Investigating Metaphor in Modern Greek Internet Memes (original) (raw)
Related papers
Revista Linguagem em Foco, 2019
This paper proposes a reflection on the argumentative effects of metaphor, from the overall perspective of Cognitive Linguistics. The focus is on the way in which a given cognitive-discursive orientation can be approached in this area of study, which contemplates the interweaving between the cognitive and discursive dimensions of metaphorical language. To explore this goal, we have analyzed a corpus formed by internet memes and metaphor niches about teaching and education, in which figurative language is characterized by situated metaphors, intertwined with frames and conceptual metaphors. The analysis seeks to identify the elements of the online dimension of cognition (vehicles and situated metaphors) and those of the off-fline dimension: conceptual metaphors and underlying frames. The results seem to corroborate the hypothesis that the cognitive-discursive thread woven by the articulation between stable and unstable instances of cognition conducts, with clear rhetorical force, a...
Multimodal figuration in internet memes
Metaphorik.de, 2023
Internet memes have become an essential part of Internet-based communication in recent years. Considering the importance of figuration of language, instances of figuration in Internet memes are no surprise. Understanding how multimodal figuration in memes function is essential to comprehend memes in general. Thus, in this paper, I will look at the role that figurative language plays in memes and how it functions. To do so, I will begin with Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) before shifting to multimodal cases of metaphor. I will also examine the case of multimodal metonymy and multimodal simile to determine how each figure functions in Internet memes, highlighting the importance of figurative combinations. Early results showed that figuration in memes is often combined (e.g., simile and metaphor), leading to categorization issues when studying figuration and multimodal figuration in Internet memes.
What makes a good metaphor? A cross-cultural study of computer-generated metaphor appreciation
Computers are now able to automatically generate metaphors, but some automatically-generated metaphors are more well-received than others. In this paper, we showed participants a series of 'A is B' type metaphors that were either generated by humans or taken from the Twitter account '@Metaphorismybusiness', which is linked to a fully automated metaphor generator. We used these metaphors to assess linguistic factors that drive metaphor appreciation and understanding, including the role of novelty, word frequency, concreteness and emotional valence of the topic and vehicle terms. We additionally assessed how these metaphors were understood in three languages, including English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, and whether participants thought they had been generated by a human or a computer. We found that meaningfulness, appreciation, speed in finding meaning and humanness ratings were reliably correlated with each other in all three languages, which we interpret to indicate a more general property of 'metaphor quality'. We furthermore found that in all three languages, conventional metaphors and those that contained an 'optimal' (intermediate) degree of novelty were more likely to be perceived to be of higher quality than those that were extremely creative. Further analysis of the English data alone revealed that those metaphors that contained negatively valenced vehicle words and infrequent vehicle terms (in comparison with the topic terms) were more likely to be considered high-quality metaphors. We discuss the implications of these findings for the (improvement of) automatic generation of metaphor by computers, for the persuasive function of metaphor, and for theories of metaphor understanding more generally.
A Cognitive Linguistics approach to internet memes on selected Polish internet sites
Cognitive Studies | Études cognitives
A Cognitive Linguistics approach to internet memes on selected Polish internet sitesThe present study aims to analyse selected internet memes as examples of social communication from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics, and to examine more closely the relation between their visual and verbal aspects. Internet memes contain a wide range of constructions (necessary for rebuilding the semantic framework and extracting selected content), which are fragmentary but at the same time sufficient to induce a whole framework of meanings by using their salient features. The multimodal context is considered within the frameworks of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), construal (Langacker, 1987, 2008), frame semantics (Fillmore, 1988), conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002) and Discourse Viewpoint Space (Dancygier & Vandelanotte, 2016). The paper will present an analysis of the structure of internet memes, which are rich concepts that spread rapidly and widel...
A new understanding of metaphors: From collective data to individual cases
CrossRoads, 2023
Most theories on metaphor processing are categorical, focus on semantics, and ignore important empirical findings. In this paper, we show how complex systems science can help us understand the apparently contradictory findings in the literature. We claim that metaphors are best understood as processed by the dynamic interaction between different factors, with dynamically shifting weights, in different time scales. To understand what a metaphor means, we must consider the multidimensional aspects of meaning: a) schemas, frames, scenarios, etc.; b) attributes (e.g., big, cruel, etc.); c) phenomenological schemas (e.g., mappings of visceral sensations); d) valence (positive, neutral, negative), etc. These constructs are not an object in the mind or the same for everyone. They are formed by experiences-with some overlaps, depending on people's sharing of cultural and embodied similarities. We never know how one person will interpret a metaphor but can make informed guesses based on empirical findings.
Learning to Understand Figurative Language: From Similes to Metaphors to Irony
2007
Learning to Understand Figurative Language: From Similes to Metaphors to Irony Tony Veale (TONY.VEALE@UCD.ie) School of Computer Science and Informatics, University College Dublin Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Yanfen Hao (YANFEN.HAO@UCD.ie) School of Computer Science and Informatics, University College Dublin Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland equivalent categorization. Indeed, Roncero et al. (2006) note that similes found on the internet are far more likely than the equivalent metaphors to be accompanied by an explicit explanation, which suggests that similes are less constrained by norms of category structure, and thus less likely than metaphors to be implicitly explained by these norms. Hanks (2004) goes as far as to argue that this non- reliance on category norms makes simile a freer and more creative form of expression than metaphor, since similes can serve as dynamic “triggers for the imagination” without having to appeal either to linguistic conventions or experiential gestalts. Chiap...
Understanding humorous metaphors in the foreign language: a state-of-the-art-review
Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, 2020
Humor is not only a highly valuable tool for pedagogical purposes, it can also help language learners increase their feeling of engagement in everyday communication in the target culture (cf. Lee 2006). However, the understanding of humor in a foreign language (L2) requires the use of a great deal of knowledge that goes far beyond the mastery of mere linguistic features of the target language. It requires the use of specialized sociocultural knowledge (e.g. the use of political satire, local sights and sounds, historical references) and to some extent the creative elaboration of figurative meaning. In this context, it is quite surprising that cross-cultural humor research so far has neglected the contribution of conceptual metaphors as a mean to create humorous language. Therefore, the present article explores the theoretical and empirical interconnections between cross-cultural humor research and cognitive linguistic research on metaphor and shows some directions for future researc...
The Emergence of Metaphor in Discourse
Applied Linguistics, 2006
We show how emergence offers new explanations for the behaviour of metaphorically-used expressions. Analysis of metaphors in two types of natural language data are combined: detailed analysis of continuous discourse, which offers wealth of context and the possibility of monitoring emergent forms as the discourse unfolds, and computer-assisted corpus analysis, which enables the examination of large numbers of examples of specific words and phrases across a range of contexts. We find that non-literal expressions with a relatively fixed form and highly specific semantics and pragmatics are very frequent in our data but are not well accounted for by current cognitive metaphor theory. We term these non-literal expressions 'metaphoremes', and argue that they represent the coalescence of linguistic, semantic, affective, and pragmatic forces into attractor states in the discourse system, appearing in discourse as relatively stable bundles of patterns of use. We show a metaphoreme emerging in the course of a discourse event and another which appears to have emerged recently as a result of a changing social environment. We then combine analyses and data types to track the use of 5walk away from4 as a metaphoreme, showing its patterns of formal, semantic, affective, and pragmatic characteristics.
A Cognitive Semantics Study of Metaphor (1
This article deals with metaphor from a linguistic perspective. A question arises here as to whether to which field of language study metaphor belongs. How to answer the question is subject to our understanding of metaphorical expressions. When one encounters a situation in which a metaphorical expression is used, they have a kind of construal to conceptualize the expression. Thus, the field of linguistics which is concerned with studying metaphors is cognitive linguistics since people use their cognitive abilities to conceptualize and understand the metaphorical expressions. With respect to this, George Lakoff adopted a theory under the title Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Here I try to shed light on some aspects of this theory. What is taken into consideration in the paper is a detailed account of metaphor as a cognitive device, the three basic types of conceptual metaphor proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), namely orientational, ontological, and structural. Also, the characteristic features of conceptual metaphors like asymmetry, systematicity, and conventionality. Additionally, the relationship between conceptual metaphor and image schemas is shown in the last section. One of the conclusions of the article is that conceptual metaphor is an integral part of our everyday lives; we cannot interact normally without using conceptual metaphors.
Text, Context and Cognitive Metaphor
When approaching the question of the relationship between metaphor and discourse, we could say that in Cognitive Metaphor Theory (hereafter CMT), there are there are two basic tendencies. The first works within a perspective that views basic level metaphors as structuring mechanisms in the understanding and representation of the world; in other words, it could be claimed that conceptual metaphors motivate subsequent language use. The second operates from a different, apparently opposite, perspective which views the speaker's communicative intention as the trigger of the metaphorical framework selected to interpret the world; in other words, it could be claimed instead that language use motivates metaphorical conceptualization. At any rate, irregardless of the theoretical perspective adopted, most of the research in CMT has focused on the the cognitive side of this relation rather than on the language side. Steen (2002:386) comments on this point as follows: