Modern metaphor research in Russia: Trends, schools and results

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1. Introduction

Russian linguistics is notable both for its vast geography and great variety of research topics. The focus of this paper is on the investigation of metaphor which was carried out in 2019–2023. Due to the existence of numerous universities, research centres, and individual scholars, it is practically impossible to discuss the full scope of the research in detail. Therefore, our aim is to discuss the most important trends, methods and study results.

Russian metaphor studies is a rapidly developing interdisciplinary area of research. It embraces the concepts of cognitive linguistics, and the heuristics of political discourse and content analysis and traditional and modern rhetorical studies. It also employs the methodological innovations of other contemporary investigations which combine ideas of political philosophy, pragmatics, political and social science, information technology and artificial intelligence studies. Every year thousands of works on various aspects of metaphor introduce new methods, develop procedures, and produce new knowledge. In the paper, we will discuss axiological studies of metaphor, metaphor as a tool and means in information and psychological warfare, metaphor in various types of discourse, and metaphor in comparative studies. The final parts present studies of metaphoric semantics and text characteristics of metaphor as a trope, as well as the role of metaphor in multimodal texts and corpora.

The material for the review was taken from leading Russian academic journals, various databases of article collections and conference proceedings. We have selected 62 works out of more than 20,000 publications on metaphor.

2. Axiological studies of metaphor

The main sphere of Russian scholars’ interest is connected with metaphor as a cognitive operation. However, if in the previous decade the focus was on various metaphoric spheres in different types of discourse, today it has shifted to the field of information and psychological combating, manipulation techniques and strategies, where metaphor is considered to be a powerful tool.

The first important vector is axiological linguistic studies of the way one can influence the audience. Values and their interpretation in a particular culture are of crucial importance, and many of them are embedded in metaphor. Karasik (2023) analyses cultural subjects and plots, axiologically relevant situations, new value of legends and myths structured around metaphors and their impact. Linguacultural subjects are defined as authorial narrations of certain events, which are presented in an order which allows for reference to well-known stories and to transfer them to serve the purpose of either persuasion or the creation of a new pragmatic effect. Such techniques may easily be applied to produce the effect of defamation. This phenomenon is described in mass-media and network discourse from the point of metaphoric effects. Karasik (2022) concludes that modern Russian mass media and networks apply defamation to critisize local regional authorities and to convey this criticism in a metaphorical way (Karasik 2022).

Another sphere for the manifestation of defamation practices appeared during COVID-19. As we entered the pandemic with no vaccine, the speedy vaccination and its imposition on the population gave grounds for people to oppose its necessity and to exaggerate the risks associated with it. Their verbal manifestations are discussed in recent studies (Karasik 2022, Plotnikova & Tsyganov 2022) whose authors unanimously believe that, during the COVID period the local authorities became the main metaphoric target for criticism. They also discuss linguistic methods of forensic analysis. Part of their data is based on the radical discourse of marginalised figures like Father Sergiy (Romanov), who combined certain linguistic features typical of Orthodox Christianity with criminal subculture. The latter is considered a cultural group, which supports behaviour that is believed criminal in the society it belongs to. Any cultural group is thought to have certain verbal behaviour, which makes it identifiable. Plotnikova & Tsyganov (2022) investigate the ways Father Sergiy played on these rhetorical features and how his aggressive anti-vaccination rhetoric found support with those opposed to vaccination. The authors argue that certain techniques of linguistic manipulation, including metaphoric images and defamation, were one of the reasons he became popular.

Defamation is closely connected with pragmatic effects and evaluation of events, whether intentional or unintentional, which are imposed on the public. Nedzelskaya and Boriskina (2021a) describe manipulative strategies in English-language media, which also involve a wide use of metaphor. The database consists of publications by the BBC, CNN, The Guardian, The Independent, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Twitter and Facebook¹. The authors dwell on the strategies of factual manipulation and ideological polarisation, which contribute to the misrepresentation of facts. They put special emphasis on the macrostrategies of discrediting and legitimation.

