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Mapping Metaphors in EnglishWendy Anderson and Ellen Bramwell, University of Glasgow

Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical Thesaurus

Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical ThesaurusMapping Metaphor with the Historical

ThesaurusAHRC-funded, Jan 2012-Dec 2014

Principal Investigator: Wendy AndersonResearch Assistant: Ellen BramwellPhD student: Rachael HamiltonTechnician: Flora EdmondsSCS Digital Humanities Research Officer: Brian AitkenCo-Investigators: Marc Alexander, Carole Hough, Christian KayProject assistants: Fraser Dallachy, Iain Edmonds, Johanna Green,

George Hardwick, Daria Izdebska, Ross McLachlan, Cerwyss O’Hare, Judith Paterson, Beth Ralston, Heather Valentine

Several student volunteers2

Mapping Metaphor


Thesaurus• Role of metaphor in constructing

understanding of the world• e.g. IDEAS ARE CHILDREN - words from domain

of Children/Kinship (‘Source’) are used to talk about Ideas (‘Target’): my brainchild, nurture an idea, that project’s my baby

• Conventionalised metaphor as recorded in the language system / lexis of English

• Comprehensive identification of systematic metaphor in English (OE to present)

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Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical ThesaurusHistorical Thesaurus of English

Initiated by Professor Michael Samuels

Published as:

Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels and Irené Wotherspoon (eds). 2009. Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: OUP

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Mapping Metaphor


Thesaurus

Historical Thesaurus database

• Large - 797,120 meanings• Historical, with date information for all

senses• Semantic organisation• Electronic

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Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical ThesaurusMethods

- Grouped HT data into 411 semantically-coherent categories

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Mapping Metaphor


A01 World, theA02 Region of the earthA03 Geodetic referencesA04 Land: :I08 LoveI09 Hatred/enmityI10 Indifference: :Z07 Performance artsZ08 SportZ09 Sport, types ofZ10 Dance

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The External World

The Mental World

The Social World

Mapping Metaphor



- A database query compares the set of lexical items in each category with that in every other category

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Mapping Metaphor




- Where there is lexical overlap, there may also be metaphor

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Mapping Metaphor




- Where there is lexical overlap, there may also be metaphor

- We analyse all of the lexical overlap, manually...

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Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical ThesaurusImagination

Biological processespregnant/pregnancy, conception, conceive,

reproduce, spawn, seminal, father, fertility, birth

Kinsman/relationfather, mother, conception, birth, spawn

Ideas are children

Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical ThesaurusImagination

Atmosphere, weathervapour, vaporous, Scotch mist, cloudland

Gasfume, vapour, vaporous

Airwaft, inspiration, airy, aerial

Ideas are vapour/air

Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical ThesaurusNext steps – the Metaphor Map

Mapping Metaphor


Mapping Metaphor


Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical ThesaurusHow can we work together?

Science

First World WarCreative writing

MuseumsEducation

Galleries

Libraries

Advertising

Marketing

Sport

Commonwealth Games

Society

www.glasgow.ac.uk/metaphorhttp://blogs.arts.gla.ac.uk/metaphor/ Twitter:

@MappingMetaphor

Mapping Metaphor

with the Historical Thesaurus

Image from Thomas Wright: An original theory or new hypothesis of the universe. London, 1750. Courtesy of University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections.

Thank you!