A Corpus-Based Study of Some Linguistic Features of Metaphor

A CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF SOME LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF METAPHOR by ALICE HELEN DEIGNAN A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts of The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of English The University of Birmingham November 1997 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT Recent studies of metaphor have stressed both its importance to thinking and its pervasiveness in language. A number of researchers now claim that metaphorical transfer often connects semantic domains at the level of thought. This has implications for formal features of individual linguistic metaphors and for the lexical relations holding between them. The linguistic data used by metaphor researchers has largely been either intuitively derived or taken from small hand-sorted collections of texts. As yet, there have been few attempts to systematically examine metaphorical linguistic expressions in non-literary corpus data. In this thesis I use corpus data to examine a number of polysemous lexemes and I attempt to establish whether their metaphorical meanings, the lexical relations holding between these meanings, and aspects of their collocational and syntactic behaviour can be accounted for by a theory of metaphor as conceptual mapping. The investigation comprises a number of studies of non-innovative metaphorical expressions and their literal counterparts. I conclude that the contemporary theory of conceptual metaphorical mapping accounts for some features of linguistic metaphor but that it does not completely explain the data. This thesis contains 76,139 words, excluding footnotes, appendices and references. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professor Malcolm Coulthard and Dr Rosamund Moon for their meticulous, thoughtful and constructive supervision. I am indebted to Gwyneth Fox and other present and former staff at Collins Cobuild, Birmingham, for allowing me access to the Bank of English and for many discussions about language use and corpora. I would like to thank Jeremy Clear of Collins Cobuild for his help in enabling me to use the corpus from Leeds. I also want to thank my family and friends, in particular my husband Tim Deignan, for their support during this long project. CONTENTS Page Introduction 1 1 Metaphor in language and thought 4 1.1 Introduction 4 1.2 Decorative and central views of metaphor 5 1.3 Central tenets of the contemporary view 8 1.3.1 Metaphor is central to thought 8 1.3.2 Metaphor is grounded in physical experience 12 1.3.3 Metaphors structure knowledge 17 1.3.4 Metaphor is ideological 22 1.4 Evidence for the contemporary view 29 1.5 Metaphor and language 36 1.5.1 Creation of new lexis 37 1.5.2 The mapping of lexical fields 37 1.6 Summary 43 2 Metaphor and related conceptual phenomena 44 2.1 Introduction 44 2.1.1 Metaphor and analogy 45 2.1.2 Metaphor and folk theories 48 2.2 Metonymy 50 2.2.1 Definition and examples of metonymy 50 2.2.2 Non-conventional metonyms 55 2.2.3 Conventional metonyms 56 2.2.4 Metaphorical metonyms 59 2.2.5 Metonymically-motivated linguistic metaphors 64 2.2.6 Summary of classification of metonymically-motivated 67 expressions 2.3 Conclusion 69 3 The division of meaning 70 3.1 Introduction 70 3.2 Views of meaning division 71 3.3 Etymology and meaning division 74 3.4 The problem of meaning division 79 3.4.1 A case study 79 3.4.2 General meaning and related but distinct senses 82 3.4.3 General meaning and specialised meaning 84 3.4.4 Denotational meaning and evaluative meaning 84 3.5 Intuitive tests for meaning division 86 3.5.1 Truth conditions 87 3.5.2 Zeugma 89 3.5.3 Paradigmatically-related forms: derived forms 91 3.5.4 Paradigmatically-related forms: sense relations 92 3.5.3 Translation equivalents 93 3.6 Tests for distinctiveness of meaning based on naturally- 94 occurring texts 3.6.1 Syntax 94 3.6.2 Collocational clusters 95 3.6.3 Semantic prosody 99 3.7 Summary 100 4 Metaphorical meaning 104 4.1 Introduction 104 4.2 Isolating and discussing conventional metaphor: the problem 105 4.3 Lakoff’s categorisation of dead metaphor 107 4.3.1 The categories 107 4.3.2 Shortcomings of Lakoff’s classification as a model for 110 linguistic analysis 4.3.3 Adaptations of Lakoff’s model 114 4.4 Goatly’s categorisation 116 4.4.1 The categories 116 4.4.2 Criticisms and adaptations of Goatly’s model 117 4.5 A categorisation of linguistic metaphors 119 4.5.1 The categories 119 4.5.2 Systematic and one-shot metaphors 120 4.5.3 The identification of