Nedzelskaya & Boriskina (2021b) also analyse the strategies of glorification and intentional transformation of the concept of war in detail. They discuss linguistic means, including metaphor, rhetorical techniques and manipulative strategies upon which Bush and Biden built their historical speeches about the war in Afghanistan. The authors conclude that despite the introduction of similar metaphoric images, their pragmatic effects vary. While Bush emphasises that it is “a part of our campaign against terrorism”, a highly effective “military operation” and a sacred battle between Good and Evil, Biden transforms it into a long-running and drawn out war. Similar manipulative strategies are analysed by Ozyumenko and Larina (2021). They focus on the words threat and fear and their possible pragmatics in their investigation of English-based media discourse in connection with Russia between 2018 and 2021. As a result, the transferred contextual semantics of fearmongering become apparent. Other works dealing with metaphor in political discourse include Solopova & Chudinov (2018), Sun et al. (2021), Leontovich et al. (2023) among others.

Another area of research that is worth mentioning deals with the linguistic aspects of information and psychological warfare (e.g., Lingvistika…. 2020, 2021). Budaev, Kushneruk & Kurochkina (2022) discuss mass protests, their communicative nature, and the creation and support of the events in Belorussia and the USA in 2020. The data were obtained from Telegram channels Nexta and Nexta Live². The analysis aimed to describe the role of metaphors as mental operations, intertexts and mental frames in producing and organizing mass protests. As a result, the following metaphoric models have been determined: authorities are insects, journalists are mongrels, police are animals, and people are animals. The second part of the investigation was connected to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and its coverage in US mass media. The authors argue that BLM as the target is associated with such source domains as GAME, SPORT, DISEASE, THEATRE and PLANTS. If we return to the beginning of our review, certain correlation with the studies by Karasik (2022, 2023), Nedzelskaya and Boriskina (2021a, 2021b), Plotnikova and Tsyganov (2022) will become evident.

Metaphorical creativity in the terminology of charity in modern Russian is discussed by Plotnikova (2021: 57–65) who analyses the process of lexical borrowings (mainly from English) and the spread of phraseological calques. Creative strategies are modified by colloquial speech patterns and words, precedent or case phenomena; they are presumably well-known to the recipients and are based on cognitive modelling. Metaphors here are of paramount importance. Graphic means and creative word-formation also play a significant role in the Russian names of charity organisations semantically connected with aid and life, charity and mercy, hope, happiness and future. Some of these include euphemistic nominations of people with special needs or metaphors of certain conditions. Another group of names is determined by the aims of charity organisations. The results suggest that if in the prior stages of their emergence, charity in modern Russia was connected with the idea of moral duty and donation, now it has grown to be one of the tools used to consolidate society. The use of creative linguistic strategies results in new forms of communicative and social interaction. The axiological value and pragmatic effect of such language units in modern Russian are seen as positive.

Finally in this section, we should address the phenomenon of fake news, viewed as a complicated research issue, which requires a complex approach. One such linguistic attempt is presented in Sharapkova & Merkulova (2023). The authors discuss the emergence of fake news within metaphoric contexts connected with historical knowledge.

Thus, axiological studies of metaphor are nowadays principally conducted in the sphere of mass-media and political discourse. The results show that there are definite correlations with mental mapping and pragmatic effects which have become typical of certain types of discourse. At the same time, new events and challenges make societies re-evaluate previous knowledge and introduce new metaphoric images.

