional rather than novel
and indirect rather than direct.
''Deliberate metaphor is a relatively conscious
discourse strategy that aims to elicit particular
rhetorical effects.'‘ (Steen, 2010)

Should we re-examine then the results of all the

previous semasiological analysis on particular types of
discourse (political, academic, sports, judicial...) by
focusing exclusively on deliberate metaphors and
attributed conceptual mappings?
IDENTIFICATION OF DELIBERATE METAPHORS

1. isolate novel metaphors:

-“Your firm is hands-down the Rolls Royce of local estate firms.”

2. isolate direct metaphors by means of markers /signals:

“It stretches on forever...like an ocean of time.”
“ In a way, I’m dead, already.”

3. pay attention to the metaphor clusters:

“This will be the high  point of my day ....it's all downhill  from here.”

4. pay special attention to conventional and indirect metaphors with

thorough discourse/context analysis as they are most ‘invisible’ deliberate
metaphors.
The previous analysis of political discourse in Croatia
shows two dominant conceptual cross-domain
mappings:
-POLITICAL ACTIVITY IS STRUGGLE
- POLITICAL ACTIVITY IS PATH

The current analysis shows that only 17% of the

registered metaphors within the two mappings are
deliberate.
CONCLUSION
MIP/MIPVU offer firm criteria for demarcation of
metaphors from the rest of the language repository.

MIPVU can only partly resolve the problem of the

deliberate metaphor identification.

1 % of direct and 1% of novel metaphors as ‘secure’

cases of deliberate metaphors leave a huge space for
speculation about ‘insecure’ cases without firm criteria
for identification of deliberate metaphors.
REFERENCES
Bowdle, B. F., & Gentner, D. (2005). The career of metaphor. Psychological Review, 112(1),
193–216.
Goatly, A. (1997). The language of metaphors. London: Routledge.
Perrez, Julien ; Reuchamps, Min. Deliberate metaphors in political discourse: the case of
citizen discourse. In:metaphorik.de, Vol. N.A., no. 25, p. 7-41 (2014)
Pragglejaz Group (2007): „MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically UsedWords in
Discourse”, in: Metaphor and Symbol 22 (1), 1-39.
Steen, G. (2011). The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor – now new and improved. Review
of Cognitive Linguistics 9(1)
Steen, G. (2010a). When is metaphor deliberate? In N.-L. Johannesson, C. Alm-Arvius, & D.
Minugh (Eds.), Selected Papers from the Stockholm 2008 Metaphor Festival (pp. 43-63).
Steen, Gerard/Dorst, Aletta/Herrmann, Berenike/Kaal, Anna/Krennmayr, Tina/Pasma,
Tryntje (2010b): A Method for Linguistic Metaphor Identification: From MIP to MIPVU,
Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
Steen, G. (2008). The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-dimensional model of
metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 23(4), 213-241.