Metaphors across languages, cultures and discourses: A research agenda

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1. Introduction

In the realm of language, culture and discourse, conceptual metaphors wield substantial influence as they extend beyond mere linguistic manifestations, firmly establishing themselves in our long-term memory as cognitive frameworks that shape our comprehension and the manner in which we conceptualize diverse facets of reality (see Benczes & Ságvári 2018, Chudinov et al. 2023, Gibbs 2006, Kövecses 2005, Lakoff & Johnson 1980, Mussolf 2021, Schnell & Ervas 2022, Sharifian 2014, Sharifian et al. 2008 among others). Dolić (2021: 52) characterizes conceptual metaphor as a remarkable cognitive capacity to discern correspondences between distinct entities, facilitating a more profound comprehension of one in relation to another. It is this discernment ability that affords us command over our linguistic structures, granting us the ability to influence how our meaning is perceived by others (Thibodeau & Boroditsky 2013).

The far-reaching impact of metaphors has attracted substantial attention across diverse academic disciplines such as cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis, semiotics, grammar, translation and interpretation, historical linguistics and others (see Chudinov et al. 2020, Goatly 2017, Guan & Sun 2023, Kappelhoff & Müller 2011, Khalifah & Zibin 2022, Kozlova 2020, Mussolf 2019, Musolff & Zinken 2009, Solopova et al. 2023, Zibin 2022 among others). The interdisciplinary nature of metaphor research underscores its significance as a dynamic and ever-evolving field of study. Thus, it has produced a wide array of research that delves into the effect of culture on metaphor production and interpretation, the function of metaphor in different types of discourse, metaphorical conceptualization of emotions, metaphor uses and interpretation in multimodal texts, the role of metaphor in creating lexical relations, and many more (see Boutet et al. 2016, Cienki & Müller 2008, Díaz-Vera & Caballero 2013, Leontovich, Kalinin & Ignatenko 2023, Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk 2021, Solopova & Kushneruk 2021, Trim 2015, Zykova 2023 among others).

As we embark on this special issue, we aim to explore the latest trends in metaphor research and their implications for our changing global society. The timeliness of our exploration, encompassing various languages, cultures, and an array of discourses, is underscored not only by the rapid advancements in technology and communication but also by the necessity of a historical perspective. On the one hand, the digital age has introduced novel modes of communication, necessitating a re-examination of metaphors from multiple angles and using new methods of analysis (see Kövecses et al. 2019). On the other hand, investigating how metaphor senses change over time is crucial, especially in the context of our rapidly evolving technological age. As new concepts emerge and existing ones evolve, so do the metaphors we use to describe and make sense of them (Allan 2008, Anderson 2017, Díaz-Vera 2015, Geeraerts 2015, Solopova & Chudinov 2018, Trim 2011, Zeng et al. 2021). The retrospective and diachronic study of metaphors provide a unique opportunity to observe how metaphor senses and connotations can be influenced by shifts in historical and societal contexts.

In language and culture, metaphors influence not only how we communicate ideas, express emotions, and shape our identities but also how people perceive certain issues across different forms of discourse, such as media, politics, legal, medicine, fiction, humor, and beyond (see Budaev 2017, Charteris-Black 2004, Gornostaeva 2018, Kondratjeva 2020, Leontovich 2017, Musolff 2016, Ponton 2021, 2023, Solopova & Koshkarova 2021, Sun et al. 2021, Trim 2022, Zibin 2020 among others). Investigating the adaptability and development of metaphors within these dynamic contexts offers valuable insights into the ever-changing realm of human expression and communication.

In our special issue, the importance of investigating metaphors across different languages, cultures and discourses cannot be overstated. In an increasingly interconnected world, where communication transcends geographical and cultural confines, understanding how metaphors function across linguistic and cultural diversity becomes crucial. Metaphors often carry layers of meaning deeply grounded in cultural contexts, and their interpretation can vary drastically between languages and cultures (see Alazazmeh & Zibin 2022, Ervas 2017, Kiose 2023, Kilyeni & Silaški 2014, Kövecses 2005, Tran 2022 among others). By unravelling these complex interplays, we gain insights not only into language, culture and discourse, but also into the dynamics of cross-cultural interaction and the ways in which metaphorical expressions shape our perceptions.

From historical analysis to the sphere of metaphor power in computational terms, corpus analysis, political symbolism, cognitive models of emotions, functions of metaphors in various types of discourse, this collection of papers aims to offer a comprehensive exploration of the ways metaphor shapes our world. To this end, it is essential to first establish a theoretical foundation that highlights both the universal and culturally contingent dimensions of metaphor. Theories and approaches employed in the relevant literature to analyze functions of metaphor in different types of discourses are also explored.

2. Metaphor: Universality vs. сultural variation

Metaphor, as conceptualized by Lakoff & Johnson (1980), goes beyond the boundaries of verbal communication to reside at the heart of human thinking and cognition. As per the assertions of cognitive linguists regarding metaphor’s presence in the mind, brain, and body, those acquainted with the perspective stemming from Lakoff and Johnson’s seminal work, Metaphors We Live By (1980), often anticipate that what we refer to as “conceptual metaphors” are predominantly universal. Under Conceptual Metaphor Theory, our understanding of abstract concepts is often rooted in more concrete, sensorimotor experiences. This cognitive underpinning of metaphor suggests a universality that transcends linguistic and cultural boundaries. Thus, it has been argued that the universality of metaphors arises from shared human experiences and bodily sensations (Gibbs et al. 2004). Shared metaphorical extensions can show how speakers of different languages rely on similar cognitive processes to understand and create meaning (Bartsch 2009).

Metaphor is argued to encompass linguistic, conceptual, neural, bodily, and social dimensions simultaneously (Kövecses 2005). Metaphor emerges from neural processes, sensory-motor encounters, the physical constraints of the human body, and socio-cultural imagination (Kövecses 2005, Lakoff 1993). This has given rise to the notion of embodiment which refers to the concept that our physical experiences and interactions with the world shape our cognitive processes, including abstract thought and language (Gibbs 2006, Lakoff & Johnson 1999, Littlemore 2019, Kövecses 2000, Trim 2015).

Yet, work on embodiment (see Alazameh & Zibin 2022, Bilá & Ivanova 2020, Gibbs 2006, Lakoff & Johnson 1999, Sharifian 2017, Yu 2017 among others) has suggested that embodiment can be grounded in culture and in personal experience. The embodiment of a source domain within a conceptual metaphor is not an arbitrary motion; instead, it typically encompasses repeated patterns and mappings between form and meaning (Cienki & Müller 2008). This phenomenon extends to a wide array of verbal concepts, spanning the spectrum from concrete to abstract, and often finds expression through gestures, especially metaphoric ones (Cienki & Müller 2008). As such, embodiment encompasses a collection of elements derived from human physiology, which are utilized in the process of conceptualizing abstract concepts like emotions through the use of metaphors.

Still, different languages, cultures and discourses may emphasize various components, resulting in metaphor variation. Firstly, it can be suggested that variation in metaphoric interpretations may stem from differences in experiential emphasis. This is because individuals residing in diverse geographical and social environments may be more attuned to specific aspects of their physical experience. That is, while bodily experiences serve as the universal basis for conceptual systems and their metaphorical mappings, the conceptual systems themselves are culturally acquired, transmitted, and mediated (Musolff 2015). As all human beings live in and through culture, diverse cultural backgrounds persist in influencing metaphorical language and discourse patterns. Notable examples that showcase cultural variation in metaphor include the origin of feelings: in the majority of languages feelings and emotions are usually associated with the heart (for instance, in English, Russian, Arabic, etc.); conversely, in other languages the liver is considered the originator of feelings and emotions (for example, in Malay) (Charteris-Black 2002: 129).

 Secondly, the meanings a particular metaphor has are culture-based, society-based and situation-based, i.e., they are linked to specific cultural and discourse traditions and depend on a number of situational features. The conceptual metaphors used, for example, to frame migration exhibit variation reliant upon societal, historical, and cultural factors. Specifically, the identification of metaphors portraying migrants as a natural disaster has been consistent across diverse Western contexts, encompassing Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and others (Pickering 2001, El Refaie 2001, van der Valk 2003, Petersson & Kainz 2017, Montagut & Moragas-Fernandez 2020, among others). Other negative source domains include invaders, criminals, guests [unwanted], weeds, pollutants, parasites, etc. (Taylor 2021). Conversely, despite the existence of negative metaphors of refugees in different societal and situational contexts, there is still a positive regard for them. This positive depiction emerges in a Middle-Eastern context and is portrayed through source domains such as unit and organism, where both migrants and the host population are perceived as integral components of a unified entity or parts of the same societal body (Zibin 2020).

Finally, an examination of metaphors from a historical standpoint reveals both their deeply rooted and conventionalized nature and variations, influenced by historical epochs, events and social processes (see Anderson 2017, Chudinov et al. 2020, 2023, Diaz Vera 2015, Geeraerts 2015, Solopova et al. 2023, Trim 2011 among others). For instance, the metaphor migrants as liquid has a historical root with a prevalence of favourable evaluations in the past, indicating a more positive perception of people who move. Yet, this metaphor has undergone a notable transformation in its evaluation over three distinct time periods in the UK (Taylor 2021). Remarkably, the earliest time period exhibited the highest number of favourable evaluations, while the most recent time period showed a decline in favourable assessments. This suggests that a historical perspective is often needed to explain differences in metaphor interpretation and shifts in societal attitudes. Consequently, these distinctions can account for the diverse ways people from different socio-cultural background and historical time periods metaphorically convey ideas.

3. Metaphor: Its functions in discourse

Metaphor, as a powerful linguistic and persuasive tool, plays a multifaceted role in various types of discourse. In Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the examination of metaphor goes beyond its linguistic function to uncover deeper layers of meaning and ideology (Charteris-Black 2004, Martín de la Rosa 2023, Moody & Eslami 2020, Mussolf 2021, Solopova & Kushneruk 2021, Zappetini et al. 2021, Zibin 2020). It reveals how metaphors are employed to construct and reinforce particular identities, beliefs, and social hierarchies. Metaphor can serve as a strategic device in identity construction within discourse, shaping how individuals or groups position themselves and others. According to Santa Ana (2002: 43), “neither layperson nor expert is immune from the associative power of an apt and productive metaphor, since humans think in terms of metaphors”.

The communicative role of a metaphor entails presenting the reader with an alternative outlook on the subject it addresses. This function is distinct from the metaphor’s framing function, which is inherent in every conceptual structure formed through metaphor (Steen 2017). The function of altering perspectives purposefully redirects the reader’s attention. In such instances, the speaker may consciously employ a metaphor, whether it is conventionalized or novel, with the aim of shifting the reader’s viewpoint on the subject in question (Charteris-Black 2011, Chudinov et al. 2020, Kalinin & Ignatenko 2022, Mujagić 2022, Solopova et al. 2023, Steen 2017, Zibin 2020,). Metaphor often reflects and reinforces the cultural and ideological perspectives of the discourse’s producers, shedding light on power dynamics and the manipulation of language for persuasive ends (e.g., Fomin & Mona 2019, Ponton 2020, Semenova & Alekseeva 2023, Sun et al. 2021, Steen 2017). Through imaginative thinking, metaphors can enhance the persuasive impact of a message by framing issues in a particular light or by evoking emotional responses (Alnajjar & Altakhaineh 2023, Koptyaeva & Shustrova 2021, Ozyumenko & Larina 2021, Sporova & Zheltukhina 2022, Zappettini et al. 2021).

Metaphors in political discourse can also be strategic devices for persuasion and argumentation (Budaev 2017, Charteris-Black 2011, Chudinov et al. 2023, Kalinin & Ignatenko 2022, Mujagić 2022, van Poppel 2020, 2021, Wagemans 2016, Zappettini et al. 2021). They allow politicians to convey their opinions indirectly, framing their ideas in a way that resonates with their target audience. The strategic use of metaphors in political discourse is not arbitrary; it reflects a deliberate effort to mold public sentiment and sway opinion on these complex and sensitive issues. By critically examining these metaphors, we gain valuable insights into the persuasive tactics employed by political actors, authors and other stakeholders and the underlying ideologies that shape public discourse.

Moreover, metaphors can possess explanatory power in scenarios related to complex topics. They provide a bridge between scientific or technical information and the general public by making abstract concepts more relatable through familiar concepts and language (Abdel-Raheem & Alkhammash 2022, Augé 2021, Charteris-Black 2021, Ervas et al. 2022, Silaški & Đurović 2022, Zibin 2022). This explanatory function of metaphor aids in simplifying complex ideas, making them more accessible and persuasive to a wider audience, and can influence public perception and decision-making in areas such as politics, immigration, vaccine discourse and others (e.g., Flusberg et al. 2017, Nisbet 2009, Schnell & Ervas 2022, van der Hel et al. 2018). Thus, metaphor in discourse does “not only explain the situation, but also steer behavioral change” (Abdel-Raheem & Alkhammash 2022: 24). This is also where multimodal metaphor proves influential: it wields significant power due to its ability to convey complex ideas and evoke emotions through a combination of sensory experiences and different modes of communication, such as language, images, gestures, and other non-verbal cues (Cienki & Müller 2008, Forceville & Urios-Aparisi 2009, Koptyaeva & Shustrova 2021, Zibin & Altakhaineh 2023).