3. Studies of source and target metaphoric domain

Another vector of research is still connected with both source and target metaphor in discourse of various types. One of the basic structural metaphors in English is time as a valuable resource. Konnova (2019) shows the diachronic changes, which the metaphor of time has undergone in Old, Middle and Modern English. The research is of interest because it presents a broad range of both lexicographical and textual data. It shows that the source domain of metaphoric mapping shifted gradually as society was changing and a new system of values was developing. There is no doubt that Christianity dominated the notion of time as God’s creation and a gift of God that is typical of Saint Bede, Alcuinus and Ælfrīc. Conceptual metaphors time is a personal possession and time is a commodity, which are much closer to modern perception, appeared only in the middle of the XVc. These models were the result of a desacralisation process and may be interpreted as a kind of “stormy petrel” for what was to come and what was actually happening in Britain. Shakespeare is well-known not for his creations alone but for the changes he introduced into English. His works undoubtedly mirror the process of change that the country, its social norms, religion, law and language were undergoing. Konnova (2019) believes that it was mainly Shakespeare who made the conceptual metaphor time is a resource so widespread. As for the present time, the author introduces the idea of a technically-centred metaphoric image of time. In fact, we are witnessing the creation of a new conceptual metaphor time is a virtual entity. The peculiarity of modern perception of time is thought to be a loss of time and space limits, linear characteristics and a lack of certain future. This change can be observed both in our lifestyle and in technologies that stimulate investigations of new conceptual systems. One such article is devoted to metaphors of the digital age and the Black Box Problem (Leshkevich 2022). The author describes the processes similar to those noted by Konnova (2019) and singles out the conceptual metaphor of the hybrid world. This new phenomenon appears as a blend of the real, material world and digital reality. Leshkevich believes it is a paradox that our values, needs and goals are no longer future-oriented but belong to the “here and now” sphere. But if the previous study is only based on English, she takes Russian and English-language literature as her data and conducts a comparative study. The author also points out potential risks of Artificial Intelligence and its malicious use. Along with other consequences, it gives rise to new types of modern existence and knowledge consumerism. She analyses such metaphors as “face-to-screen” or “face-to-device” existence; “content viewer” and “prosumer” (i.e., those who simply scroll through pages or produce content that they themselves actively consume).

Yet another focus is on the specifics of digital rationality – “knowledge rent” and “convergence of subjectivity”. They may be useful in cases where the proper limits for borrowing are not understood, which may result in plagiarism. “Digital multitasking” (or media multitasking) may also present new challenges, especially in adolescence, as they constantly switch their goals and, in the end, find themselves fighting fatigue, multiple distractions and loss of their original goal. For our part, we would add, to the author’s discussion, that it gives rise to yet another new phenomenon – multiprocrastinating, when we are only pretending to be busy switching between different areas, pages and gadgets, and not really concentrating on anything. We suggest that the very possibility of the appearance of neologisms is also symbolic and should make us wary of a possible outcome. According to Leshkevich (ibid), the greatest degree of convergence, which may happen between modern society and digital technologies is realised in the conceptual metaphor HOMOSOLUS which denotes an individual who is too engrossed in the computer world, voluntarily preferring isolation, withdrawn socially and as a result not able to comprehend real life interconnections. The idea of digital influence on the metaphoric worldview is further developed in a number of articles. The metaphoric typology of social network users as presented in Russian mass-media is offered in Kondratyeva (2020). It gives an overview of the procedure of metaphorical modelling and identification of source metaphors for the characterisation of social network users. Possible reasons for the metaphoric transference of meanings and specific nominations of new phenomena are also discussed. The research data were drawn from the Russian National Corpus and Russian mass-media (2015–2019) presented on Mediology (ENA, February 10, 2024) ³and Integrum platforms (ENA, February 10, 2024)⁴. The analysis of 1,700 metaphoric contexts revealed such oppositions as “activity vs. passivity”, “creativity vs. propensity to imitate”, “competence vs. incompetence”, “youth vs. maturity”, and “aggressor vs. victim”. It showed that the most frequent conceptual metaphors in Russian discourse dealing with social networks originated in English and were simply borrowed as loan translations with practically the same meaning. They are social networks are a web, social networks are a house, and social networks are an ocean (Kondratyeva 2020). The article provides examples of the use and discussion of more precise contextual meanings and implications typical of modern Russian society.

