Concepts and language

Browse background material on metaphor, language and related ideas. Metaphor Categories describes linguistic types of metaphor; Subject index organises this library by subject.

Reading aids

• Metaphor in Context: Annotated Examples: five worked passages with evidence and open questions.
• Glossary of Metaphor and Meaning: definitions and examples linked to fuller articles.
• Reading Guide: Routes Through the Wiki: six suggested routes connecting existing pages.
• Video Library: the wiki's embedded recordings, grouped by subject with channels and running times.

Starting points

• About Metaphors of Movement
• Metaphor Categories
• Situational Relational Positioning
• Embodied Cognition
• Idiomatic, Literal and Figurative Communication
• Metaphor Across Languages and Cultures - wording, imagery, translation and context
• Metaphors of Emotion
• Beyond Simple Metaphor
• Metaphors of Movement

Language and ideas

• Linguistic References
• Semiotics
• Archetypes
• The Hero's Journey
• Steganography
• The Golden Bough
• Common Idioms that Originate from the Bible
• Biblical Idioms
• Onomatopoeia
• Palindromes
• Characteristica Universalis
• Word Play
• Metaphor and Humour - comic comparisons, puns and contextual interpretation
• Parental Threats
• The Ontological Argument
• Gottfried Leibniz Ontological Proof

Compare related metaphors

The illustrated Comparative Metaphor Library connects these background ideas with sourced expressions and literary examples.

• Being Stuck: Barriers, Loops and Waiting - obstruction, repetition, effort and arrival
• Agency and Motion: Moving and Being Moved - propulsion, direction and control
• Inside and Outside: Shelter, Confinement and Belonging - boundaries, access and membership

• Scale and Proportion: Shrinking, Looming and Being Dwarfed - relative size, fit and viewpoint
• Distance and Proximity: Closeness, Separation and Reach - nearness, boundaries and access
• Speed, Pace and Momentum - rate, effort, direction and control

• Crossroads, Detours and Dead Ends - choice, changed routes and limits to progress
• Food, Hunger and Nourishment - appetite, provision, access and consumption
• Light, Darkness and Visibility - understanding, disclosure and exposure
• Music, Rhythm and Harmony - patterns, different contributions and control

Reading alongside presentations

Presentation Companion Library connects the Metaphor Society programme with background articles and questions for comparing sources.

Research and free reading

• Metaphor Research Library - a curated guide to books, papers, dissertations, historical texts and official recordings
• Metaphor and Reasoning - framing experiments, a critical follow-up and questions for evaluating evidence
• Metaphor in Literature and Creativity - sensory language, context, creative extensions and reader studies
• Metaphor in Therapeutic Conversation - patient accounts, therapist perspectives and the study of dialogue
• Joseph Campbell - comparative mythology, functions of myth and official listening and reading

Further research topics

• Metaphor Identification and Corpus Research - finding expressions, reading context and recording judgements
• Sensory Metaphor - perception, cross-sensory descriptions and creativity
• Metaphor in Economics - financial reporting, framing and corpus evidence
• Narrative and Interpretation - who tells a story, for whom and with what effects invited by the text

Foundations and theories

• Mark Johnson - embodied meaning, image schemas and metaphor
• Leonard Talmy - figure and ground, force dynamics and fictive motion
• Conceptual Metaphor Theory
• Image Schemas: Containment, Paths, Balance and Connection
• Conceptual Blending and Mental Spaces
• Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, Analogy and Symbol
• Metaphor and Polysemy: How Words Acquire Related Meanings
• A History of Metaphor Theory
• Interaction Theories of Metaphor
• Metaphor, Context and Speaker Meaning

Body, time, gesture and images

• Fictive Motion: When Stationary Things Move - describing stationary extent through motion
• Time as Space and Movement
• Force Dynamics: Pressure, Resistance and Release
• Metaphor and Gesture
• Visual and Multimodal Metaphor

Science, learning and the brain

• Metaphor in Science and Scientific Models
• Metaphor in Education and Learning
• Learning Metaphor in a Second Language
• How Children Learn to Understand Metaphor
• The Neuroscience of Metaphor Comprehension

Public language and ethics

• Metaphor in Politics and Public Debate
• The Ethics of Metaphor

Personal meaning

• Dreams, Metaphor and Interpretation
• Metaphor and Personal Narratives

Everyday language, communication and interpretation

• Personification and Agency - human roles, intention and responsibility in nonhuman descriptions
• Primary and Complex Metaphors - simple associations, elaborated scenes and the evidence for their development
• Mixed Metaphors and Coherence - why multiple images can cooperate, conflict or create humour
• The Conduit Metaphor of Communication - ideas as objects, words as containers and the role of interpretation
• Metaphor and Idioms: Motivation, Meaning and Use - conventional meaning, imagery, context and translation
• Susan Sontag and Illness Metaphors - stigma, blame and the uses of disease imagery in personal and public language

Myth, direction and participation

The Joseph Campbell: Reading and Listening Guide connects these topics with stories, interviews and lectures.

• Follow Your Bliss: Meaning, Direction and Responsibility
• Living a Personal Myth
• The Return Journey: Bringing Experience Back into Everyday Life
• Sacred Places and Symbolic Centres
• Ritual as Enacted Metaphor
• The Shaman and the Priest in Campbell's Comparative Mythology
• The Artist as Mythmaker
• Planetary Mythology: Earth as a Shared Home
• Myth and the Body
• Kundalini as a Symbolic Journey in Campbell's Lectures
• Mythology, War and Peace
• Campbell's Comparisons of Eastern and Western Traditions

Browse further

Idioms A-Z | People and authors | Subject index