Article published In: Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 16:1 (2026) ► pp.71–96

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Metaphors in Stand Up 2 Cancer animations

 | University of Amsterdam
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Amsterdam.

Published online: 2 June 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.24035.for
Abstract
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) claims that human beings systematically understand, and communicate about, abstract and/or complex phenomena metaphorically in terms of concrete, that is, sensorily perceived phenomena (Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Illnesses such as cancer constitute one category of such complex phenomena. While the past decades have witnessed a growing number of studies that examine verbal manifestations of metaphors pertaining to cancer, visual and multimodal expressions of metaphors of the target domain cancer is source domain x type have hitherto been virtually unexplored. This paper examines a corpus of 27 short animations supported by the “Stand Up 2 Cancer” charity.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Corpus: 27 “Stand Up 2 Cancer” animations
  • 3.Method of analysis
  • 4.Description of the 27 SU2C animations and the metaphors identified therein
    • 4.1Group 1: “Advances in Cancer Treatment”/ACT (ten animations)
      • General description
      • Metaphors. Verbal manifestations of the battle domain
      • Visual manifestations of the battle domain
      • Visual manifestations of the monster domain
      • Verbal manifestations of the journey domain
      • Visual manifestations of the journey domain
      • Other metaphors
    • 4.2Group 2: “Save Lives”/SL (5 animations)
      • General description
      • Metaphors. Verbal manifestations of the battle domain
      • Visual manifestations of the battle domain
      • Visual manifestations of the monster domain
      • Verbal and visual manifestations of the journey domain
      • Other metaphors
    • 4.3Group 3: Other Orange-dominated Clips/OOC (4 animations)
      • General description
      • Metaphors. Verbal manifestations of the battle domain
      • Visual manifestations of the battle domain
      • Visual manifestations of the monster domain
      • Verbal manifestations of the journey domain
      • Visual manifestations of the journey domain
      • Other metaphors
    • 4.4Group 4: Other Animations/OA (8 animations)
      • General description
      • Metaphors. Verbal manifestations of the battle domain
      • Visual manifestations of the battle domain
      • Visual manifestations of the monster domain
      • Verbal manifestations of the journey domain
      • Visual manifestations of the journey domain
      • Other metaphors
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion and issues for further research
    • 6.1Implications for identifying and categorizing visual and multimodal metaphors
    • 6.2Not all meaning is metaphorical
    • 6.3Implications for health communication
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
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