Article published in:
Corpus studies of language through time: Special issue of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 27:4 (2022)
Edited by Tony McEnery, Gavin Brookes and Isobelle Clarke
[International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 27:4] 2022
► pp. 451–479

The affordances of metaphor for diachronic corpora & discourse analysis

water metaphors and migration

| University of Sussex

This paper examines the utility of metaphor as an investigative tool in “long-distance” corpora and discourse studies. I show that metaphor is both important for understanding discourses and useful for diachronic analysis because it allows us to abstract out above the purely lexical level, enabling comparison across contexts where the same concept could be lexicalised differently. The case-study is concerned with the oft-discussed metaphor of migrants are water in the UK-based Times newspaper from 1800–2018 and the conventionalisation and evaluative patterns are presented. The findings confirm that the water metaphor has an extensive discourse history regarding how migration is represented in the UK press, but also that evaluations may differ significantly. The paper shows how metaphor can provide a way to find discourse evaluations and framings across different time periods. The use of second-order collocates illustrates how corpus tools can help re-contextualise data to ensure interpretation heeds contemporary framings.

Keywords: metaphor, migration, diachronic analysis, discourse, collocation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Long-distance diachronic corpora & discourse analysis
  • 3.Metaphor as a tool for corpora & discourse analysis
  • 4. water metaphors
  • 5.Methodology
  • 6.Conventionalisation of the migrants are water metaphor
    • 6.1The history of migrants are water
    • 6.2Conventionalisation of water metaphors
  • 7.Evaluation of migrants are water
    • 7.1Overview of evaluation in peaks
    • 7.2Frames underpinning evaluation
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 14 March 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.22004.tay
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