Metaphor Analysis in Social Science: The problem

Lynne Cameron and Rob Maslen

Outline of talk

1. Introduction2. The PCTR Project 3. Identifying metaphor: process and

issues 4. Grouping metaphors into

systematic sets: process and issues

5. Visualising metaphors

Metaphor analysis

involves investigating the linguistic metaphors used by people to conceptualise and interpret situations. Metaphors offer speakers ‘discourse spaces’ in which to explore experiences, ideas and feelings, and ‘cognitive frames’ to describe and label themes and topics. They provide a basis for understanding and for determining action, and structure emotions and feelings…

In metaphor analysis, the emotional and ideational content of systematic sets of metaphors are identified, together with variation across different situations and social groups.

Identifying the different metaphors used in focus group talk about security and terrorism issues, and their affective value, will reveal cognitive frames and the attitudes and values associated with them, and how these vary across groups.

(PCTR project proposal)

in other words

They talked about X in terms of Y

therefore

They think about X in terms of Y’

The Leeds University

Perception and Communication of Terrorist RiskProject

ESRC New Security Challenges Programme

Multi-disciplinary project

Institute of Psychological Sciences Schools of Business, Education and

Law

Aims To investigate the effects of background

terrorist threat from different psychological and linguistic perspectives

To investigate how the public would like to be informed about particular risks associated with terrorism, and the consequences of particular communication strategies

Research Questions

How do people conceptualise and assess the background threat of terrorism?

Is there variation across groups differentiated according to social class, gender and religion?

Data

Focus Groups with members of the public

Interviews with experts: Media Threat managers (police, emergency

management, intelligence)

Methods of Analysis

Metaphor Causal Attributions Thematic qualitative analysis Social Amplification of Risk

Framework (SARF) (Pigeon et al, 2003)

*THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR PROJECT*

3 Identifying Metaphor: process and issues

The central identifying feature of a linguistic metaphor is the use of a lexical item that can be seen as incongruous with the topic of the on-going talk – the Vehicle term of a metaphor.

The ‘other meaning’ of the Vehicle can be used to make sense of its use in the discourse context.

The Vehicle term can be a single word raising or a phrase bring …together.

Choices made already

metaphor as a family-resemblance category rather than a classical category with necessary and sufficient conditions. Identify through comparison with central

exemplars, exclude, place boundaries through explicit decisions (Cameron, 1999)

work with Vehicle terms rather than metaphorically-used words.

work with linguistic metaphors, rather than trying to identify all linguistic manifestations of conceptual metaphors.

Practical decisions in identification

personification delexicalized verbs and nouns prepositions etymology similes …

Doing better metaphor identification

Record explicit decisions. Be consistent across data and

researchers e.g. use word search …

Metaphor Identification sources

Cameron, 2003, Ch 3. MIP (Metaphor Identification

Procedure) – the pragglejaz group …

4 Grouping metaphors into systematic sets

list Vehicles move them around into connected

groupings construct a label for each grouping sort each group by connected

Topics these are ‘systematic metaphors’

not conceptual metaphors

Constructing systematic metaphors

spark a conversation heated debates hype that is generated power of the media

HEATELECTRICITYGENERATING HEAT / ELECTRICITY

Emerging groupings from the data

ftp://ftp.home.leeds.ac.uk/workdisk/papers06/Vehicle%20groups.rtf

Not UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING

you saw this as a journeydid you see it as the big political picture?

lose sight of the other’s humanityget a glimpsea distorted pictureuntil we do see each other in our true light.. we’re always going to be dealing with some reduction or caricature

RECONCILIATION IS CHANGING A DISTORTED IMAGE OF THE OTHER

in other words

They talked about T in terms of V1,

V2, V3, V4… in discourse context D

therefore

They think about T in terms of V1, V2, V3, V4…

Principles in constructing systematic metaphors

keep groupings flexible as data is explored: keep alternatives alive be ready to re-group or sub-divide

try for best fit, using your understanding of the talk

don’t over-interpret or construct find evidence for interpretations

keep dated lists and notes to track decisions

In choosing a label, keep close to the language and word form

Choices made

to extract metaphors from their local context of use

to be mainly inductive, with conceptual metaphors as “sensitizing concepts” (Charmaz, 2001: 515)

to start from Vehicles rather than Topics level of groupings and labels - specific

rather than general

We could…

group in several ways and/or at different levels of generalisation and abstraction and see what this suggests.

try to find more valid and reliable ways of grouping (pile sort; stats; cluster analysis; personal construct theory)

undertake grouping collaboratively as a project team

Vehicle groupings

5 Visualising metaphors

Cumulative frequency graph

Distribution of metaphors

Metaphor in local discourse context

metaphor-led discourse analysis metaphor at critical points in talk how metaphors are negotiated,

adapted and shifted how metaphors are understood

in other words

They talked about T in terms of V1,

V2, V3, V4… in discourse context D

therefore

They think about T in terms of V1, V2, V3, V4…

Choices and problems in metaphor analysis

What is being identified in discourse data? How? How are individual linguistic metaphors

condensed into larger units of analysis? What do these larger units represent? How do we move between local and

global?