Karen Sullivan

Frames and Constructions in Metaphoric Language

Frames and constructions in metaphoric language shows how linguistic metaphor piggybacks on certain patterns of constructional meaning that have already been identified and studied in non-metaphoric language. Recognition of these shared semantic structures, and comparison of their roles in metaphoric and non-metaphoric constructions, make it possible to apply findings from Frame Semantics, Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar to understand how conceptual metaphor surfaces in language.

With the future coming up behind them: Evidence that Time approaches from behind in Vietnamese

Abstract Vietnamese speakers can describe the future as behind them and gesture forwards to indicate the past, which suggests they use a conceptual model of Time in which the future is behind and the past is in front. This type of model has previously been shown to be pervasive only among older speakers of Aymara in the Andes (Núñez and Sweetser 2006. With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science 30. 401–450). Whereas Time in the Aymara model does not “move”, the present data show that Time in Vietnamese can “approach” from behind the Ego and “continue forward” into the past. To our knowledge, no other language has been identified with a model where Time moves from behind Ego to in front. Recognition of this model in Vietnamese will open up new research opportunities, particularly since the model does not seem to be endangered in Vietnamese.

The Languages of Art: How Representational and Abstract Painters Conceptualize Their Work in Terms of Language

Representational and nonrepresentational (abstract) artists exhibit different conceptual processes when they describe their work. Data from ekphrastic texts written by artists to accompany their artwork show that, although both kinds of painters refer metaphorically to their art using terms such as language, vocabulary, conversation, and narrative, the two use these words in different ways and with different meanings. For example, representational painters refer to “languages” that consist of the systems of represented objects, people, or landscapes that they depict, whereas nonrepresentational painters write about “languages” composed of sets of colors or shapes. Moreover, representational artists claim to engage in a “conversation” with the viewers of their works, whereas nonrepresentational artists prefer to “converse” with their materials or canvases. In general, representational painters use metaphorical terms such as language to describe their subject matter and their artwork’s effect on potential viewers, whereas nonrepresentational painters use the same words to describe colors, shapes, and their own artistic process. Artists that combine representation and abstraction in the same artwork (here termed “partly representational” artists) use some of the metaphors preferred by the purely representational artists and some of the metaphors of the nonrepresentational artists, suggesting that the presence/absence of both representation and abstraction affect the metaphors that artists use to describe their work.

Judging a book by its cover (and its background): effects of the metaphor intelligence is brightness on ratings of book images:

Visual metaphors have been the focus of experimental and corpus studies aiming to determine whether metaphors are conceptual or purely linguistic. However, in visual metaphor research, experimental and corpus approaches have each been directed at a distinct set of visual metaphors. Psychological experiments have focused on primary metaphors, whereas corpus studies have concentrated on non-primary metaphors. The current study suggests that when non-primary metaphors are examined experimentally, cognitive effects appear only when the metaphor is contextually relevant. intelligence is brightness, for example, is not relevant when the potential source of intelligence is inaccessible. In this study, images of open books with bright backgrounds are rated as more likely to represent works of genius than open books with darker backgrounds. When books are closed, their ‘genius’ is inaccessible and intelligence is brightness has no effect.

Visibility and economy as dimensions of metaphoric language

Metaphoric language can be examined either from the standpoint of conceptual structure or from the perspective of linguistic form. The role of conceptual metaphor in metaphoric language has received considerable attention, notably in Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Blending Theory, but the impact of linguistic form remains less well understood. Brooke-Rose’s A Grammar of Metaphor (1958) presents subjective impressions of various forms, and more recently, cognitive linguists have examined the metaphoric uses of individual grammatical constructions. However, Stockwell offers the most methodical and comprehensive comparison of metaphorically used constructions along a specified parameter, that of ‘visibility’ (1992, 2000, 2002). On the cline of visibility, constructions range from the most visible constructions, such as simile, to the least visible, such as allegory. The current article draws on Sullivan’s (2013) study of the role of grammatical constructions in metaphoric language to examine and refine Stockwell’s cline of visibility, inputting the syntactic characteristics of Stockwell’s metaphoric constructions into a multidimensional scaling analysis. The results support Stockwell’s dimension of ‘visibility’, but suggest that the distinctions between metaphorically used constructions are better accounted for in a two-dimensional analysis that considers the dimension of ‘economy’ – the linguistic complexity required to express a conceptual metaphor – alongside ‘visibility’.

One Metaphor to Rule Them All? 'Objects' as Tests of Character in the Lord of the Rings

This quantitative and qualitative study argues that the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings (LotR) is based on a metaphoric blend, which is echoed in related metaphors for power throughout the trilogy. Particular metaphors may be repeated in a literary work to achieve a stylistic effect (Ben-Porat, 1992; Crisp et al., 2002; Sullivan, 2007; Werth, 1994). This article suggests that the One Ring, and other powers conceptualized as objects, repeatedly test the mettle and morality of characters throughout the LotR trilogy. The current study examines the One Ring as a metaphoric blend (in the sense of Fauconnier, 1997) based on the Object Event-Structure (OES) metaphor, in which abstract goals are conceptualized as physical objects (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999), and compares the structure of this blend with all other OES metaphors for power throughout LotR. The study finds that just as good characters are ‘weighed down’ by the Ring, they feel ‘burdened’ by other forms of power and authority, whereas evil characters do not feel that power is a ‘burden’. Similarly, the manner in which the Ring is acquired is indicative of character quality, a trend shared by other metaphors for power and authority. Finally, the Ring is a non-living object; and throughout the trilogy, other metaphoric ‘objects’ are found to be more likely to be evil, whereas plants and growing things are more likely to map metaphorically onto the forces of good.

Being-clauses in Historical Corpora and the US Second Amendment

ABSTRACT The gun control debate in the US revolves around the interpretation of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. Due to over two hundred years of language change, this Amendment is confusing and ungrammatical for modern readers. Analysts of the Amendment have taken into account the etymology of many of its words, but the present study is the first to examine the syntactic changes that have caused the Amendment’s current ungrammaticality, and to assess the syntactic interpretations of the Amendment that were available at the time of its writing. The present study rejects most of the readings of the Amendment previously suggested by legal scholars and journalists, and assesses the remaining interpretations according to their probability.

Censoring metaphors in translation: Shakespeare's Hamlet under Franco

Abstract In the three versions of Hamlet translated during the Franco regime in Spain, metaphors related to the censored themes of sex and religion were altered or removed. In this study, we employ the Metaphor Identification Procedure (Pragglejaz Group 2007) to identify all metaphors involving sex and religion in Shakespeares Hamlet and its three Franco-era Spanish translations. We find that under the influence of censorship, authors employ many of the strategies for metaphor translation also used for uncensored texts, such as those identified by Newmark (1981), van den Broeck (1981), and Toury (1995). However, we argue that censorship encourages strategies judged as less preferable, more extreme, or which are not usually discussed in translation studies. These strategies appear to be selected specifically to remove the material subject to censorship, whether this is found in the source domain (vehicle) or the target domain (tenor) of a metaphor.