CRITICISMS ON CŨNCEPTUAL METAPHOR THEORY AND CURRENT

APPROACHES TO METAPHOR STUDY - A LITERATURE REVIE w

Nguyên Thi Ngoe Trang1

Abstract: Asaurìiversalmechanismotreasoning, conceptual metaphorhastransĩormed metaphor

from a rhetorical tỉgure to a means of meaning construction via metaphor conceptualization.
Despite its undeniable contributions to cognitive linguistics, certain methodological aspects have
raised controversies ever since Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) was introduced (Lakotí &
Johnson, 1980). This article aims at reviewing such criticized issues and current approaches
to metaphor study. The results of the study clearly demonstrate that the five methodological
issues faced by CMT (metaphorical expressions, domain tormulating, data, metaphor analysis,
conceptual structures of metaphor) have been effectively tackled by two emerging strategies:
corpus and discourse approaches.
Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, methodological issues, corpus approaches, discourse
approaches.

PHÊ PHÁN VÉ LÝ THUYẾT ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM

VÀ CÁC PHƯƠNG HƯỚNG NGHIÊN cứu ẨN DỤ HIỆN NAY
Tóm tắt: Với vai trò là một cơ chế tư duy phổ quát, ẩn dụ ý niệm đã biến đổi ẩn dụ từ một biện
phấp tu từ trở thành một phương tiện tạo nghĩa thông qua quá trình ý niệm hoấ ẩn dụ. Bất kể
những đóng góp không thể phủ nhận của lý thuyết ẩn dụ ý niệm, một số vấn đề về phương phấp
luận vẫn không ngừng gây tranh cãi kể từ khi lý thuyết này ra đời (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Bài
viết được viết với mục đích tổng kết các vấn để trẽn và cập nhật các đường hướng đế giải quyết.
Két quả của nghiên cứu chỉ ra rằng năm vấn đề phương pháp mà lý thuyết ẩn dụ đang phải đối
mặt (xác định từ dùng theo nghĩa ẩn dụ, hình thành miền, dữ liệu, phân tích ẩn dụ, cấu trúc ỷ
niệm của ẩn dụ) đang được giải quyết một cách hiệu quả bởi hai cách tiếp cận. từ đường hướng
khối liệu và đường hướng diễn ngôn.
Từ khoá: Lý thuyết ẩn dụ ỷ niệm, vấn đề phương pháp luận, đường hướng khối liệu, đường
hướng diễn ngôn.

1. INTRODƯCTION

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) introduced by Lakoíĩ & Johnson (1980) and revised
by Lakoíĩ (1993) is basically a reasoning mechanism to construct meaning via nietaphoricaỉ
conceptualization of “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of anothcr"
(Lakoíĩand Johnson. 1980. p.5). CMT is a milestone in cognitive linguistics because of its vital role

Khoa Sau đại học - Trường ĐHNN, ĐHỌGHN. Eniail: nguyenthingoctrang@gmail.com.

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in contributing apparent and compelling evidence to the interrelation among language, cognition
and society. Despite its prominence, CMT has been criticized mainly for its methodological issues
for the past forty years. In this article, I will review major problems that CMT has to deal with and
generalize two leading approaches to metaphor study. Hopeíully, this study, to some extent, will
be able to visualize the constraints and viable strategies which are pushing one of the youngest and
most controversial language paradigms forward.

2. CRITICISMS ON CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR THEORY

In original CMT by Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and LakoíT (1993) researchers normally start
witlì a conceptual metaphor and collect separate sentences to prove that one domain is understood
in terms of another domain (target domain is source domain). Metaphorical words (in italic
íormat) are revealed to give a sense of the source domain. For instance, to veriíy the conceptual
metaphor IDEAS ARE PLANTS (ideas - target domain is understood via plants - source domain).
researchers will present the evidence of linguistic maniĩestations as follo\vs:
His ideas have hnally come to fruỉtỉon. That idea died on the vine. That is a buddirìg theory.
Maths has many branches, etc. ( Lakoíĩ & Johnson. 1980. p.47).
This approach can well ỉầcilitate the essence of conceptual metaphor: perceiving one thing in
terms of another. Nevertheless. in perspective of methodology, this classical process of metaphor
study is purely intuitive. The metaphorical expressions are taken for granted without any explicit
criteria. How a source domain is generated from linguistic expressions is an unanswered question.
Even the pivotal concept “domain” cannot be a helpful standard for domain identihcation because
of its abstract nature. Furthermore, the fact that demonstrated data are decontextualized leads to
suspicion in scholars advocating context-dependent meaning. They argue that when certain linguistic
expressions are put in diíĩerent contexts, they may not mean the same, \vhich leads to inconsistence
of domain results. Additional issues like metaphor analysis, conceptual structures of metaphor
are also put forward in the development of CMT. Each problem will be revievved in detail as follows.

