Glossary of Metaphor and Meaning

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This glossary introduces terms used across the wiki's articles on language, cognition and interpretation. Each entry links to a fuller discussion. Definitions are starting points: where a term belongs to a particular theory, that framework is identified.

The short examples are constructed for this guide. They illustrate possible analyses, not findings about every speaker or fixed meanings for objects. For an ordered introduction, use the reading guide.


Find a term

A–C

Analogy

A comparison that connects relationships across situations. Comparing a discussion with a journey might connect contributions with steps and agreement with a destination. State where the comparison stops.[1] Read Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, Analogy and Symbol.

Annotation

Recorded judgements attached to language data, using stated categories and rules. For example, a researcher might label a particular use of blocked as metaphorical after reading its context.[2] Read Metaphor Identification and Corpus Research.

Conceptual blending

In Fauconnier and Turner's theory, selected material from mental spaces combines in a blend that can develop additional relationships. Blending also concerns counterfactuals and problem solving.[3] Read Conceptual Blending and Mental Spaces.

Conceptual metaphor

In conceptual metaphor theory, a proposed pattern of correspondences through which one domain is understood using another. It is distinguished from the individual words that express it.[4] Read Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

Context

Surrounding language, the communicative situation and relevant background assumptions used in interpretation. Context includes more than neighbouring words; speakers may rely on shared experience.[5] Read Metaphor, Context and Speaker Meaning.

Corpus

A collection of language material assembled for study. Its contents and selection matter: a corpus of published reviews cannot automatically represent private conversation.[2] Read Metaphor Identification and Corpus Research.

D–I

Domain

An area of conceptual knowledge, such as travel or building, used in an analysis. A domain is broader than one particular imagined scene.[3] See source domain, target domain and Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

Embodiment

An emphasis on bodily experience in accounts of thought and meaning. Different embodied theories make different claims about perception, action and conceptual organisation.[1] Read Embodied Cognition and The Neuroscience of Metaphor Comprehension.

Frame

A structured situation with related roles and expectations. A journey frame might include a traveller, route and destination. In communication research, framing also concerns how descriptions organise attention.[3] Compare Conceptual Blending and Mental Spaces with Metaphor and Reasoning.

Idiom

A conventional expression whose established meaning cannot be fully worked out by combining its words in their ordinary senses. Familiarity with its use matters.[6] Read Metaphor and Idioms: Motivation, Meaning and Use and browse Idioms A-Z.

Image schema

In cognitive linguistic accounts, a recurring schematic pattern in experience, such as containment, balance or a path. It describes relationships rather than a detailed picture.[1] Read Image Schemas: Containment, Paths, Balance and Connection.

Inference

A conclusion reached using an expression together with contextual assumptions. An analyst's plausible inference and a listener's demonstrated response are different kinds of claim.[5] Read Metaphor, Context and Speaker Meaning and Metaphor and Reasoning.

Interaction theory

An approach in which a metaphor brings systems of ideas into relation and reorganises how its subject is understood. Black's account asks how associated implications select and emphasise features.[7] Read Interaction Theories of Metaphor.

M–P

Mapping

A proposed correspondence between elements or relationships in an analysis. Linking a journey's destination with a project's aim is one possible mapping.[4] Read Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

Mental space

In mental-space and blending theory, a local conceptual arrangement built while thinking or communicating. It may represent an actual, remembered, imagined or hypothetical situation.[3] Read Conceptual Blending and Mental Spaces.

Metaphor

Describing or understanding something through another kind of thing: “The explanation was a bridge.” Theories differ on how to explain this relationship.[6] Read Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, Analogy and Symbol and A History of Metaphor Theory.

Metonymy

Using an associated entity to refer to another: “The office approved it” may refer to people authorised to decide. The relationship need not involve resemblance.[6] Read Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, Analogy and Symbol.

Personification

Presenting something nonhuman through human qualities or roles: “The old house watched the road.” The proposed role depends on the passage.[1] Read Personification and Agency.

Polysemy

A word having multiple related senses. An established sense may have a metaphorical connection without requiring a fresh comparison on every occasion of use.[6] Read Metaphor and Polysemy: How Words Acquire Related Meanings.

Pragmatics

The study of meaning in use, including how hearers infer what speakers communicate in particular circumstances. A sentence's wording alone may leave that meaning underdetermined.[5] Read Metaphor, Context and Speaker Meaning.

Primary metaphor

In the relevant cognitive theory, a relatively simple association motivated by recurring correlations in experience. More elaborate metaphors can combine such patterns with other knowledge.[4] Read Primary and Complex Metaphors.

S–U

Simile

An explicit comparison, often marked by like or as. Those words alone do not establish figurative use: two ordinary chairs can also be alike.[6] Read Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, Analogy and Symbol.

Source domain

The domain supplying structure in a metaphor analysis. In an analysis of a project as a journey, travel is the source domain.[4] Read Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

Symbol

An object, form or action interpreted as standing for something in a particular work or convention. Terminology varies: Saussure's use of symbol stresses a motivated relationship.[8] Read Semiotics and Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, Analogy and Symbol.

Target domain

The domain being understood through a proposed mapping. In the project-as-journey example, the project is the target; it does not become literal travel.[4] Read Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

Tenor and vehicle

Terms associated with I. A. Richards: the tenor is the subject being understood, and the vehicle supplies the image or idea through which it is presented. Their interaction matters; these are not merely two interchangeable labels.[7] Read Interaction Theories of Metaphor and I.A. Richards.

Utterance

A particular communicative use of language on an occasion, as distinct from a sentence considered in isolation. The same wording can communicate different things in different circumstances.[5] Read Idiomatic, Literal and Figurative Communication.

Try the distinctions

Consider the invented sentence “Our discussion is circling the same island.” A metaphor analysis might connect discussion with travel. A mapping could connect repeated arguments with repeated circuits. Context would help decide whether the speaker is frustrated, amused or deliberately extending somebody else's image. An inference that agreement is impossible goes further than the words require.

For another possibility, imagine the speaker pointing to a map during a navigation lesson. The surrounding activity changes what can reasonably be inferred. Record the whole example before choosing a label.

For mythological and literary terminology, follow Joseph Campbell: Reading and Listening Guide, Comparative Mythology: Methods, Evidence and Limitations and Narrative and Interpretation. The distinctions in this glossary support those readings without assigning a single interpretation to a story.

Related pages

Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Mark Turner (1997 manuscript), “Figurative Language and Thought”, discussions of analogy, projection and image schemas.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Anatol Stefanowitsch (2020), Corpus Linguistics: A Guide to the Methodology, chapters 4 and 11. Language Science Press. Free complete book.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner (1998), “Conceptual Integration Networks”, Cognitive Science 22(2):133–187. Author-hosted full text.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 George Lakoff (2014), “Mapping the brain's metaphor circuitry: metaphorical thought in everyday reason”, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8:958. Hypothesis and Theory article.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Robyn Carston (2015 manuscript), “Relevance Theory and Metaphor”, especially sections 2–4. UCL author manuscript.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Paul Kroeger (2022), Analyzing Meaning: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics, third edition, discussions of idioms and chapter 5 on word senses. Language Science Press. Free complete book.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Max Black (1954–1955), “Metaphor”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 55:273–294, especially pp. 285–293.
  8. ↑ Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, part I, chapter 1, section 2. First published 1916.
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