Another change is demonstrated in the example of previously implemented conceptual metaphors of the Soviet epoch, which may nowadays cease to produce the same pragmatic ideological effect (Kondratyeva & Malikova 2019). Such metaphors tend either to become replaced by some new phenomena and meanings or, having lost their former vividness and heat, to grow obsolete and incongruous, developing other negative semantic links. In modern Russian mass-media, the conceptual metaphor of revolution is intrinsically connected to destructive metaphorical models of acts of nature, heavy disease, or a rigid deity that requires sacrifices. The majority of metaphors implement semantics of open confrontation, bloodshed and potential death of participants (Kondratyeva & Malikova 2019). These authors demonstrate that such implications do not occur only as a result of new political trends and changes in the post-Soviet period, they are more connected to the waves of political protests and riots which became known as ‘colour revolutions’. As a result, such conceptual metaphors REVOLUTIONS ARE LOCOMOTIVES OF HISTORY (Marx), REVOLUTION IS A CELEBRATION FOR THE OPPRESSED AND EXPLOITED (Lenin), RUSSIAN REVOLUTION IS A CHAIN OF BRIGHT AND JOYFUL EVENTS OF RATIONALITY (Gorky) cease to exist. Instead, they are replaced by meanings suggestive of ruthless, mindless destruction, mostly provoked by the USA. Among conceptual source domains for revolution Kondratyeva and Malikova (2019) analyse metaphors of physiology, which introduce images of different diseases, psychological disturbances, physical deviations and deformities, while describing social processes, political structures and events. Boiko and Solopova (2021) use the data of the US social service Quora to construct a possible image of Russia’s future as seen by Americans. The authors demonstrate that the most frequent frames include “physiological actions”, “physiological organs”, “human body”, “body parts” with both negative and positive pragmatics. Metaphors of physiological actions and body parts tend to represent the allegedly imminent fall of the Russian economy and its governmental structures, the political degradation of the government, the transformation of Russia into something else, the break-up of the country. We would also add that such pragmatics develop as a result of the ideas and images being constantly pushed on US society by American mass-media. At the same time, the authors find a relatively small number of positive metaphorical vectors connected the image of Russian people, and such traits as perseverance, stamina and self-sacrifice. The image of Russia through animal metaphors in American media is discussed in Solopova et al (2023). Another field involves the study of professionally-based conceptual metaphors. The research by Katermina & Shiryaeva (2023) relates to English professional discourse in the sphere of the economy. 1,234 units were grouped into four basic domains of finance, business, management, production. The main features observed by the authors in the domain of metaphor production are the ability to create new perspective, limit the production of new images, translate specific features of business life and its realities, rendering conceptual systems typical of a society and forming a specific worldview or ideology.

Another study is devoted to religious conceptual metaphors in sports’ professional discourse in British press of 2015–2019 (Katermina & Solovyeva 2021). The authors conclude that religion as a source domain is introduced to form a ready-made evaluation of events. It also assists in the creation of new images, which simultaneously remind the reader of well-known truths and parallels. Yet another tendency, which seems to have formed in British mass-media, is the emergence of a new religion – the world of athletics and sports. The authors account for this in terms of the idea that in modernity time is no longer a religion, and traditional spheres are no longer sacred. In this case individuals are inclined to seek new values to fill in the void.

In our opinion, desacralisation of traditional spheres happens in the aftermath of certain tragic events, especially if we consider the history of conflicts and wars. Solopova and Koshkarova’s (2021) research deals with source domains in the English-language media discourse of World War II. Although the authors claim that religion is their main sphere of interest, they nevertheless show a much wider perspective and describe various spheres of metaphoric production in those times (Solopova & Koshkarova). The aim of the study was to identify patterns of modelling images of war and peace in British, American and Australian media discourse (1939–1945). The authors used digitised archives of the UK, the USA and Australia. The target and source domains create binary axiological oppositions “good vs. evil” and “light vs. darkness”. The British discourse tends to be more metaphorically loaded. This tendency seems to be justified by extralinguistic factors. As a more specific way to convey biblical undertones and religious parallels, the authors introduce such images as Hell and the Devil, the hounds of hell, the idea of God Almighty, lost paradise, and allies’ crusades. Certain parallels may be of interest in Solopova & Chudinov (2018), Solopova & Kushneruk (2021), Solopova et al. (2023). War metaphors and their role in politics have formed a particular sphere. Budaev and Lavrinenko (2022) study the image of Donald Trump in Russian mass-media (2015–2019) and the function of the war metaphor. The data include 150 metaphors. The most widespread military images refer to topics like “war in general and its types”, “military actions”, “results of military actions”, “types of military constructions and camouflaging” and “army hierarchy”. These models have appeared as a result of pre-election and post-election scandals and confrontation between Donald Trump and the Democratic Party. We could add that the same tendency seems to be quite stable both in Russian and American mass-media but right now American press tends to use more metaphors of law, courts and trials, which are evidently provoked by the predicaments Donald Trump is facing.