METAPH0RICAL
2.1. EXPRESSIONS

In CMT, metaphorical expressions are identihed in an intuitive way vvithout a reliable

methodology (Kốvecses, 2011, p.24). Linguỉsts normally conhrm a word or phrase is used
metaphorically by “noting the cross-domain mappings between a discourse topic and the source
domain used to speak of that idea” (Gibbs Jr, 2017, p.58). CMT scholars also consider a linguistic
statement a metaphorical expression simply because it seems to be íồrmulated by a certain metaphor.
For example, “My career is on the rocks” is metaphorical because it is believed to be triggered by
metaphor LIFE IS A JOƯRNEY. This method is criticized for being circular and unreliable (ibid.)
Among several attempts to handle tlìis problem, MIP (metaphorical identihcation procedure)
by Pragglejaz Group (2007, p.3) emerged as a workable and easy-to- follow tool. It consists of a
series of steps:
1. Read the entire text-discourse to establish a general understanding of the meaning.
2. Determine the lexical units in the text-discourse
692 KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC GIA 202;

3. (a) For each lexical unit in the text, establish its meaning in context, that is, how it applies
to an entity, relation, or attribute in the situation evoked by the text (contextual meaning). Take intc
account what comes before and aíter the lexical unit.
(b) For each lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic contemporarỵ meaning in otheỉ
contexts than the one in the given context. For our purposes. basic meanings tend to be:
- more concrete: what they evoke is easier to imagine, see, hear, feel, smell, and taste
- related to bodily action
- more precise (as oppose to vague)
- historically older.
Basic meanings are not necessarily the most írequent meanings of the lexical unit.
(c) If the lexical unit has a more basic current-contemporary meaning in other contexts than
the given context, decide whether the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can
be understood in comparison with it.
4. If yes, mark the lexical unit as metaphorical.
Pragglejaz Group (2007, p.3)
Despite the fact that scholars have to make repeated decisions for each word in a text and
ambiguity will arise in diíĩerent discourse tvpes, MIP is undeniabỉy a tool vvhich can identiíy
metaphorical expressions consistently and systematically. Furthermore, MIP offers eíĩective
approaches to specihc empirical issues. First, the unit constituting a metaphor in language, a vague
íactor in CMT. is satisíầctorily solved. Accordingly, meaning vaỉue is the criterion for a lexical unit.
namely a single lexical unit can be a word or a phrase as long as it conveys a complete meaning
aspect. In particular, when a group of words is nondecomposable because the meaning of its
constituent parts can only be understood as a whole. that group of words is a single lexical unit. Such
multiword units consist of proper nouns (Sonia Gandhi...), polywords (of course, at least...), phrasal
verbs (take off, grow up...). Meanwhile, classical idioms (staking a claim, suíĩering many blows...),
fìxed collocations (have a bee in one's bonnet, have a leg to stand on...) are considered semantically
decomposable, i.e. constituent words are separated. Parts of speech are not regarded as diíĩerent
lexemes. Thereíồre, the verb squỉrrel in "He squữreled away their savings'' is metaphorically used
in relation with more basic meaning of the noun squirrel (an animal). Notably. MIP can handle \vith
other debatable issues in a convincing way. Dead metaphors are considered in íìexible and sensible
way. Accordingly, a commonly considered dead metaphors is not really dead in MIP as long as the
researcher acknoxvledge the current or once existing relation betxveen basic and contextual meaning.
Metaphor is also clearly distinguished from polysemy, metonymy and simile.
Beíore MIP. there were other popular approaches of metaphor identihcation li ke Barloxv,
Kerlin, & Pollio's (1971) training manual or Cameron's (1999)to know it and not be able to say it?
Is this knoxvledge somehow equivalent to an uníormulated dehnition? So that if it vvere íormulated,
I should be able to recognize it as the expression ofmy knoxvledge? Isn't my knovvledge. niy concept
of a game, completely expressed in the explanations that I could give? That is, in my describing
examples of various kinds of game; shovving how all sorts of other games can be constructed on
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the analogy of these; saying that I should scarcely include this or this among games; and so on.
(Wittgenstein, 1953: 1-75 method of íamily resemblance. However, these methods cannot solve
issues due to lacking of explicit criteria for judging xvhether a word or phrase is metaphorical.
failing to convincingly distinguishing between dead and alive metaphors, etc.

