Socio-pragmatic potential of (verbo)-visual metaphtonymy in Internet memes featuring Donald Trump

The present study explores (verbo)-visual metaphtonymy in Twitter-based Internet memes featuring Donald Trump, focusing both on the patterns of conceptual interaction of metaphor and metonymy and their socio-pragmatic potential to influence Internet users. The results of the study reveal four types of (verbo)-visual metaphtonymy employed in the analyzed Internet memes. The types are differentiated in accordance with the complexity of the metaphoric source: metaphtonymy with a simple metaphoric source, metaphtonymy with a metaphoric source structured by simple metonymy, metaphtonymy with a metaphoric source structured by metonymic chain, and metaphtonymy with a metaphoric source structured by radial metonymy. In all the four types, the metaphoric target is structured by metonymic amalgam – a metonymic complex in which metonymies that are based on different ICMs merge due to the association of contiguity that is relevant in the current communicative and social/political context. Besides metonymic amalgam, the study introduces the notion of radial metonymy – a metonymic complex that emerges when one metonymic source gives access to several metonymic targets. We argue that the analyzed metaphtonymies rest on conceptual incongruity created to trigger negative evaluative inferences and emotional responses to shape Trump’s image.

The affect bias in the metaphorical representation of anticipated events

When talking about anticipated events, speakers can conceptualize them either as destinations towards which they are moving or as entities moving towards them, which correspond to the Ego- and the Time-moving metaphors, respectively (cf. ‘We are approaching Christmas’ and ‘Christmas is approaching’). Research in psycholinguistics has shown affective valence, i.e. whether the conceptualized event is perceived as positive or negative, to be one of the factors that modulate metaphor choice; positive anticipation is preferentially associated with Ego-moving expressions, whereas negative anticipation is predominantly associated with Time-moving metaphors. This paper sets out to test if the time-affect association surfaces in naturally-occurring language use when both metaphorical patterns are available. By focusing on the temporal usage of the verb approach, we provide linguistic evidence in favor of such an affective bias in time representations. In addition, the language data point to a semantic preference for a particular type of event (i.e., personal vs social) under each metaphorical pattern. We interpret this finding as preliminary evidence for a possible semantic bias in time representations to be further investigated.

Metaphors of cultural diversity at UNESCO

This paper analyses metaphors and analogies of cultural diversity at UNESCO in a discursive and rhetorical-argumentative framework, to answer the following question: How do these rhetorical devices play a legitimizing role when introducing a new keyword into the public sphere? Conventional and creative metaphors are analyzed separately to examine if they represent different legitimization strategies. Conventional metaphors and analogies include variations on treasure, heritage, and biodiversity; creative metaphors include cultural diversity as a living treasure and a Rainbow River. The findings suggest that the wealth metaphor fulfills an evaluative meliorative function, while the heritage metaphor constructs a collective identity devoid of internal conflict, thereby depoliticizing the concept of cultural diversity. The biodiversity analogy further depoliticizes cultural diversity via naturalization and the invocation of the authority of science. Legitimization is also achieved by invoking past discourse and shared knowledge, and by tapping into UNESCO’s “discursive memory.” In contrast, the creative metaphors living treasure and Rainbow River play a different argumentative role: they offer a rhetorical solution of coexistence to two contradicting views on culture; one as a static, closed entity to be protected from extinction, and the other as a changing, dynamic process. They do so by fusing both views, represented by different metaphors, into one creative metaphor.

How visual metaphors can contradict verbal occurrences

We investigate the different interpretations related to the metaphorical imprint of climate change in English and French media discourses. This cross-linguistic perspective is motivated by the particularities of both languages which have been assumed to promote different understandings of climate change-related concepts. We focus on the metaphor carbon footprint whose meaning can be compared to another climate change metaphor in English: fingerprint . These two source domains share a highly specific and concrete meaning interpreted from lexical constructions enabled by the English language. In French, however, such a specification cannot be interpreted from the meaning of the metaphor empreinte carbone ( carbon imprint ) which defines a similar concept. We rely on visual representations of these metaphorical expressions in English and French to discuss the characteristics associated with each source domain: we show that visual metaphors can contradict expectations emerging from the interpretations of verbal metaphors.

Figurative language in multilingual students’ L2 Swedish – a usage-based perspective

The aim of the current paper is to reinterpret some results of two previous studies on the mastery of figurative expressions from the perspective of usage-based linguistics. The reanalysis aims to shed more light on the learning and use of figurative language by multilingual students by exploring the complex interplay of linguistic creativity, expressivity, and conventionality in figurative expressions. The reinterpretation shows that many of the examples that were previously categorized as novel figurative expressions used in students’ writing, can be analyzed as instances of regular patterns, i.e. constructions, with certain lexical idiosyncrasies. Modifications of conventionalized figurative expressions are discussed and reinterpreted in terms of strength of entrenchment of links between form and meaning within certain constructions or links between constructions and conventionalized pragmatic information in the multilinguals’ mental construction. Implications for the treatment of Swedish figurative expressions in the second language class room are, in line with previous research, that focusing on regularity might reduce unpredictability, often seen as the core difficulty in the learning of such expressions in an L2. The paper also offers some directions for further investigation of the socio-cognitive processes involved in the learning of figurative language in an additional language.

Second half part of the apple

This article investigates the use of friendship metaphors in texts by adult second language writers, in relation to the occurrence and function of metaphor and the writers’ discursive constructions of identity. The texts come from the final assessment in Swedish for Immigrants (SFI), a language program in basic Swedish. The analysis confirmed the initial assumption that the emotional and existentially loaded theme of friendship allows for the use of metaphor. The results also showed that the experience of writers as newcomers in Sweden played out in the metaphors that were used and their contexts. In order to categorize the found metaphors, a model was developed to show how systematic metaphors reflect functions and values related to three thematic categories: guidance and help, belonging and inclusion, and sharing and solidarity. For several metaphors, the metaphoricity was created through novel and unidiomatic wording, i.e. a kind of neologism that can be considered a communication strategy. The importance of using universal and abstract themes in language testing is emphasized, to enable second language writers to express different facets of experience and knowledge through existential thoughts and attitudes – not only as language learners and newcomers, but also as social agents who create and keep transnational relations through friends.