Similar parallels are traced by Raevskaya et al. (2022). The authors describe metaphors of war, path and construction found in the Christmas addresses of Juan Carlos I to his subjects during the long period between 1975 and 2013. The war metaphor is used to describe the problem of unemployment and terrorism as enemies of Spanish society. The path metaphor is chosen to express the idea that the governmental route and its policies are appropriate and would lead to the prosperity of Spain. Construction and building as source domains accentuate the role of Spain in the European integration process and emphasise the common necessity to take part in the development of the motherland on the basis of democratic values and ideals (Raevskaya & Selivanova 2020). The interconnection between sports, especially football, and military spheres is described in Raevskaya & Peretiatko (2022). The authors analyse 50 football reports about Spanish teams from the period 2019–2021. The data were obtained from leading Spanish sports periodicals Marca, As (Madrid), Mundo Deportivo, Sport (Barcelona) and some online editions. Alongside the war source domain, the authors discuss the influence, frequency and cultural features of music, food as well as wildlife source metaphors.

The human body has been identified as one of the most typical metaphoric source domains. This type of metaphor, often referred to as a physiological or disease metaphor, has come to be considered an important part of propaganda. One of the recent studies by Zhura et al. (2021) focuses on secondary somatic nominations in media texts, in publications on economy, business and politics. The research data were taken from 200 online and printed publications in the Russian press of 2006–2020. Quantitative analysis showed that such metaphors are used in about 40% of Russian media texts on economics and business, and in approximately 33% of texts devoted to political issues, both domestic and international.

Understandably, the metaphoric references today include one of the most tragic epidemics in our history, a new virus. COVID has undoubtedly produced a profound effect in all spheres throughout the world. In addition to the publications already mentioned, we would like to present other colleagues and their research. The nature metaphor and its role in describing COVID-19 in American and British press in the period from January 2019 to May 2022 is discussed in Budaev et al. (2022). Since China was one of the first countries to experience this epidemic, the Chinese mass-media was among the first to introduce a metaphor for this new disease and its consequences. Kalinin (2020), discusses the COVID metaphor in Chinese mass-media, while Kalinin & Mavleeva (2020) provide a comparative study of Chinese and South Korean mass-media.

In Russian research, new metaphoric sources coexist with traditional areas of metaphor use, which are still of interest. Among them are those which are often thought to be basic axiological entities. The reasons for this may be connected both with their prominent value for a certain culture and language and their pragmatic effect, which makes them a convenient mechanism for hosting ideas needed in propaganda or other spheres of public persuasion. Zabotkina and Boyarskaya (2023) analyse the conceptual structure of the binary axiological metaphoric opposition “truth – vs. lie” in the English language. The authors describe lexicographic information of various types, idioms, set-expressions and mass-media texts. They determine certain event frames and the character of conceptual information they may convey. The truth can be treated as something that can be deformed, bent, stretched, shaded, fastened and loosened while a lie, a blatant event, may be turned into something that appears closer to the truth. Such new units as alternative truth, post truth, counter-truth, counter-knowledge, alternative facts assist in accomplishing the effect in English and at the same time are hard to render into Russian. The authors argue that the concept “truth” in English tends to code information about objective truth together with its subjective interpretation and hence provides a retranslation of basic values with additional characteristics. The authors conclude that the axiological metaphoric opposition “truth vs. lie” is turning into a blended space with the transitional zone of “neither true nor false”. It is this very zone that incorporates axiological paradoxes forming the ground for manipulation.