2.2. Domain íormulation

Although most scholars (Lakoiĩ & Johnson, 1980: Langacker, 1987; Croít, 2002; Semino,
2008; Kovecses. 2010, etc.) share the conimon tenet of domain - the background knoxvledge
of experience to characterize semantic units - the absưact nature of domain justifiably leads to
disagreement of domain identiồcation. Additionally, without any criteria or guidance. the process
of formulating a domain from certain linguistic expressions in CMT is truly introspective.
Consequently, the results of domain generation may vary. They can be related domains
with diíĩerent levels of generality. To illustrate, Vervaeke & Kennedy (1996. p.276) assert that
ARGƯMENTIS WAR could be seen as derived from the more general metaphor "ARGƯMENTS
ARE SPACE“. since Avars involve motion in space". Which metaphor has the right generality
degree mentioned in Lakoíĩand Johnson’s CMT? Furthermore. the results can be diíĩerent domains.
Ritchie (2003, p.132) argues that metaphorical expressions which Lakotĩ & Johnson (1980) cite
as manifestations for an underlying metaphor. ' ARGUMENTỈS IVAR, ” are also compatible \vith
“ARGUMENTIS CHESS" or 'ARGUMENT ỈS BOXINƠ'. In the same line of thought. Croft
(2002, p. 176) proves how vague domain identihcation is \vhen he argues that the conceptual
metaphor underlying these linguistic expressions
(1) This is a sick relationship.
(2) They have a sỉrong, heaỉthy marriage.
(3) The marriage is dead- it can't be revỉved.
(4) Their marriage is on the mend.
(5) We‘re getting back on ourfeet.
is LOVE IS A BODILY STATE instead of LOVE IS A PATIENT recommended by Lakoíĩ
& Johnson (1980, p.49). Croít explains that in his view, such words S7CẢ; strong, heaỉthy, on the
mend, back on our feet andpossỉbỉy dead, revived all have a bodily state as the base (i.e. domain).
To deal with this problem, Steen (1999) proposes the hve-step method which is the most well-
known solution in Deignan’s (2016) words, to íồrmulate a conceptual metaphor from linguistic
expressions. The strong point of this procedure is making the process of metaphor identihcation
become more transparent and understandable. Nevertheless, as Deignan (2016) reveals, the
íundamental matter cannot be cleared up. Metaphor shaping from metaphorical expressions
are still dependent on researchers’ intuitions, She also admits this problem appears not just in
five-step method, but in all existing attempts to develop metaphor from linguistic maniíestation.
Thereíore, she suggests that to enhance the reliability of hypothesừing metaphor, corpus data
should be consulted because "corpus citations can provide insights into the conventionalization,
írequency and range of metaphorical uses from a source domain”. In the same effort, Chung,
Ahrens, & Huang (2005) use SUMO dehnitions (a kind of ontology dehnition) to identify source
694 KỲ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC GIA 202

domain from metaphorical expressions. In this approach the process of shaping source domain
from linguistic expressions becomes less intuitive because the source domain is withdrawn fron
the shared concept present in the SƯMO nodes associated vvith senses of metaphorical words
However. this approach goes with several marked drawbacks. The found common concept is no
ahvays the source domain, i.e. it needs some adjustment to cover all SƯMO nodes or to becom<
more concrete. Two steps are still handled manually - identihcation of metaphoric expressions an(
word sense. Also, metaphoric expressions are still íồund in an intuitive manner.

2.3. Data

In CMT, the data used to search for conceptual metaphors are selective and separate utterances
Researchers introspectively assume conceptual metaphors in their own mental lexicons, intuitiveh
found linguistic examples or the data íound in dictionaries and thesauri with idealized speakerí
and hearers. Model data goes with three problems. First, for the researchers who advocatc
meaning is guided by context, decontextualized metaphorical expressions certainly lead tc
unreliable meanings xvhich result in inaccurate source and target domain íormulation. Second.
with demonstration of only well-qualified examples of metaphor it seems impossible to prove thai
our ordinary conceptual system manifested via language is fundamentally metaphorical as Lakoíl
& Johnson coníìrm (1980. p.3). Third. the established metaphors from elicited data are mostly
general and universal across language and culture. In Kovecses (2010. pp.305-310)’s vvords. these
metaphors are at supra-individual level (the level of de-contextualized metaphorical expressions
and the assumed metaphorical conceptual structures based on them). CMT has not paid enough
attention to the natural discourse with actual metaphorical expressions in which individual level
metaphors are constructed. At individual level speakers use the supra-individual level metaphors
in authentic communicative situations to create new individual metaphors. Indeed, they íbrin
metaphors for particular communicative purposes under the induence of their online thinking
and contexTs constraints. Furthermore, even for a particular universal metaphor. individuals also
choose diíTerent mappings based on their experience. ideology and priorities. Obviousỉy. it is the
individual ỉevel metaphors that clearly redect the innovative and omnipresent íeature of conceptual
metaphors. This íầct calls for the use of real corpora in the course of identilỳing and analyzing
conceptual metaphors.

