This paper presents a corpus-based approach to investigating the function of metaphor, specifically to the question whether the use of metaphorical language is motivated primarily by stylistic considerations or by cognitive principles. The paper focuses on concepts that can be expressed alternatively by a literal or a metaphorical linguistic expression with the same structural properties. Such expressions can be individual words (such asgraspandunderstand, which can both encode the concept UNDERSTAND), or fixed phrases (such asin the heart ofandin the center of, which can both encode the concept IN THE CENTER OF). It turns out that a comparison of the distinctive collocates of the literal and the metaphorical variant in each case provides clear evidence for the hypothesis that metaphorical language has a cognitive function.
2008. Chinese Word Sketch and Mapping Principles: A Corpus-Based Study of Conceptual Metaphors Using the BUILDING Source Domain. International Journal of Computer Processing of Languages 21:01 ► pp. 3 ff.
Gréa, Philippe
2017. Inside in French. Cognitive Linguistics 28:1 ► pp. 77 ff.
Julich-Warpakowski, Nina & Paula Pérez Sobrino
2023. Introduction. Metaphor and the Social World 13:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Koller, Veronika
2009. Missions and Empires: Religious and Political Metaphors in Corporate Discourse. In Metaphor and Discourse, ► pp. 116 ff.
2019. Lexico-grammatical alignment in metaphor construal. Cognitive Linguistics 30:1 ► pp. 165 ff.
Oster, Ulrike
2010. Using corpus methodology for semantic and pragmatic analyses: What can corpora tell us about the linguistic expression of emotions?. cogl 21:4 ► pp. 727 ff.
Sanford, Daniel
2008. Discourse and metaphor: A corpus-driven inquiry. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 4:2
2009. Sex Differences in the Usage of Spatial Metaphors: a Case Study of Political Language. In Politics, Gender and Conceptual Metaphors, ► pp. 166 ff.
Stickles, Elise, Oana David, Ellen K. Dodge & Jisup Hong
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