We may conclude that one of the tendencies here is the gradual shifting of a metaphoric axis. Beginning in one type of discourse, this change later starts to influence other types, turning from a trend into a stable characteristic. The changes in one metaphorical sphere leads to other semantic and cognitive links, sometimes resulting in the global transformation of metaphoric systems. On the one hand, the nature of metaphoric perception depends on social factors. In recent years these are basically conflicts, economic imbalance and epidemics. But on the other, metaphor in its turn creates new pragmatic effects, which determine a perception of new realities. These changes invariably form a very productive field for analysis.

4. Comparative studies of metaphor

Comparative linguistics is a traditional focus for Russian scholars. In this review we will limit our discussion to studies of phraseology and military doctrines. The former are of interest because phraseology has always been important for Russian linguistics, and the latter would bring us back to the beginning of this article, where works on psychological warfare have been presented.

Boldyrev and Beliaeva (2022) study Russian, English and French phraseological units and their metaphoric role in conflict-free communication. The authors compare units of the three languages and show what different cognitive mechanisms are involved in each. One of the most representative areas in idioms is connected with human beings: their general appearance, body parts, facial features, physiological characteristics, psychological parameters, social interconnections, vital processes, events happening in their lives.

Of particular interest are studies by Ignatenko, Kalinin and Khabarov (Ignatenko & Kalinin 2022, Kalinin 2021, Khabarov 2021). Kalinin, who studied functions of metaphor in the official, political and military discourse of Russia, China and the USA developed his own methodology based on calculating indices of metaphor density, intensity, and functionality in the text (Kalinin 2021). These are combined with external and internal metaphor structural indices (Ignatenko & Kalinin 2022). Psychological impact used in communicative strategies of Russia, China and the USA is discussed in Khabarov (2021). The modern realities of information warfare, where metaphor is one of the instruments, lead to a restructuring and reconceptualisation of the participants’ worldview. Khabarov (2021) establishes contrastive destructive and constructive tendencies, which have appeared in the discourse practices of Russia, China and the USA. He names creolisation, secondary nomination, mental or cognitive mapping, polyphonic profiling, and polarisation among the most typical interdiscourse strategies, which produce the most powerful effects on the audience in the three countries. The contrastive features involve the cognitive asymmetry of discourse units, which is viewed as the basis for ideological influence realised by discourse strategies, tactics and techniques of argument, persuasion and manipulation.

It is worth mentioning that results of metaphor studies are also of importance for translation theory and practice. We conclude this section by mentioning Manerko (2021a), who discusses conceptual metaphor in English scientific discourse and the ways to render it into Russian. Her study highlights cultural differences and suggests certain ways of bridging them.

5. Semantic studies of metaphor

Metaphor as a vehicle for semantic changes, transferred meaning and as a trope continues to be of interest for Russian linguistics, which has an extensive history of semasiology and lexicography studies. We will mention only some works, which reflect the main trends in these spheres. Babenko compiled a Thesaurus Dictionary of Russian Emotive Vocabulary (2021). Plotnikova (2020) devoted one of her recent articles to the so-called ‘ghost’ adjectives in modern Russian and the way they enter explanatory and ideographic dictionaries. Such lexico-semantic fields as physiological and daily needs, transport and equipment are found to be more abundant in the production of neologisms. At the same time, studies of evaluation, perception and emotion derivatives of this type are rare. Plotnikova explains this by reference to the greater polysemy of ‘social’ words, more complex links between adjectives and their bases, and metaphorical meanings acquired by the base noun and the derivative adjective. The author also discusses the problem of variability and paronymy in this sphere.

“Ghost” adjectives undoubtedly belong to the sphere of linguistic creativity and the potential of the Russian language. In her turn, Belyaevskaya (2022) discusses the limits of linguistic creativity and whether it is a violation of the language norm. The data are from modern English sources. The author concludes that linguistic creativity is possible only when the speaker is fully aware of the norms on which we rely when trying to be creative. Thus, we are not breaking the rules but, on the contrary, we make them serve us in a new, often metaphorical, way.

Comparative studies are also present in this group. Danilova and Dyachkovsky (2022) compare zoomorphic vocabulary and its metaphoric projections in Yakut, Kalmyk and Buryat phraseology. Drozdov (2022) describes the same lexico-semantic group and its metaphorical derivative potential in English-based Jamaican, Bahamian and Trinidado-Tobаgonian creoles. But if Danilova and Dyachkovsky limit their investigation to images of a horse, cow, bull, and foal, Drozdov refers to a wide range of nominations for snakes, birds, insects and fish.