2.4. Analyzing conceptual metaphors

Related to the direction of analysis, critics cannot come to the agreement on whether the
analysis of metaphors should proceed 4itop-down” or “bottom-up”. In top-dovvn approach. certain/
selective data is found to make generalizations and suggest underlying cognitive structures and
explain the data. On the contrary. in bottom-up approach, just minimal generalizations are made
based on an extensive set of data. Thereíore. top-down approach emphasizes on the universal
metaphors and global cognitive structures, while bottom-up approach íbcuses on individual/
innovative metaphors \vhich cannot be explained with the help of global cognitive structures alone.
Bottoni-up research is associated with systematic organization of metaphorical expressions in
natural discourse. More and more researchers fìnd the bottom-up direction relevant to investigate
the diversity of real-life conceptual metaphors with numerous irregularities.
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One more issue relating to analyzing conceptual metaphors is that insufficient attention is paid
to the interpersonal dỵnamics that make particular metaphors salient in some discourse context.
In a conversation. people írequentlỵ mix their metaphors, even negotiate \vhich metaphors best
characterize some experience. idea or emotion. Thereíồre. methods are needed to describe these
dynamic processes in discourse and explain how interlocutors construct common metaphorical
understanding based on linguistic expressions.
The final problem with regard to metaphor analỵsis is the lack of research work investigating
the culture root underlỵing conceptual metaphors. Still very little is knovvn about "the vvaỵs
that cultural beliefs shape both people's understandings of their embodied experiences and the
conceptual metaphors which arise from these experiences” (Gibbs Jr, 2005).

2.5. Conceptual structures of metaphor

Originally. Lakotĩ and Johnson's metaphor is associated vvith mapping on one laỵer - source
domain to target domain. Hovvever. there exist other conceptual structures besides domain: image
schemas (Lakoíĩ, 1990. 1993). frames (LakoíT. 1996; Kovecses, 2006). scenes (Grady, 1997a.
1997b), mental spaces (Tumer & Fauconnier. 2002). schemas (Lakotĩ. Tumer. &. Tumer. 1989).
scenarios (Musolff. 2006. 2016). The situation of confusing domain with these terms is called
terminological chaos by Kốvecses (2017b). He notices that the relation among these conceptual
terms, i.e.. they can be graded in terms of level of schematicity. With the decrease in schematicity
direction, four typical conceptual levels can be arranged as image schema. domain. frame and
mental space. Kõvecses (2017b) realizes that the metaphorical mapping occurs on all these four
layers in the way that the source and the target are mapped on the same level: image schema to
image schema. domain to domain. frame to frame. mental space to mental space. Kovecses calls
his íồund structure of metaphor "multi-level view" of conceptual metaphor. His approach not only
brings in a new vision of conceptual metaphor with deep insights of mapping mechanism but also
well demonstrates the conceptualization process vvith submappings on four layers. Besides, this
perspective helps in handle the mix-up between domain and other conceptual terms. By putting
them into schematicity scale, domain can be distinguished from other terms in a more reliable way.
Multi-level view of conceptual metaphor will be in-depth reviewed in a separate part as it is a main
part of the theoretical íramevvork for the thesis.

3. CURRENT APPROACHES T0 METAPHOR STUDY

Among approaches to metaphor study, corpus and discourse ones have received the most
attention because of their potentials to make up for the dehciencies of the traditional CMT.

