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Current Approaches to Metaphor Analysis in Discourse
The goals of research on conceptual metaphor in discourse are at present remarkably multifaceted, from describing specific social, pragmatic, rhetorical, aesthetic, and discursive functions in real discourse data, through assessing
metaphor entrenchment in the cultural and conceptual system, to identification methods as well as criteria for metaphorical mapping description and classification. The volume the reader is about to explore provides a broad panorama of perspectives tackling diverse aspects of metaphor analysis, including a wide range of topics such as the levels of source domain knowledge configuration, new Metaphor analysis in discourse. Introduction 7
target domain knowledge, conscious usage, metaphor identification procedures, communicative functions, linguistic metaphor, visual modes of metaphorical expression, corpus processing, trans-modal metaphor, among others. One of the assets of this collective work consists in showing how the scrutiny of metaphorical connections in multimodal discourse reveals the conceptual nature of metaphorical thinking. The book is organized in three parts, each one focussing on certain aspects of metaphor analysis in discourse. The first part emphasizes the description and characterization of metaphorical knowledge. The chapters offer a view on knowledge configurations like image schemas, frames, scenarios and domains that configure particular kinds of discourse and knowledge. The second
part puts the stress on communicative aspects, particularly on the analysis of author/speaker intentionality and the tools to measure intention and effect in metaphor usage. Finally, the third block in the volume delves into the intricacies of disclosing metaphorical codes in non-linguistic modes of semiosis, be it cartoons, film, or other visual media.