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Drawing Attention to Metaphor: Case studies across time periods, cultures and modalities
Edited by Camilla Di Biase-Dyson and Markus Egg
[Figurative Thought and Language 5] 2020
► pp. 229–262

To those walking in the footsteps of the faith

Deliberate metaphor in the Pauline epistles

This paper investigates deliberate metaphors in the Pauline epistles in the framework of Deliberate Metaphor Theory (DMT), which targets metaphors that require conscious processing (Steen, 2009), but also with reference to other threads of metaphor research that pay attention to phenomena of deliberateness. Focus is on metaphors that exhibit deliberateness through their content. For these metaphors, deliberateness emerges through alienation, which highlights the differences between the two domains that are brought together in the metaphor. Three techniques of alienation are identified, using an ill-fitting literal (or source) domain for the metaphor, using contradicting source domains for the same metaphor, and using an internally flawed source domain. Many of these metaphors are motivated in that they convey a clear message that emerges through the alienation.

Keywords: metaphor, Pauline epistles, Deliberate Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, alienation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Pauline epistles as a corpus
  • 3.Deliberate metaphor and DMT
  • 4.Deliberate metaphor in CMT
    • 4.1The Invariance Principle
    • 4.2Poetic metaphor in CMT
    • 4.3Blending Theory
  • 5.Creating deliberate metaphor
    • 5.1Deliberate metaphor and alienation
    • 5.2Techniques of DM by alienation in Paul’s metaphors
      • 5.2.1Ill-fitting source domain
      • 5.2.2Contradicting source domains for the same target domain
      • 5.2.3Internally flawed source domain
    • 5.3Deliberate metaphor and conceit
    • 5.4Deliberate metaphor and the influence of register
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Key to glosses
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.5.10dib
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