3.1. Corpus approaches to metaphor study

Corpus research, an empirical paradigm beginning in 1950s. emerged as a major approach

to metaphor study to meet the demand of processing a huge amount of data with higher accuracy
by only íồcusing on relevant citations instead of reading every word in the texts; to work on
contextualized data to lessen the intuition of metaphorical expression identiíìcation process and
beyond that. In this part. I will review some strategies to extract metaphorical expression from a
corpus. the results and some íìirther advances of using corpus approach to metaphor study.
696 KỲ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC GIA 20:

Corpus is simply defined as a collection of texts. Recently, it is commonly knoxvn as a larc

collection of authentic texts which can be stored in computer-readable form (Meyer, 2002, p.xii
The íundamental principle of studying a corpus for linguistic purpose is extracting a list of citatior
(a concordance) containing a search word so that the researcher can leam how the node wor
operates in specihc contexts in a corpus. Rooted in this common mechanism, several methods (
retrieving metaphorical expressions from a corpus have been increasingly applied (e.g. Charterií
Black, 2004: Koller, 2004; Musolíĩ, 2004; Deignan, 2005; Stefanowitsch, 2006; Semino, 200(
etc.). Stefanowitsch (2006) makes a clear and comprehensive summary of these methods.
As conceptual mappings are not associated with any fìxed linguistic íorms, a corpus is normall
used to extract linguistic expressions manifesting metaphors. From the retrieved citations, th
researcher will speciíy appropriate mappings. The six strategies beloxv belong to three approacheí
traditional concordancing, automatic or semi-automatic annotation/extraction:
First. "manual searching” starts with the researcher’s careful reading through the corpu
to look for all conceptual metaphors (see Semino & Masci, 1996: JăkeỊ 1995). This metho
apparently limits the potential size of the corpus and contains certain inconsistency in analysistí
judgement on specihc metaphors.
Second, "searching for source domain vocabulary” is based on the fact that corpus cannot b
used to directly retrieve concepĩual metaphors. Instead, corpus can only help to extract linguisti
realizations of source domains. Thereíồre. the researcher needs to prepare a list of potentia
metaphorícal expressions of source domains for a particular target domain (see Deignan. 1999: Hanks
2004). The choice of vocabulary items can be grounded on existing exhaustive or a keyvvord analysi
of texts in relation with the target domain (Partington. 1997, 2003). Once retrieved. a concordanc*
will show the researcher the linguistic contexts in which a lexical item is used. The researcher thei
needs to identify which one is metaphorically used and the target domain it maps onto.
Third. to apply ”searching for target domain vocabulary” method, the researcher selects lexica
items refeiTÌng to the target domain, then searching for the citations in the concordance wher<
these words emerge in metaphorical expressions and thus. generating related source domains. Oni
disadvantage of this method is that it limits to only explicit target domain vocabulary xvhereaí
there exist not a few implicit ones. For instance, it will identiíy 4iHis pent-up anger \velled Uf
inside him”, bưt not ”We got a rise out of him” (both from LakoíT. 1987. p.384).
Fourth. "searching for sentences containing lexical items from both the source domain and
the target domain” is grounded in the combination of the second and third inethod. Ít requires a
list of source and target domain vocabulary. Alìer extracting citations containing search xvords.
the researcher has to do manual post-editing to get appropriate metaphorical expressions, and then
íồrmulating corresponding metaphors. Just like the two previous methods, this strategy alỉoxvs the
analysist to conduct metaphor identihcation in huge corpora. Hovvever, it also has the draxvback ot
lacking certain source and target domain vocabulary.
Fifth. “searching íbr metaphors based on markers of metaphor” aims at extracting metaphors
automatically via explicit linguistic devices depicting the presence of a metaphor including
metalinguistic expressions reíerring to non-literalness like metaphorically/ hguratively speaking.
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general metalanguage about semantics like in more than one sense. mimetic terms like image.
likeness or picture, etc. (Goatly, 1997). Nevertheless. a major constrain on this method is that these
markers are not always consistent with metaphorical usage.
Sixth, 4iextraction from a corpus annotated for semantic helds/domains
* ’ refers to the adaption
of the íìrst, second and third strategy when a corpus annotated for domains is created. In particular.
the results of the íìrst strategy enables the researcher to identiíỳ' source domains and all related
lexical items (see Semino. 2005; Cameron & Deignan. 2003; Charteris-Black. 2004). In a corpus
that is exhaustively annotated. extensions of the second and the third strategy are possible. namely
the researcher can speciíy potential a target domain or parsing units containing both potential
source and target domains.
Apparently. a corpus with a large body of authentic data associated \vith contexts is an ideal
environment to make statements about the search item related to the írequency of a specihc
metaphor, its semantic and syntactic íeatures, which cannot be achieved with separated and
decontextualized sentences. Indeed. corpus study have brought in insiglìttul empirical results.
They may go against what traditional intuitionist studies assume. For example. the pair "light" and
“dark” are traditionally expected to appear equally in talk of specihc target domains. Nevertheless.
corpus data reveals that “light” is relevant to HAPPINESS vvhereas *’dark" is less used in reíerence
to SADNESS (Gibbs Jr, 2017). Altematively, corpus study can lead to surprising outcomes. To
illustrate, a metaphorically used word can have diíTerent evaluative pattems associated with its
iníìections. The plural word ”flames” conveys negative meanings (e.g.. "His íuture crashed in
Aames”), while the singular mostly reíers to positive evaluations. Hence. metaphorical
language is far more íìxed lexically and grammatically than non-metaphorical expressions (Gibbs
Jr, 2017). As regards the study of linguistic behaviour of metaphor in real contexts. Cameron &
Deignan (2006) find írequent non-literal expressions with fixed language form and highly specihc
semantics (conceptual content) and pragmatics when analyzing metaphors in continuous discourse
and computer-assisted corpus. They named these expressions ■‘metaphorernes" and argue that
metaphoreme is a new unit of metaphor analysis in emergentist perspective which brings together
the linguistic, conceptual and pragmatic aspects of metaphor in use. One example of metaphoreme
mentioned in their work is ỉoìỉipop trees which has stabilized lexico-grammatical form.... image
metaphor and negative evaluation of unacceptable tree-drawing manner.