4. Outline of contributions to the issue

The special issue focuses on metaphor as a field of study. It presents nine papers that reflect the diversity and scope of this research area and brings together a group of scholars from a wide range of theoretical and methodological backgrounds to explore universal and cross-cultural variation in metaphor usage, its discursive and communicative aspects, embodied cognition and others. The issue features the scholars’ efforts in developing, testing, and debating methodologies for the field, both by extending existing methods, and bringing in novel methodological approaches.

Two papers highly focus on a peculiar aspect of metaphor in a particular language. Javier E. Diaz-Vera underscores emotions and temperature as concepts closely related through embodied processes. He gives a detailed account of how exactly emotions may be processed in metaphor and metonymy understanding within a particular source domain. Specifically, employing cognitive semantic methodology the author scrutinizes the nature of high body temperature source domain on the basis of Old English texts. Diaz-Vera highlights that the use of the metaphorical expressions triggers a number of contrasts. He complements the growing body of literature on metaphor as the expression of emotions in a unique way, namely by showing the existence of positively loaded target-source pairings, explaining their origin and demonstrating the importance of socio-cultural factors underlying both lexical and conceptual choices made by Old English writers.

Oleg I. Kalinin and Alexander V. Ignatenko propose a new methodology for identifying metaphor power in Russian texts. They argue that metaphor power can best be described in computational terms that concretely outline the number of metaphors per text (metaphor density index), the ratio of live and trite metaphors (metaphor intensity index), the ratio among orientational, ontological, and structural metaphors (functional typology index), and the effects metaphorical mappings achieve. In their research, the method of metaphor-driven discourse analysis (MDDA) is combined with a two-stage linguistic experiment to measure metaphor power in the data reflecting the writer’s opinion and the reader’s response. The empirical findings in this study provide a new understanding of the correlation between metaphor power and persuasion and can be further applied to different text types.

The second theme that emerges out of the contributions to this special issue is the significance of cultural framing that leads to variation in metaphors across different countries and cultures. Zoltán Kövecses, Réka Benczes, Anna Rommel and Veronika Szelid, inspired by cognitive-linguistic work on conceptual metaphors for emotions, examine anger metaphors in three languages: American English, Hungarian and Russian. The scholars uncover peculiarities of two approaches applied to quantitative and qualitative investigation of conceptual metaphors: a lexical approach and a corpus-based approach. Specifically, they combine a type-based account and a token-based analysis together to show that the two methods offer complementary, yet different results. The authors argue that a combined methodology is highly effective in comparative research on metaphor, which provides future studies with the opportunity to fully grasp the dimensions of conceptual metaphors in terms of universality and cross-cultural variation.

Another example of how different cultures and unrelated languages utilize a presumably universal metaphoric concepts is offered by Aseel Zibin, Lama Khalifah and Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh. Drawing on the theory of Dynamic Conceptual Semantics, the paper provides essential anchoring points for reconstructing the structure of the conceptual domain madness in Jordanian Arabic and American English. The authors propose that the nature of the conceptual domain behind the language patterns, involved in mapping new metaphorical senses of the polysemous complexes, can be pitched at experiential and theoretical levels of concept formation. Their analysis reveals a densely packed network of interconnected metaphors in the two languages. This is an important finding because it directly concerns the issue of universality of metaphorical conceptualization across different cultures.

Four contributions in the special issue focus on the role of metaphor in several discourse types. These articles discuss the versatile functions that metaphor can perform in discourse, which can be scrutinized from different positions. Richard Trim opens this section with a reflection on the role of symbolism in political debate and its interaction with conceptual metaphor in the context of the 2022 French presidency of the European Union and the national presidential election campaign. The author proposes that the core of political argumentation is based on national symbols and the conceptual mappings they embody. Trim’s model of figurative language interpretation, with special attention to personal background, political context, cultural history, reference, conceptual metaphor and linguistic metaphor, allows for analyzing the ways the context shapes symbols, metaphors, and their understanding within the framework of identity construction. The most important take-away point here is that extra-linguistic factors play a crucial role in decoding political symbols and metaphors used to frame them since both hide divergent pathways for their adequate interpretations.