Leontyeva and her research group compiled a Dictionary of Actual Vocabulary of Unity and Enmity in the Russian language of the Early XXI Century (Leontyeva & Shchetinina 2021) and 1000 Words of Unity and Othering at the Beginning of the 21st Century: An Ideographic Dictionary (Shchetinina & Mokienko 2022). The results are also discussed in Leontyeva (2022). For these projects the group investigated a voluminous dataset of various Russian texts including official documents, public discourse and mass-media in 2000–2020. The main objective relates to the so-called social lexis, that is words nominating or otherwise connected with social phenomena. The authors are of the opinion that certain words, even in isolation, constitute expressive cultural signs, especially in times of change, including metaphoric meanings. Investigation of these metaphors and their potential is of value for the theory of pragmatics, manipulation and other PR-techniques.

The importance of metaphor as a trope and its new functions have been discussed by Mikhailova and Telegina (2020) in their analysis of the memorial media portrait of Jacques Chirac. Sergodeev presents new ways of analysis for various tropes, including metaphor in British, American, Canadian, Irish and Australian poetry in the period of XVIII–XX centuries (Sergodeev 2020). Nagornaya discusses the authorial semantics of metaphors connected with sexual desire in prose by André Aciman (2022). German and Russian fairy tales and their metaphoric potential are analysed in Nechay & Poverennaya (2019). A common thread in these studies relates to potential semantic growth in metaphorical meanings. The data are variously drawn either from a single language or a group of languages.

6. Studies of multimodal metaphor

The role of metaphor in new blended semiotic systems constitutes a separate trend. Russian scholars are interested in political cartoons, advertisements and professional discourse. General features of such metaphors are discussed by Manerko (2021b) and Zykova (2022). In one of her most recent publications (Zykova 2023), Zykova explores the blended system of the novel Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005) by Foer. The novel is built around the physical and psychological pain of the characters due to tragic historical events. The artistic means involve many polymodal or multimodal metaphoric strategies, including polymodal neologisms, which are described in Zykova (2023).

The negative image of Donald Trump in the American magazine The New Yorker (2019) was discussed by Balditsyn (2021). The author studied various graphic and verbal means, including metaphor. Pavlina discussed pragmatic metaphorical effects of British and American COVID‐19 cartoons published in 2020–2021 on the web sites of The Guardian and U.S. News & World Report. Her research reveals certain oppositions such as “the British COVID-19 cartoons criticise the government’s policies, whereas the American ones do not only satirise but also create a positive image of those responsible for vaccination production” (Pavlina 2022). These oppositions often involve metaphor, both visual and verbal. Golubkova and Taymour (2021) analyse Russian road signs as possible vehicles of monomodal visual, multimodal verbal-visual, or mixed metaphors. The data include not traditional but creative road signs, which serve to produce an ironic effect, to warn or advocate, while they also criticise certain problems (Golubkova & Taymour 2021). This tendency is acquiring more potential because of the changes which metaphoric systems undergo. We are to expect more results in this sphere.

7. Corpora and their role in metaphor studies

The final part of our review concerns corpora and the study of their metaphorical capacities. Karasik and Kitanina (2023) discuss the linguacultural modelling of the “power” concept in Russia. This deals with the description of behavioural norms encoded in the concept of “power”, which are thought to be linguistically relevant for Russian speakers. The authors describe situational characteristics of power typical of media discourse and the metaphor power is an irresistible force as found in fiction. With this purpose in mind, they addressed data drawn from a wide range of dictionaries and reference books, examples from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, in both poetic and prose texts. The research argues that Russian speakers historically tend to accept power as the most important condition of social order and at the same time condemn excessive striving for power and its abuse.

