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Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 21:4 (2016) ► pp.527–558

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Finding source domain triggers

How corpus methodologies aid in the analysis of conceptual metaphor

 | San Francisco State University
Published online: 6 December 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.21.4.04led
Much recent research on figurative language and conceptual metaphor theory derives from corpus examination, and analysts are increasingly focused on the development of quantificational tools to reveal co-occurrence patterns indicative of source and target domain associations. Some mappings between source and target are transparent and appear in collocation patterns in natural language data. However, other metaphors, especially those that structure abstract processes, are more complex because the target domain is lexically divorced from the source. Using economic discourse as a case study, this paper introduces new techniques directed at the quantitative evaluation of metaphorical occurrence when target and source relationships are nonobvious. Constellations of source-domain triggers are identified in the data and shown to disproportionately emerge in topic-specific discourse.
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