3.2. Discourse approaches to metaphor study

Conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoíĩ & Johnson, 1980) is a milestone in the study of metaphor
in history in the sense that it converts metaphor as a linguistic phenomenon into a common cognitive
mechanism which generates multiple linguistic metaphors. However. according to Cameron
& Deignan (2006. pp.671- 672) from the late 1990s and 2000 on wards, scholars have regarded
the generic-level of ideas in metaphor understanding (e.g. ARGƯMENT IS WAR. COMPLEX
STRUCTƯRES AR BƯIDINGS, LOVE IS A JOƯRNEỴ etc.) as a constraint on accounting for
specihc-level understanding of metaphors in discourse. For example, in one study of public discourse
on political ưanstồrmation carried out by Musolổ
* & Zinken (2009. p.3) while kettle-metaphors are
employed in the context of political pressure. pot-metaphors are utilized in the context of subdivisions
of political territory, ship-metaphors are used in the context of complex system vvhereas boat-
698 KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC GIA 20

metaphors are used in the context of collaboration. This fact has generated the increasing numb<
of studying metaphors in discourse (Koller, 2004; Charteris-Black, 2004; Deignan, 2005; Musolí
2006; Semino, 2008; CameronetaL 2009; MusolíT& Zinken, 2009; Kõvecses, 2005,2010, 2015
There have been several approaches to the study of metaphors in discourse. Deignan (200.
p.124) summarizes two types of discourse- based approach to metaphor. The fìrst analyses a writte
or spoken text in order to clariíy how metaphors are employed to present a message or ideology, a
aim within the tradition of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The second is targeted at examinir
how speakers use metaphor to develop shared understandings as a spoken discourse proceed
Deignan (2005, p. 135) also mentions a combined approach to metaphor study in discourse wit
the use of corpus analysis. Recently. the study of metaphors in multimodal discourse like cartoon;
fìlms or other visual media has received more concem from such linguists as Forceville (1996
Bolognesi (2016), Sorm & Steen (2018), etc. Although each author approaches discourse analysi
in more or less different perspective. they all agree on the common interest that discourse analysi
helps in giving deep insights into conceptual metaphors thanks to rích iníormation derived fror
the context of authentic discourse.
The íìrst type, critical discourse analỵtỉcal approach to metaphor study, is rooted in the fa<
that the nature of metaphor is an appropriate kind of data which CDA can work on. ConceptUÉ
metaphor with the attribute of highlighting and hiding certain aspects (Lakoiĩ & Johnson. 1980) doe
not objectively rehect the world. In other words, conceptual metaphor always caiTÌes ideologice
bias- the content which CDA attempts to make explicit out of texts via discourse analysis techniqueí
Studying metaphor under CDA approach starts with searching for metaphorical expressions, thei
proposes conceptual metaphors to account íồr them beíòre identiíying entailments and ideologie
rehected in these metaphors. Sometimes, to prove the signihcance of a particular conceptual metaphoi
the frequency of its corresponding linguistic metaphors is calculated. The texts studied in the íìrs
group generally relate to gender, race and political issues. One typical example of thỉs approach i
Santa Ana’s (1999) research into immigration to the ưs. lĩe collected 107 articles on immigratioi
from August 1993 to November 1994. The metaphors of immigrants with such source domains a:
animals, criminals, weeds, commodities obviously reveal predominant negative attitude. With th(
metaphor of the nation as a house, Santa Ana proposes an entailment that immigrants appear to be í
threat to the house, bringing in Aooding or invasion. The combination of metaphor study and critica
discourse analysis is most clearly discussed in Charteris-Black’s (2004) Coipus Approaches tc
Critical Metaphor Analysis. He argues that the social context and the ideas embedded in texts refleơ
and inhuence group ideology. Speakers and vvriters intentionally use metaphor to aim at pragmatic
eíĩects wlìich arouse persuasion and guide evaluation of the audience. Thereíbre, Critical Metaphoi
Analysis (CMA) uses the intentions of speakers and writers to explain íòr metaphor choices iĩi
specihc contexts. Other advocates of this approach are George Lakoíĩ (1991, 2002); Voss, Kennet.
Wiley, & Schooler (1992); Rohrer (1995); Koller (2004), etc. If we see the íùnctions of metaphor
in discourse via Halliday’s ủmctional categorizations of language, apparently CMA focuscs on the
fìrst two íunctions- ideational and interpersonal. Meanvvhile, Kốvecses (2009) emphasizes the last
íunction- textual, and thus proposes principle called “pressure of coherence" in \vhich makes the
user adjusts his or her metaphors to the surrounding context. Let's consider a headline trom The Waỉỉ
Street Journaỉ Europe (January 6, 2003).
NGHIÊN CỨU VÀ GIẢNG DẠY NGOẠI NGỮ, NGÔN NGỮ VÀ QUỐC TẾ HỌCTẠI VIỆT NAM 699

