Book review

Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics

Deignan, Alice. 2005. Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins (Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research no. 6)

Reviewed by: Enrico Monti, University of Bologna, Italy

Deignan's Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics is a detailed account of the contribution that corpus linguistics can make to the study of metaphor. The aim of the book is to determine how a theory of metaphor as thought (i.e. Conceptual Metaphor Theory, CMT from here on) can account for the patterns found in natural language.

The book is structured in three parts, each divided into three chapters: Part I is devoted to CMT, Part II to current research in metaphor, while Part III offers a direct examination of corpus data.

Part I
Part I (pp. 11-71) opens with a brief explanation of CMT, as developed since 1980 by Lakoff and colleagues, with a particular focus on the key elements to be tested further on, namely the ideological aspect of metaphors (implicit in the choice of source domains) and the systematicity of conceptual metaphorical mappings. For her analysis, Deignan proposes a corpus-based classification of "metaphorically-motivated linguistic expressions", with tighter categories than those suggested by CMT (p. 39). The relationship between metaphor and metonymy is also extensively explored, the author insisting on the potential of the latter to shape our thought, as well as on the interrelation between the two. Deignan embraces Goossens’ interaction theory of metaphor and metonymy (Goossens 1995), and adds the further category of "metonymy-based metaphors" (p. 67) to the existing classification, while proposing a "cline" view that discards sharp distinctions between metaphor and metonymy in order to account for their mutual overlap.

Part II
Part II (pp. 73-142) is devoted to current research into metaphor and focuses on three main approaches: Corpus-based (Ch. 4), Cognitive and Psycholinguistic (Ch. 5), and Discourse approaches (Ch. 6). Corpus methodology and its most recent results are described in detail, including some ongoing applied research. Deignan presents her own corpus (a cross-section of the Bank of English, amounting to 56 million words) and stresses the importance of naturally-occurring data, pointing out how many linguistic theories prove inadequate once related to factual evidence. Chapter 5 offers an overview of the cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to metaphor, describing their research methodology, their limitations and how they can be broadened and supplemented by the use of naturally occurring data. The final chapter deals with discourse approaches to metaphor research. Deignan views such approaches as complementary to cognitive approaches, although noting that the two have different aims. Discourse approaches, she points out, use CMT as a starting point rather than as a testing ground for theory. Furthermore, discourse approaches typically concentrate on corpora of spontaneously produced language, unlike most cognitive metaphor-theoretical approaches. Deignan evaluates positively the contribution of discourse approaches in generating "insights unavailable to intuition-based studies" (p. 141), as in the proposed case-study on the ideological power of metaphors. At the same time, she remarks that the small size of the texts analyzed precludes the possibility of drawing generalizations; which is why, Deignan argues, this approach is ideally supplemented by corpus linguistics.

Part III
Part III (pp. 143-213) is devoted to a closer examination of corpus data. Deignan confirms, through corpus analysis, that figurative uses of language (as opposed to literal uses) display a more restricted degree of grammatical, semantic and syntactic variation. On the basis of corpus evidence, she questions the proposed systematicity of metaphorical mappings (Lakoff's Invariance Hypothesis, Lakoff 1979). She argues for positing a more important role for target domain structures in motivating linguistic metaphors (p. 164) and opposes the idea of fully productive mappings between source and target domains (which proves inappropriate, especially for metaphors that are partially grounded in metonymy). A study of collocates (comparing figurative and literal use of chosen linguistic expressions) shows the existence of "opposing tendencies" to a strictly systematic mapping, tendencies mostly connected to the reutilization of conventionalized chunks of language. She evaluates Blending Theory positively (Fauconnier and Turner 2002) for its greater flexibility as opposed to a classical version of CMT, although Blending Theory's focus on "unusual or invented language" is considered a severe limitation (p. 166). Not dissimilarly from her suggested combination of corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches (Tognini-Bonelli 2001) in Part II (pp. 88-90), here Deignan calls for a dynamic combination of CMT and Blending Theory. This, she argues, allows the complexity of the observed data to be encompassed; these data indicate a recurrent oscillation between linguistic ambiguity and clarity, creativity and communicative efficiency.

Conclusion; Assessment
Deignan's conclusion is optimistic regarding the contribution of corpus analysis to the study of metaphor. While "corpus-data are rarely, if ever, inconsistent with CMT" (p. 223), she argues, they can indeed rectify flawed intuitions. In this sense, her study is a good introduction to the benefits that cognitive approaches to metaphor literature can derive from corpus analysis, as well as from a stronger consideration of naturally occurring language. She purposefully combines theoretical discussions with empirical research and effectively shows how they can mutually benefit from their interaction. Deignan's approach is clear and simple. The book introduces basic concepts of both the metaphor literature and corpus linguistics, thus addressing scholars familiar with only one of the two main areas of study involved, as well as non-specialist readers, since most concepts are explicitly introduced. This same intent is also clear in the didactic organization of the contents, with introductory and summarizing paragraphs at the beginning and end of each chapter and section, guiding the reader step by step through the book. While the first two parts are fairly introductory, and possibly less interesting for an initiated readership, the third part engages in a more in-depth testing of the assumptions of CMT, and it proves an interesting contribution to the existing literature on metaphor, as well as a guidance for future research.

References

Fauconnier, G. and M. Turner. 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.

Goossens, L. 1995. Metaphtonymy: the interaction of metaphor and metonymy in figurative expressions for linguistic action, in L. Goossens et al. (eds.), By Word of Mouth: Metaphor, Metonymy and Linguistic Action in a Cognitive Perspective. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Lakoff, G. The contemporary theory of metaphor, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tognini-Bonelli, E. 2001. Corpus Linguistics at Work. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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