Siaw-Fong Chung

An Ontology-Based Exploration of Knowledge Systems for Metaphor

This chapter takes the complex knowledge systems of metaphors and shows that their structured knowledge can be represented and predicted by ontology. The complex knowledge system of metaphors contains two knowledge systems, source domain and target domain, as well as the knowledge mapping between the two domains. Hence metaphors offer a test case of how structured knowledge can be manipulated in an information system. In terms of the theory of metaphor, we integrate the Conceptual Mapping Model with an ontology-based knowledge representation. We demonstrate that conceptual metaphor analysis can be restricted and eventually, automated. In terms of knowledge processing, we argue that the knowledge structure encoded in ontology, such as the Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO), is the necessary foundation for manipulating information from multi-domain and multilingual sources. We first extract source domain knowledge structure based on ontology. Next we show that the ontological account allows correct explanation of the parallel yet different use of the same source domain in two different languages. Thirdly, we showed that the restricted set of upper ontology can be combined with the open lexical knowledgebase of wordnets to provide a principled, yet robust, general coverage of language-based knowledge systems.

Cross-linguistic Comparisons of the MARKET Metaphors

Abstract Two research questions are examined in this work regarding the uses of ‘market’ in Mandarin, Malay and English. The first question asks whether the use of ‘market’ in these three languages is similar or different. The second question asks whether the collocates of the ‘market’ are similar or different across these languages when used in different grammatical relations. Implications of the similarities and differences will be discussed. In order to answer these two questions, ‘market’ metaphors used by different communities are laid out based on the frequency counts of its source domains and the collocates according to different grammatical roles (subject, object, modifier, etc.) of ‘market.’ The results show that certain source domains have preferences for different grammatical roles for ‘market.’ In addition to this finding, the choice of source domains by different speech communities may also reflect their perspectives regarding their countrys economy. Therefore, through using quantitative data, this paper is able to infer the perspectives of these speech communities when referring to ‘market’ in their languages. This can be done not only through analyzing the semantic meanings of the metaphors, but also through their interface with grammatical relations.

A Corpus-based Analysis of "Create" and "Produce"

This paper examines the synonymous pair ”create” and ”produce” in English and suggests that their similarities and differences can be elucidated based on the types of products denoted by their objects. PRODUCTS, as part of the eventive information of ACTIVITY, are sometimes shared by both verbs (e.g., in ”Manufacture”), while some other products (e.g., ”Farming”) are found only in one of the verbs (”produce”). In addition, a gradience analysis of ”property,” ”creativity,” ”quantity,” and ”concreteness” is also postulated, as these semantic features help to decide the selection between ”create” and ”produce.” Two corpora– the Brown Corpus and the Frown Corpus (from ICAME) – provided the data for this paper, and their results were compared to the British National Corpus through the collocation application of the Sketch Engine.Finally, the similarities and differences between the compared words are represented by means of a hierarchical structure.

Lexical Arguments and Information Types in Malay Oral Narratives

The analysis in this paper was based on five Malay narratives of the “frog story”. In these narratives, the types of lexical arguments and their relations with information flow and topic continuity were analyzed. It was found that most narrators used one lexical argument in telling the frog story (e.g., sarang itu jatuh “the nest fell”). About 60% of the verbs in the narratives contained one lexical argument only. Some transitive verbs that usually require the presence of both lexical arguments were used with one lexical argument only when produced in speech (e.g., dia mencari o di merata tempat “he searched (for) o everywhere”). Objects were sometimes omitted, as their meanings could be predicted from previous context. Despite the omission of objects, transitive constructions still prevailed in the stories. The most frequently occurring lexical arguments were objects (O) (37%), followed by intransitive subjects (S) (29%) and transitive subjects (A) (27%). In addition, our results showed that new information in Malay was usually allocated to the core argument of the object and to locative expressions, indicating that most of the new information appeared at the end of a clause. On the other hand, topic continuity was held between the subjects in two continuous intonation units. This clear-cut division of discourse functions in the heads and tails of constructions was consistently found in the five pieces of narration. This observation not only showed how ideas could be continued in Malay oral narratives, but also contributes to the study of discourse structure in Malay.

A Corpus-Based Study of SARS in English News Reporting in Malaysia and in the United Kingdom

This paper analyses English news reporting in Malaysia (New Straits Times) and in the United Kingdom (The Times) over several consecutive months during the SARS epidemic in 2003. While the physical features (word counts, standardised type/token ratio, number of sentences, etc.) of both corpora were consistent (and the two newspapers used mostly the same metaphorical lexis), differing features of the two newspapers were found in the rhetoric meaning. A corpus-based investigation of the presentation of news, selection of lexis, and the foci of reporting during the SARS epidemic is thus proposed. The results show that news from Malaysia focused on patriotism along with an emotional hopeful attitude, while news reporting in The Times seemed to be emotionally detached and less personal, reporting mainly on the fall of the stock markets and cancellations of cultural and sports events. In addition, The Times was found to have often considered manifestations of global economic status and power.