The Amerỉcanỉzatỉon ofJapan ’s car ỉndustry shỉfts ỉrìío hỉgher gear.

The metaphor PROGRESS IS MOTION FORWARD is generated through the metaphorical
words ‘shiíts into higher gear’. The specihc target domain is the progress of the Japanese car
industry. Since the topic is the car industry, it makes sense to use the motion of a car, and not
the motion of some other entity capable of motion, in the metaphor. It seems that the pressure
of coherence (with the topic at hand) is at work here. The principle is believed to explain a large
amount of metaphor variation in naturally occurring discourse.
For the second type, the discoiirse dynamics approach. the procedure is similar, but the
íbcus is placed on how speakers develop or creating their metaphors based on their intentions and
how successíully the hearers interpret or comprehend a particular metaphor, i.e. the inAuence of
metaphor interaction as a dynamic process on metaphor interpretation. Data used in the second
group are normally collected from a fìeld of personal or proíessional interest such as education
or health. Based on the discourse dynamics approach, Lynne Cameron et al. (2009) propose the
method of metaphor-led discourse analysis in order to use metaphor as a tool to uncover people’s
ideas, attitudes and values througlì analysis of dynamic discourse. It begins with identifyirìg
metaphorỉcally-used ỉanguage (using MIP) (Pragglejaz Group, 2007) and vehicle terms/ source
domains terms/ metaphorically used words and phrases from transcription. All potential metaphors
are considered instead of limiting to certain types of metaphors or to specihc topics. The metaphors
are then coded to search for patterns providing iníồrmation about participants’ ideas, attitudes, and
values. The metaphor codỉng is carried out through three steps. Firstly, software is used to code
each metaphor in terms of topic, vehicle, speaker and position in the talk. Then, topic coding
is streamlined by constructing and using a limited set of “key discourse topics” relevant to our
research topic and research questions. For example, the topic of terrorism can be categorized
into responses to terrorism, communication about terrorism, responses to terrorism, society and
social groups, etc. Finally, in the coding vehicle groupings, source domain terms are grouped
according to their semantic content. The outcomes of metaphor coding can be used in two ways:
to provide quantitative iníbrmation of the data and to analyze networks of metaphors qualitatively.
The quantitative description relates to the numbers of metaphors used by each speaker or from a
vehicle grouping and the range of metaphors used to talk about each of the key discourse topics.
Qualitative exploration of metaphor use presents metaphor patterns and emergent themes that
answer the research questions. One prominent study to illustrate the second approach is CameroiTs
(2003) work on metaphor in classroom discourse. Her research aims at examining how teachers
and students share, develop and understand metaphors as the discourse proceeds. Based on the
data of tape-recordings of lessons, her interpretations facilitated by worksheets and observation of
pupils’ activities and her own experience, Cameron (2003) concludes that metaphor is írequently
used in educational discourse and is more effective in controlling and giving negative ĩeedback
because metaphor is more face-saving with its indirect feature. The dynamic view of metaphor
is demonstrated through several ways such as same metaphors mean diíTerent things to diherent
pupils, pupils’ understandings of meaning change on a micro-level during the course, or metaphors
of the same topic develop and connected to each other (Cameron, 2003, p.8). Some other works
under the second approach are Cortazzi & Jin (1999), Gwyn (1999), Liebert (1997), etc.
700 KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC GIA 20

