Contrastive lexicology 3. Studying metaphor with the british national corpus (BNC) презентация

evidence of natural, ‘real’ language. The term ‘corpus linguistics’ “refers not just to a new computer-based methodology, but, as G. Leech (1992: 106) put it, a ‘new research enterprise’, a new way of thinking about language, which is challenging some of the deeply-rooted ideas. To cope with the vastness of a living language the idea of corpora had been introduced to back up and foster linguistic studies born out by evidence, i.e. a large amount of facts of real language.
The three-fold approach to language data within the framework of corpus linguistics has been summarized as follows:
it is an empirical approach to the description of language use;
it operates within the framework of a contextual and functional theory of meaning;
it makes use of new technologies.
(Tognini-Bonelli, 2001: 2)

that of generative grammarians who see language as an innate mechanism which empowers native speakers to produce an infinite set of ‘correct’ sentences.
“If we want to find out what is common to all languages, we should embrace Chomskyan linguistics. If we want to find out if a French sentence is structured grammatically, we should rely on standard linguistics. If we want to find out what words, sentences and texts mean, we should opt for corpus linguistics.”
(Teubert, 2005: 97)

Phenomenon

A Corpus Linguistic Description of Language Prioritizes Lexis

Meaning and Form are Associated

(Mahlberg, 2007: 3)

ITS CONTEXTS”

Concordances of ‘look forward to’ in business letters
(The International Corpus of English – ICE-GB)

GREATER THAN CHANCE

Collocates for ‘mortgage’ include ‘lend’ and ‘property’
Absolutely – collocates on the right (R) and left sides (L)

metaphor. First of all, a large, representative corpus can provide ample data for constructing semantic frames, which enable the researcher to identify elements most prone to metaphoric use.
The basic tools for such analyses are selecting the search word (the core of the metaphor), sorted concordance lines, and collocates statistics.
(M. Fabiszak, P. Kaszubski “Studying metaphor with the BNC”, Volume Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, Issue 41, 2006, pp. 111-129)

the concordance pointed to the preposition ‘on’ referring to:

the corpus points to a strong co-occurrence pattern between Declare war and names of states and Adverbs of time (in 1939, in September 1939, on 1 August 1914).
At the same time, at least 20 uses were found to be metaphorical. References to concrete and abstract entities occurred only in metaphorical contexts.
While ‘declaring war on acid rain’ is quite possible, ‘fighting a war against acid rain’ is most unlikely.

the researcher. Although prototypically fighting a war involves two or more warring parties, fighting a war on drugs may require not military actions, but may consist in running campaigns or developing therapy centers (a metaphorical use).
A case of zeugma: “The Civil war, which was fought with texts and pamphlets as much as with weapons”.
The verb phrase (VP) ‘fight war’ is used with a coordinated noun phrase (NP) where each of the phrases texts and pamphlets, on the one hand, and weapons, on the other, appeal to a different, literal or metaphorical use of the VP.

a play on words utilizing the ambiguity between the literal and metaphorical interpretation of the phrase.
“There are more wars to be fought than those with guns” makes use of this kind of ambiguity through an implication that non-military conflicts can be as fierce as wars.
A prototype is the central (focal) meaning or stereotype as the best general representative of a category.

literal and the metaphorical. Between the two extremes extends a ground for more fuzzy examples ranging from non-prototypical literal to seriously ambiguous.
Focal literal meaning
non-prototypical literal
ambiguous
focal metaphorical


(Fabiszak, Kaszubski, op.cit, p. 126-127)

to appear in NPs of the structure: N of a battlefield:
Area
Guided tours
Chaos of a battlefield
Sombre imagery
The first premodifying noun (area) captures the spatial nature of the word. Guided tours point to the cultural development of the concept covered by the word battlefield, i.e. its development into a sightseeing place. Chaos and sombre imagery, both highly negative, stress the aspect of human suffering.

is essentially non-metaphorical in nature: the metaphorical uses of this noun (ideological, political, parliamentary battlefield, a tour of the battlefield) are rather rare (12,9 % of all the tokens).

‘became a battleground in the government’s fight to promote a change’, ‘turning this former urban battleground into a holiday destination’, ‘classroom, competitive, electoral, ideological, moral, political battleground’, ‘a battleground of the sexes’.
The right-sorted concordance revealed the most common prepositional phrases, also mostly metaphorical: ‘the battleground for the competing ideologies of the academic community and of the state’, etc.

primarily metaphorical, while the noun battlefield is not, in spite of its extension to the tourist domain (‘guided tours of the battlefield’ – 2 uses).
The semantic frame of battleground: