This volume is probably one of the first volumes that is entirely devoted to metaphor research over the past several decades. By combing and distilling works in metaphor research, the book offers a comprehensive, insightful and state-of-the-art overview of theories as well as methods and applications related to metaphor research. Given the content of the contributions, this book can be described as a further complement to the previously published Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (Gibb Reference Gibbs2008), highlighting much continuing interest in various topics and types of metaphor research.
The entire volume consists of six parts. Part I traces the main current theories. In Chapter 1, ‘Conceptual metaphor theory’, Zoltán Kövecses introduces the key concepts related to Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and explores the latest developments, showing that metaphor may be organized in various hierarchical systems. The following two chapters present two other cognitive theories, Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) and Relevance Theory. In Chapter 2, ‘Figurativeness, conceptual metaphor, and blending’, Barbara Dancygier firstly makes a comparison between CMT and CBT, then highlights CMB’s advantages in dynamic online meaning construction, which focuses on ‘mechanisms of creativity and emergence of new forms expressing new meanings, so it is more graceful in a broadly applicable mechanism’ (36). In Chapter 3, ‘Relevance theory and metaphor’, Robyn Carston explores Relevance Theory in more detail, suggesting that metaphor meaning stems from ‘loose use’, which refers to the idea that ‘one propositional form that can be used to represent another one of an utterance shares some, but not all of its logical properties with the prepositional form of the thought it is being used to represented’ (46). According to this view, the hearer creates an ad hoc meaning based on RT. In Chapter 4, ‘Metaphor, language, and dynamical systems’, Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. introduces Dynamical Systems Theory. It holds that ‘metaphor emerges in the moment from the interaction of many factors via self-organizational processes’. He points out that one of the great advantages of a dynamical approach is that ‘it forces researchers to articulate the different levels of metaphor processing and products’ (65).
The six chapters in Part II deal with the identification and classification of metaphor. In Chapter 5, ‘Identifying metaphors in language’, Gerard Steen outlines Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP; Pragglejaz Group 2007), and its more refined, extended variant. Each of the major operational concerns with MIP is separately addressed and further explained (79), as a way of conducting metaphor identification in verbal mode. After discussing the issue of determining metaphor in verbal mode, in Chapter 6, ‘Finding systematic metaphors’, Robert Maslen focuses on the formulation of ‘systematic metaphors by analyzing a project called ‘perception and communication of terrorist risk’, which includes 12,000 identified metaphors in 190,000 words of transcribed talk. At the end of this chapter, the author highlights the important application of systemic metaphor in the discourse of social science and commercial contexts. In Chapter 7, ‘From linguistic to conceptual metaphors’, Alice Deignan demonstrates Steen’s five-step method in tackling the question from linguistic metaphor to conceptual metaphor. As he points out in the conclusion, the notion of conceptual metaphors is problematic for many researchers. However, even for the most skeptical, conceptual metaphor remains a valuable insight, ‘for the generalizations can be detected from linguistic metaphors and that these generalizations seem able to generate novel metaphors, and probably frame world-views’ (114). In Chapter 8, ‘Corpus-linguistic approaches to metaphor analysis’, Heli Tissari demonstrates a sample method of metaphor study through corpora and provides a detailed example by analyzing the emotion of hope in four corpora. In Chapter 9, ‘Analysing metaphor in gesture: A set of metaphor identification guidelines for gesture (MIG-G)’, Alan Cienki proposes seven procedures mapping metaphor identification and metaphor guidelines to gesture. However, as he warns, when setting out these guidelines, different cultures, contexts, and genre styles of behavior should be considered. In the last chapter of Part II, ‘Analysing metaphors in multimodal texts’, Elisabeth El Refaie touches upon metaphor identification in multimodal texts by offering some key notions such as pictorial metaphor and verbal images. The author then discusses experiments, surveys and interviews that have been used to probe the comprehension of multimodal metaphor.
The first three chapters in Part III revolve around the theme of register and genre. In Chapter 11, ‘Metaphor and parts-of-speech’, Tina Krennmayr specifically addresses the relation between metaphor and part of speech (word classes); the author argues for a strong connection between metaphor and word class in terms of their forms, their grammatical patterns, their distribution and their relation to different registers (176). In Chapter 12, ‘Textual patterning of metaphor’, Aletta G. Dorst mainly addresses patterns of metaphor. The author examines key terms in metaphor patterns (e.g. repetition, recurrence, clustering, extension, signaling, intertextual relations, etc.), applying these within single and group texts (both written and spoken), and summarizing different functions and effects of various metaphor patterns in different registers. In Chapter 13, ‘Genre and metaphor: Use and variation across usage events’, Rosario Caballero explores the means and motivations for using different metaphors in different genres. After analyzing a specific study on metaphor in the genre of architecture, the author offers an agenda for future genre-based research on metaphor. In Chapter 14, ‘Creative metaphor in literature’, Marco Caracciolo begins with a measured definition of literary metaphor. By reviewing a case study, the author explores how metaphorical language can modulate the reader’s engagement and shape their interpretation of a given narrative. In Chapter 15, ‘Conventional and novel metaphors in language’, Gill Philip explores how to explain conventional metaphor and then considers how novelty emerges from the conventional and how novel linguistic forms and novel concepts interact. In Chapter 16, ‘Metaphor and diachronic variation’, Wendy Anderson offers an overview on metaphor changes across historical periods and concludes that development in metaphors is not only caused by semantic change but also reflects changes in society. In Chapter 17, ‘Metaphor in translation’, Christina Schäffner focuses on metaphor and translation, and gives a brief illustration of how metaphor has been used to conceptualize translation. The significance of this chapter resides in its comprehensive illustration of empirical research and method, such as eye-tracking studies, multilingual data and professional practice. In Chapter 18, ‘Metaphor in sign language’, Michiko Kaneko & Rachel Sutton-Spence explore how metaphors manifest themselves in the visual modality of sign language used by Deaf communities and underlines the importance of iconicity and metaphor at sub lexical level.
Part IV discusses the key function of metaphor in various discourses, such as educational, scientific, political and commercial advertising contexts. In Chapter 19, ‘Metaphor use in educational context: Functions and variations’, Jeannette Littlemore explores how metaphor serves as a pedagogical function in educational contexts, such as developing and framing new theories and ideas, filling terminological gaps. In Chapter 20, ‘Metaphor and the representation of scientific issues: Climate change in print and online media’, Nelya Koteyko & Dimitrinka Atanasova mainly introduce the role of metaphor as a framing device in debating about the controversial issue of scientific context. In Chapter 21, ‘Metaphor and persuasion in politics’, Andreas Musolff illustrates the multi-dimensional character of metaphor in political persuasion, considering the objective of commercial advertising. In Chapter 22, ‘Metaphor and persuasion in commercial advertising’, Laura Hidalgo-Downing & Blanca Kraljevic-Mujic discuss the evaluative function of metaphor persuasion. In addition, they also discuss metaphor in multimodal discourse, namely multimodal metaphor, which is a central topic currently attracting the attention of scholars in linguistics, communication, and psychology. In Chapter 23, ‘Metaphor and story-telling’, L. David Ritchie first makes a distinction between stories with metaphorical intent and metaphors that have the potential to activate stories, and then provides some definitions related to stories, (e.g. narrative, story, metaphors and stories, parables and proverbs). In Chapter 24, ‘Metaphor, impoliteness, and offence in online communication’, Zsófia Demjén & Claire Hardaker mainly address the relationship between metaphor and impoliteness, as metaphor can be used as a choice of impoliteness strategy (e.g. to refer to human as animals) and impoliteness is a key notion in pragmatics, thus this research has theoretical implications for the field of pragmatics.
Part V discusses the booming development of metaphor research, in which metaphor could be used as a tool to solve communicative and societal problems. The first two chapters demonstrate the role of metaphor in health care. Specifically, in Chapter 25, ‘Using metaphor in healthcare: Mental health’, Dennis Tay explores how to use metaphor as a counseling tool in mental health by closely integrating therapeutic and discourse analytic perspectives. In Chapter 26, ‘Using metaphor in healthcare: Physical health’, Zsófia Demjén & Elena Semino exploit the use of metaphor in physical health contexts. Through illustrating current research on the metaphor for cancer (e.g. the euphemistic expression of topics in cancer used by members of different stakeholder groups), the authors point out both the positive and negative potential entailments of such metaphor. In Chapter 27, ‘Using metaphor as a management tool’, Linda Greve reports on the management roles of metaphor in business areas. More importantly, it also suggests concrete methods for using metaphor in management. Chapter 28, ‘Using metaphor in the teaching of second/foreign languages’, is again dedicated to the context of education; however, Fiona MacArthur emphasizes second/foreign language teaching and learning. After introducing some experiments focused on vocabulary learning, the author shows that the enhancement of student’s metaphorical senses of words and phrases in the target language could improve learning. In Chapter 29, ‘Using metaphor for peace-building, empathy, and reconciliation’, Lynne Cameron presents the function of metaphor in dealing with empathy and meditation. Rather than just reviewing metaphor and empathy in reconciliation discourse, this chapter is critical in developing the practitioner-oriented model. In the final chapter of this part, ‘Using metaphor to influence public perceptions and policy: How metaphors can save the world’, Joseph Grady first establishes the nature of metaphor in the discourse related to public-interest issues, such as global warming and economic policy, and then explores the benefits of such metaphor. It discusses the limitations of such research, concluding that whether a metaphor actually has the power to solve real-world problems related to public-interest issues can only be determined empirically, by testing its effectiveness with real people (453).
