Article published in:
Metaphor Variation in Englishes around the WorldEdited by Marcus Callies and Alexander Onysko
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies 4:1] 2017
► pp. 63–81
‘Idioms in the making’ and variation in conceptual metaphor
Marcus Callies | University of Bremen (Germany)
This paper discusses the culture-specificity of figurative language use in varieties of English. Idioms as a special type of figurative language are understood as being conceptually motivated by underlying metaphorical mappings, also reflecting the nexus of language and culture. On the basis of data from large-scale web corpora of varieties of English, the paper examines the lexico-grammatical and conceptual variability of selected idiomatic expressions related to the source domains food and eating. The results show patterns of lexico-grammatical variation and innovation of idioms in (West) African Englishes and confirm previous research that points towards the high salience and frequency of food and related concepts of eating as source domains in conceptual metaphorical mappings in West African cultures. The paper concludes that food and eating seem fruitful points of departure for further studies on culture- and variety-specific “linguistic markers” across varieties of English.
Keywords: figurative language, idioms, conceptual metaphor, phraseology, variability, African Englishes
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The variability of idiomatic expressions
- 2.1The cognitive-linguistic view of idioms
- 2.2Idioms in varieties of English
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Case studies
- 4.1Study 1: Lexico-grammatical and conceptual variation of standard idioms
- 4.2Study 2: Pepper-idioms in African varieties of English
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
- Note
-
References
Published online: 16 October 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.4.1.04cal
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.4.1.04cal
References
Adegbija, E.
Adeyanju, D.
Bamgbose, A.
Blench, R.
(2005) A dictionary of Nigerian English. http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/English/Nigerian%20English%20Dictionary.pdf (Last accessed on January 30th 2017)
Boers, F.
Boers, F., Demecheleer, M., & Eyckmans, J.
Callies, M.
Davies, M.
(2013-) Corpus of Global Web-Based English: 1.9 billion words from speakers in 20 countries. http://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe (Last accessed on January 30th 2017)
(2016-) News on the Web corpus: 3 billion words of data from web-based newspapers and magazines from 2010 to the present time. http://corpus.byu.edu/now (Last accessed on January 30th 2017)
Davies, M., & Fuchs, R.
Dirven, R., Wolf, H. -G., & Polzenhagen, F.
Dobrovol’skij, D.
(2007) Cognitive approaches to idiom analysis. In H. Burger, D. Dobrovolskij, P. Kühn & N. R. Norrick (Eds.), Phraseologie / Phraseology. Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenössischen Forschung / An international handbook of contemporary research, volume 21, (pp. 789–818). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 

Ekundayo, S. B.
Fiedler, A.
Geeraerts, D., Kristiansen, G., & Peirsman, Y.
Gibbs, R. W. Jr.
Gläser, R.
Glucksberg, S.
Grant, L. E.
Greenbaum, S.
Kamtchueng, L. M. M.
Kövecses, Z.
Kperogi, F. A.
Kristiansen, G., & Dirven, R.
Lakoff, G.
(1994) Conceptual metaphor homepage. http://www.lang.osaka-u.ac.jp/~sugimoto/MasterMetaphorList/MetaphorHome.html (Last accessed on January 30th 2017)
Langlotz, A.
Moon, R.
Peters, P.
Sharifian, F., Yu, N., Dirven, R., & Niemeier, S.
Skandera, P.
(2000) Research into idioms and the International Corpus of English. In C. Mair & M. Hundt (Eds.), Corpus linguistics and linguistic theory: Papers from the twentieth international conference on English language research on computerized corpora (ICAME 20), Freiburg im Breisgau 1999 (pp. 339–353). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Wierzbicka, A.
Wolf, H. -G., & Polzenhagen, F.
Cited by
Cited by 3 other publications
Lemghari, El Mustapha
Zadobrivscaia, O. F. & V. G. Egorova
韩, 江华
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 08 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.