Russian literature serves as a basis for extensive corpora. The necessity to organise material leads to new methods of study and new results. The summary of results connected with establishing dynamics and a trajectory of metaphors in Dostoyevsky’s works may be found in Artemova & Kretov (2022). The number of languages studied with the use of corpus parametric vocabulary analysis is over 60. As a summary on metaphor potential in corpora, we would recommend the article by Kretov, Donina and Shilikhina (2022).

The Ural Federal State University also traditionally conducts studies of metaphor in Russian literature. Here we will mention the corpus-based research by Mukhin and his laboratory of computer linguistics (Mukhin & Mukhin 2021). The XIX century classical Russian prose, namely the works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Turgenev and Goncharov, provide data for the context lexico-statistical comparison of bigrams, which contain words frequently used by the authors. It allows the scholars to illustrate theoretical principles of systematic interpretation for lexical compatibility. Yet another new example of the explanation of theoretical principles may be found in Mukhin (2022), where the author describes macrostructural, statistical, logical, semantic and psycholinguistic criteria for forming ideographic groups in lexicographical practice. As is well-known, such lexical groups are built on both direct and transferred meanings, and the results make it possible to compare metaphoric resources of nomination in the course of time over which literature developed. Corpora as the source of metaphoric data have become more popular in recent years, but they still remain a potential field for closer investigation.

8. Conclusion

In this review article, we aimed to give a more or less systematic description of the processes, objectives and possible perspectives of contemporary Russian studies of metaphor. As one of the basic trends, we highlight the interest for mass-media, positive and negative aspects of new communication forms, possibilities to change or influence the course of events. As another trend we would mention the studies of multimodal metaphors. At the same time, traditions are of vital importance and allow for the maintenance of a stable interconnection between past and present research in Russian linguistics.

A very important tendency in Russian linguistics and in the study of metaphor in particular is the increase in the criticism of universalism, on the one hand, and continuous and multiple attempts to describe cultural and ethnical specifics of metaphoric processes and products, on the other. Contemporary studies of metaphor, more frequently than ever, result in the discovery and definition of the cultural features of metaphors, which previously seemed to belong to language universals.

Studies which combine the heuristics of cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis have become very popular. At the same time it is evident that recent years have presented a strong tendency to overcome the excessive differentiation between cognitive and rhetorical trends in metaphor studies. Methods of cognitive linguistics and discourse studies are increasingly influencing investigations of metaphor where the scholars involved declare their ostensible commitment to traditional approaches.

In conclusion, we would add that modern Russian studies of metaphor demonstrate the tendencies typical of modern linguistics in general. They are an interdisciplinary approach to the study of metaphor; the focus on the context of metaphor use, and the borrowing of methods and terminology from other research areas. Such pluralism of methods and approaches, proves that metaphor remains one of the most complex and controversial objects of investigation. The abundance of such studies on metaphor may show that an appreciation of its importance in discourse should be an obligatory condition for the further development of linguistics as a whole and Russian linguistics in particular.

 

_{¹ The last two are blocked in Russia; they belong to social media company Meta, which has been found guilty of extremist activity and banned in Russia.}

_{² Nexta & Nexta Live. Telegram. URL: https://t.me/s/nexta_live}

_{³ https://www.mlg.ru}

_{⁴ https://sso.integrum.ru}

About the authors

Anatoly P. Chudinov

Ural State Pedagogical University

Email: ap_chudinov@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5436-5273

Dr Habil. in Philology, Full Professor, Head of the Department of Cross-Cultural Communication, Rhetoric and Russian as a Foreign Language of Ural State Pedagogical University. His research interests include theory of metaphor, theory of meaning, cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis. He is the founder of the Urals linguistic school. He has over 300 publications in Russian and English including monographs, textbooks, book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Ekaterinburg, Russia

Elizaveta V. Shustrova

Russian State Vocational Pedagogical University

Author for correspondence.
Email: shustrovaev2@bk.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5923-5264

Dr Habil. in Philology, Full Professor of the Department of English Philology and Professional Communication in Foreign Languages of the Russian State Vocational Pedagogical University. Her research interests focus on cultural linguistics, text linguistics, English grammar and lexicology, discourse analysis, and multimodal text. She has over 250 publications in Russian and English including monographs, book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Ekaterinburg, Russia

References