Nadežda Silaški and Tatjana Đurović turn to metaphor use in Serbian vaccine-related discourse. The issue has grown in importance in light of recent anti-vaccine activism, false information and hesitancy regarding vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring conventional metaphor scenarios: combat, container and movement, as the strategies for facilitating and promoting the pro-vaccine discourse, the authors convincingly show their explanatory potential and provide evidence that the three metaphor scenarios, their co-occurrence and interplay have been strategically used by medical experts to simplify scientific concepts to the general public. The findings highlight the idea that, being a plain model for thinking about sophisticated phenomena, metaphor gives a fundamentally different feel to the expert discourse as it strives to reduce its complexity.

Another paper focuses on the issue that has currently become an enduring feature of many societies. Mersina Mujagić’s article offers insight into the ways the target domain politics is structured in migration media discourse, what functions the metaphor fulfils and how it expresses underlying mental models and attitudes towards the problem. The author applies a three-dimensional model of metaphor analysis to the data of British and Bosnian-Herzegovinian migration discourse, providing an explicit and systematic study of the metaphor in a comparative perspective. Mujagić advocates a flexible interpretive approach to metaphor across three dimensions: those of indirectness, conventionality, and deliberateness. Her findings are significant in at least two major respects: firstly, the dominance of indirect metaphors in the two discourses conforms to universals in metaphor use, secondly, a complete difference in the source domains points to cross-cultural metaphor variation.

It is only logical that the special issue of the Russian Journal of Linguistics concludes with a synopsis that familiarizes the reader with current research on metaphor in Russia (2019–2023). Anatoly P. Chudinov and Elizaveta V. Shustrova critically reflect upon the key trends and the most prominent results achieved by Russian scholars who have metaphors and figurative language as their main object of investigation. The authors’ outline firmly establishes that metaphor studies in Russia is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses diverse theories, approaches, and methods. Promising areas of research include exploring target and source domains in monolingual studies, metaphor universality and variation in comparative research, metaphor as a trope, roles and functions of metaphor in different types of texts, discourses, corpora, and polysemiotic communication.

The volume closes with two book reviews, written by Natalia N. Koshkarova and Veronika V. Katermina, that are in tune with the topics discussed in the special issue.

5. Conclusion

The field of metaphor studies is a vibrant and active research community, with steep progress in an ever-growing set of subfields. Despite more than forty years of Conceptual Metaphor Theory research (Lakoff & Johnson 1980), novel strategies that improve upon traditional methods are constantly being reported, as represented by the papers in the special issue. Our authors introduce new complementary methodologies to already existing approaches, thereby giving metaphor scholars the opportunity to tackle theoretical and empirical issues across different dimensions in metaphor research. The papers show that our field can benefit from scholars with different methodological expertise collaborating to get better answers to increasingly complex questions in metaphor studies.

The authors demonstrated the importance of further study of the nature, meaning, and function of metaphor as well as its use in varieties of languages, cultures and discourse contexts. The excellent work showcased in this special issue demonstrates that ‘thought’ on metaphor is highly creative, flexible, and culturally variable, which motivates us to end this introductory article with a call for more collaborative work among metaphor scholars of different subdisciplines, theories, methodologies, and countries.

We hope that this collection broadens our understanding of metaphorical mechanisms and enriches the debate on their cross-cultural and discoursal importance.

About the authors

Aseel Zibin

University of Jordan

Email: a.zabin@ju.edu.jo
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2509-064X

holds PhD in Linguistics, she is Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Jordan. Her research focuses on cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, metaphor, and metonymy. She has published a wide variety of research papers in peer reviewed journals including Language and Cognition, Metaphor and the Social World, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Pragmatics and Society among others.

Amman, Jordan

Olga A. Solopova

South Ural State University (National Research University)

Author for correspondence.
Email: o-solopova@bk.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4170-7267

Dr Habil. in Philology, Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Translation at the Institute of Linguistics and International Communications of South Ural State University (National Research University). Her research interests include metaphor studies, discourse analysis, and diachronic linguistics.

Chelyabinsk, Russia

References