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Article published In: Beyond Corpus Data — Complementary and Alternative Methods in Cognitive Linguistics
Edited by Anton Granvik, Veera Hatakka, Olli O. Silvennoinen, Riku Erkkilä and Eveliina Mäntylä
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 23:2] 2025
► pp. 375–407

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Special issue article

Ego-centered motion metaphors of time across methods

A comparative analysis of introspective, corpus-based, and psycholinguistic studies

 | University of Turku
Published online: 18 August 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00226.dhi
Abstract
This paper benefits two audiences: researchers studying time metaphors and those employing introspective, corpus-based, and psycholinguistic methods. It is well-suited for methodology courses and for scholars exploring how these approaches intersect. Using a case study on Ego-centered Motion Metaphors of Time (EMTs), the paper examines the methodological and ontological challenges of shifting between these paradigms. It outlines the often-implicit tenets of introspective frameworks, defines linguistic illustrations, and distinguishes among encountered, prompted, and intuited examples. It also presents an analysis of commonly cited EMTs and shows how introspective definitions converge on similar prototypical illustrations. It then compares corpus retrieval strategies across eight studies. The findings show how introspective definitions are confronted with corpus data, particularly when translating introspective input into search prompts, and how data cleansing fosters new classifications. Finally, the paper identifies the limitations of corpus-based methods and highlights the types of questions that are better addressed through psycholinguistic data.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Introspective methods
    • 2.1The tenets of the introspective method
    • 2.2Evaluation of introspective studies in EMT literature
  • 3.Corpus-driven methods
    • 3.1Contributions of corpus-based research on EMTs
    • 3.2Review of the methods and processes for retrieving data from corpora in the study of EMTs
    • 3.3Corpus linguistics and large language models
  • 4.Psycholinguistic methods
    • 4.1Wednesday’s meeting has been moved forward by two days
    • 4.2Beyond the Wednesday’s meeting test
  • 5.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (61)
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