The third type, a corpus approach to discourse study of metaphor. is believed to addre
some vveaknesses of mere discourse study (Deignan. 2005) Corpus analysis can effectively identk
connotations of words, which lessens intuitions in conveying ideological messages. For instanc
Santa Ana (1999) concludes that the dominant conceptual, IMMIGRANTS ARE ANIMALS
negative because he can infer 'Tmmigrants are seen as animals to be eaten by American industiy
from the data expression- "Employers hungering for cheap labor hunt out the toreign worker
Nevertheless, Deignan (2005) opposes this statement and proves the opposite vvith the results froi
corpus concordances. Accordingly, nine out of thirteen citations of hunt followed by out presei
positive attitude toxvards immigrants and none of them support a negative view. Obviously, corpt
study is important in the sense that it oíĩers a reasonable amount of naturally occurring languac
data to avoid intuitively evaluate the connotation of a specihc word in context. Additionally, corpt
study helps in identiíying dead metaphor in discourse efficiently. Dead metaphors are dehned e
those that never evoke the source domain. Thereíore, by searching for literal use of a suppose
metaphorical word in corpus data. Similarly, by considering the use of a metaphorical word/ phras
in concordance lines, we will leam about its relation with a domain, and thus we can judge tli
generalization a domain in a metaphor from this word/ phrase is appropriate or not. For instancí
Voss et al. (1992) affiiin that Bush was negatively described as a MAGICIAN by his opponents vi
utterances ';He plucked January 15111 out of thin air” and “None of us has a crystal bair. Howeve
none of the citations containing pỉuck... aỉr and crystaỉ baỉl refer to the domain of magic, onl
two citations are related to íồrtune teller. Without linguistic evidence in the corpus, the metapho
BƯSH ỈS A MAGICIAN can be seen as overgeneralization. Overall, corpus plays the rolc of
natural and reliable reíerence database for the researcher to make decision about the issues that ar
traditionally solved in an intuitive way.

4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The article has reviewed the major problems and current approaches to metaphor study
Overall. CMT has faced fìve central issues: metaphorical expressions. domain íonnulation. data
metaphor analysis, conceptual structures of metaphor. Two solutions have been discussed t(
address such constraints.
The íìrst one, corpus approaches, enables the researcher to process far more texts thar
traditional CMT. Corpus approaches also provide authentic database associated with contexts tc
generalize rules related to metaphorical words and domain shaping as well as to lầcilitate thi
bottom-up strategy of metaphor analysis. All these advances make metaphor study lessen intuition
The second one. discourse approaches, improves the metaphor analysis process. Discourse
approaches íầcilitate all three aspects of metaphor analysis: identihcation. interpretation and
explanation. First, in discourse approaches, the meaning of a single word is put in context.
and thus is authentic and relevant. Based on high accuracy of meaning of words, extraction oí
metaphorical words (metaphor identiíìcation), doniain tormulation (metaphor interpretation) all
become more convincing. Second. one of discourse approaches, discourse dynamics approach,
sheds light on the active process of developing metaphor, i.e. how metaphors are tonned, shared
and understood among interlocutors. Hence, traditional CMT is added a new íeature of metaphor.
NGHIÊN CỨU VÀ GIẢNG DẠY NGOẠI NGỮ, NGÔN NGỮ VÀ QUỐC TẾ HỌC TẠI VIỆT NAM 701

namely, in discourse metaphor is not fìxed, it evolves as discourse proceeds in an unpredictable

way. Third, critical discourse analytical approach to metaphor study plays a key role in exploring
the ideological function of metaphor associated with social contexts and ideas embedded in
discourse. Furthermore, this approach convincingly contributes to explain metaphor choice in
specihc contexts in reference with speakers’ and writers’ intentions.
To sum up, corpus and discourse approaches have proved their eíĩectiveness in handling
methodological matters of CMT via numerous empirical researches. Analysts, depending on their
research topics, can apply fruitful combinations from these two general approaches.

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