innovative and historical metaphor 121 4.5.4 The identification of conventional (living) and dead 123 metaphors: the problem 4.6 Metaphorical meaning: distinguishing living and dead 127 metaphor 4.6.1 Coreness and dependency 127 4.6.2 Linguistic tests for coreness and dependency 129 4.6.3 Semantic tests for coreness and dependency 132 4.7 Summary 136 5 Methodology 139 5.1 Introduction 139 5.2 Computerised corpora 139 5.2.1 Types of computerised corpora 139 5.2.2 The Bank of English 142 5.2.3 Studying the corpus 145 5.3 Using corpora 150 5.3.1 Corpus-based language description 150 5.3.2 Existing corpus studies of linguistic metaphor 151 5.3.3 Methodology of the studies of linguistic metaphor in this 153 thesis 5.4 Advantages and limitations of a corpus-based approach to 157 metaphor 5.4.1 Advantages of using corpora to study metaphor 157 5.4.2 Limitations of a corpus-based approach 162 5.5 Summary 165 6 Features of linguistic metaphor: paradigmatic relations 166 6.1 Introduction 166 6.2 Paradigmatic relations, metaphorical mapping and polysemy 167 6.2.1 Metaphorical mapping and paradigmatic relations 167 6.2.2 Polysemy and paradigmatic relations 172 6.3 Corpus studies 175 6.3.1 Using corpus data to examine paradigmatic relations 175 6.3.2 Senses of ‘hot’ 177 6.3.3 Senses of ‘cold’ 178 6.3.4 Senses of ‘warm’ 179 6.3.5 Senses of ‘cool’ 180 6.4 Paradigmatic relations found in corpus studies 181 6.4.1 The relations examined 181 6.4.2 Graded synonymy 182 6.4.3 Loose synonymy 185 6.4.4 Gradable antonymy 187 6.4.5 Hyponymy 194 6.5 Conclusion 200 6.5.1 Evaluation 200 6.5.2 A complex view of metaphorical mapping 201 7 Features of linguistic metaphor: syntagmatic relations 203 7.1 Introduction 203 7.1.1 Syntagmatic relations and the disambiguation of senses 203 7.1.2 Understandings of ‘collocation’ 204 7.2 Methodology 207 7.2.1 Data and general procedure 207 7.2.2 Using columns of collocates 208 7.2.3 Using concordance citations 211 7.3 Results and discussion 212 7.3.1 Summary of results of Study 27: ‘blow’ 212 7.3.2 Collocates shared by metaphorical and non-metaphorical 216 senses of lexemes 7.3.3 Collocations unique to metaphorical senses of lexemes 217 7.3.4 Syntagmatic relations and polysemy 221 7.3.5 Fixed non-literal collocations and idiom 223 7.3.6 Fixed collocations, ambiguity and metonymy 226 7.4 Implications 227 7.4.1 Cross-domain mapping of collocates 228 7.4.2 Two types of metaphorical mapping 230 7.4.3 Linguistic forces and constraints 232 7.5 Conclusion 233 8 Features of linguistic metaphor: syntax 235 8.1 Introduction 235 8.2 Corpus Study 32: SHOULDER 238 8.2.1 Methodology 238 8.2.2 SHOULDER used as a noun 238 8.2.3 SHOULDER used as a verb 242 8.2.4 SHOULDER: summary and discussion 244 8.3 Corpus Study 33: HEART 247 8.3.1 Methodology 247 8.3.2 Adjective use of HEART 248 8.3.3 Noun use of HEART: main sense divisions 250 8.3.4 Singular and plural forms of HEART 254 8.3.5 Heart as a count and uncount noun 256 8.3.6 HEART: summary and discussion 257 8.4 Corpus Study 34: SHRED 258 8.4.1 Methodology 258 8.4.2 SHRED: noun and verb 259 8.4.3 Shred: singular and plural forms 261 8.4.4 SHRED: summary 262 8.5 Summary of Studies 32, 33 and 34 262 8.6 Syntax and metaphorical mapping: animals 264 8.6.1 Methodology 265 8.6.2 Syntax in non-metaphorical and metaphorical lexis from the 265 source domain of animals 8.7 Syntax and metaphorical mapping: cooking 269 8.7.1 Methodology 269 8.7.2 Syntax in metaphorical and non-metaphorical lexis from the 270 source domain of cooking 8.8 Conclusion 271 9 Metaphor and affective meaning 274 9.1 Introduction 274 9.2 Affective meaning 275 9.2.1 Affective meaning and word meaning 275 9.2.2 Evaluation by implication 278 9.2.3 Determining affective meaning using concordance data 280 9.3 The choice of metaphor as an evaluative device 283 9.3.1 The popularity of metaphor as an evaluative device: 283 observations in the literature 9.3.2 Reasons for the choice of metaphor to convey affective 285 meaning: intimacy 9.3.3 Reasons for the choice of metaphor to convey affective 287 meaning: off-record status 9.4 Mechanisms for the encoding of affective meaning: mapping 289 implications 9.4.1 The fitness mapping: methodology 290 9.4.2 The fitness mapping: frequent realisations 291 9.4.3 The fitness mapping and affective meaning 292 9.4.4 Innovative extensions of the fitness mapping 297 9.4.5 Loss of affective meaning 298 9.5 Metaphor and connotative meaning 301 9.5.1 Methodology 302 9.5.2 Frequencies and major senses 303 9.5.3 Metaphorical mapping of connotative meaning

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