The book culminates in Part VI, where the essential relation between metaphor and cognition is reiterated. In Chapter 31, ‘Metaphor processing’, Herbert L. Colston & Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. explore the complexities associated with metaphor processing, noting that variations in the form, producer, receiver, and context each play an important role in understanding metaphor. One aspect consistently highlighted in this chapter, and throughout much of the book, is that we need to study the pragmatic effects, as well as the biological and psychological processing of metaphor, and see these not as secondary by-products of metaphorical meaning, but as an essential reason for why metaphor is used in the first place (468). In Chapter 32, ‘Psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor acquisition and use’, Albert N. Katz also research on metaphor understanding, but through Psycholinguistic approaches. Within this approach, it emphasizes the individuals use and the interpretation of the metaphors and the reason for and the method of the use of metaphor (e.g. to assert social identity or to create interlocutor intimacy). In Chapter 33, ‘Metaphor acquisition and use in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders’, Gabriella Rundblad further explores the acquisition of metaphor, but its main target is individuals with neuro-developmental disorders. The study in this chapter is limited to the following five disorders: specific language impairment, autism spectrum, disorder, Down’s syndrome, Williams’s syndrome, and schizophrenia. At the end of this chapter, the author cites the theory of mind, executive function (e.g. working memory) and weak central coherence (e.g. relevance between lexicalized and novel metaphor) in explaining the difference between individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders and neurotypical individuals. In the last chapter of the book, ‘Metaphor comprehension and production in a second language’, Susan Nacey elaborates several definitions of metaphor competence and its significance for second language learners. The author introduces some studies concerning four overlapping facets of metaphor understanding or processing, namely comprehension, recognition, interpretation, and appreciation (Gibbs Reference Gibbs1994, Gibbs & Colston Reference Gibbs and Colston2012). The finding from the above-mentioned study is of theoretical and pedagogical significance both to the field of metaphor and other fields such as translation.
Overall, this book is a well-written overview of representative studies in metaphor research and thus a particularly useful research resource. Particularly welcome features of this book are its informativeness, thoroughness, and instructiveness in that it is abundant with theories, concepts, methods, and findings on a wide range of issues relating to metaphor research. Another great bonus of this book is that many of its chapters include sections on critical issues, debates and controversies and future directions. The thought-provoking questions in these sections will not only lead readers to critical reflections on the chapter but also encourage them to pursue explorations into some unanswered questions related to the topics of that chapter.
Although this book is informative and helpful in many respects, there are, perhaps inevitably, some shortcomings. In Part III and Part IV, the meaning of the term ‘context’ as well as some other pertinent linguistic concepts (e.g. ‘register’, ‘genre’) tend to vary quite significantly depending on the academic discipline. Considering the formal and functional nature of the above two parts, it would have been helpful if those concepts had been more clearly defined and closely related to the relevant discipline. With respect to metaphor corpora, four annotated metaphor corpora are discussed extensively in different chapters: metaphor in fiction, news, conversation and academic texts. However, it would be ideal to see this kind of work based on metaphor corpora of other languages, such as the metaphor-annotated corpus of Mandarin Chinese constructed by Xiaofei LuFootnote [1] or the Russian Metaphor Corpus (see e.g. Badryzlova & Lyashevskaya Reference Badryzlova and Lyashevskaya2017). These minor issues aside, we strongly recommend this book to both novices and established scholars in the field of metaphor research, either as a stepping stone to further their research or as a reference to deepen their insights into the complexities involved in various strands of metaphor research.
