High on metaphor, low on simile? An examination of metaphor type in sub-registers of academic prose

Herrmann JB. High on metaphor, low on simile? An examination of metaphor type in sub-registers of academic prose. In: Herrmann JB, Berber Sardinha T, eds. Metaphor in Specialist Discourse. Metaphor in Language, Cognition, and Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company; 2015: 163-190.Recent corpus studies found that academic prose is particularly rich in metaphor, but exhibits an unexpectedly low proportion of forms of ‘direct metaphor’, such as simile (cf. Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, & Krennmayr, 2010a; Steen et al., 2010b). One explanation is deliberate metaphor use: in opposition to indirect forms (he attacked my argument), direct forms of metaphor (the leaf is shaped like a minaret) are normally explicitly signaled and often appear more vividly ‘metaphorical’. To control precision of linguistic reference, and to abide by an overarching stylistic maxim of academic prose that regulates marked figurativeness, writers of academic texts may thus try to delimitate deliberate metaphor use in the form of direct metaphor. However, recent advances in the study of English for Academic Purposes have stressed that the analysis of academic discourse cannot ignore ‘disciplinary specificity’ (cf. Hyland, 2009). Using an exploratory approach, the present chapter hence transgresses the rather broad unit of ‘register’ to zoom in on academic prose as specialist discourse of distinct ‘sub-registers’. Using the academic text sample (some 49,000 words) of the VUAMC (Steen et al. 2010c), it analyzes three metaphor types (indirect, implicit, and direct) across four different academic sub-registers (humanities arts, natural sciences, politics law education, social sciences). I report variation of metaphor type across the sub-registers, with the highest proportion of direct metaphors in natural sciences, followed by humanities arts. My findings on variation of metaphor type advances a finergrained view of metaphor use in academic prose, taking into account distinct communicative functions of metaphor types

DLS Resources: Journal of Cultural Analytics

Today, we're beginning our series of DLS-resources with a very brief introduction of the Journal of Cultural Analytics (CA). CA is an open-access journal dedicated to the computational study of culture. The journal currently features three sections: Articles reporting peer-reviewed new scholarship, Data Sets that facilitate cultural studies accompanied by discussions; and Debates offering interventions into current discussions surrounding the computational analysis of culture. The Clusters se..

Digitale Geisteswissenschaften = Kultur–x

Herrmann JB. Digitale Geisteswissenschaften = Kultur–x. Presented at the 3. DH-Tag der WWU Münster, Münster.In ihrem Vortrag stellt Berenike Herrmann Fragestellungen, Strukturen und Methoden der Bielefelder Digital Humanities vor. Dabei geht sie der Frage nach, was eine digitale Geisteswissenschaft zwischen "Methode und Wahrheit" heute vermag und zukünftig leisten kann. Die Grundannahme ist, dass eine Wissenschaft ihren Gegenstand immer nur durch Modellierung und Approximation beschreiben kann ("Kultur- x"), wobei in den DH Methodenorientierung und Datafication diese epistemologische Distanz besonders ausstellen. Anhand einiger Beispiele aus der datengestützten literatur- und textwissenschaftlichen Forschung in Bielefeld soll das methodologische "x" scharf gestellt, seine Bedingungen auf infrastruktureller Ebene beleuchtet, und nicht zuletzt der Mehrwert für das Erklären und Verstehen etwa fiktionaler Emotionalität, Stil und Laienwertung aufgezeigt werden

Metaphor in academic discourse. Linguistic forms, conceptual structures, communicative functions and cognitive representations

Herrmann JB. Metaphor in academic discourse. Linguistic forms, conceptual structures, communicative functions and cognitive representations. LOT dissertation series. Vol 333. Utrecht: LOT; 2013.Traditionally, metaphor has been seen as a threat to the scientific maxims of accuracy, truth, and explicitness. This view is still reflected in academic writing conventions, but has been opposed by research suggesting that metaphor is an indispensable part of natural language. So far, most studies on metaphor in academic prose have been conducted on a small scale or restricted in their focus, investigating only small sets of metaphors, or have lacked a transparent method of metaphor identification. This book presents a new type of metaphor research into written academic discourse. On the basis of a systematic and consistent method which identified metaphorical language on a word-by-word basis, it constructs the first register profile of academic prose that takes into account metaphor. Patterns of metaphorical language use in academic prose are described in terms of lexico- grammatical forms, communicative functions, and underlying conceptual structures. A hand-annotated corpus of 190,000 words of natural language, allowed for consistent cross-register comparison with news, fiction, and conversation. The work not only approaches metaphor from a cognitive-linguistic, sociolinguistic, and discourse-analytical angle, but also from a psycholinguistic one, investigating the processing of metaphorical language in academic discourse as influenced by academic expertise and metaphor conventionality. This research is useful for anyone interested in the study of academic discourse, metaphor in specialized discourse, and register variation in general. In addition to furthering our knowledge of the characteristics of academic discourse, its focus on methodology will be helpful to those concerned with the methodological aspects of metaphor analysis

The SIG-DLS Tool Inventory

Let's create our inventory of Digital Literary Stylistics methods and tools! This summer at DH2018, the members of SIG-DLS in situ came up with some new activities for the new season. Among these was a DLS Tool Inventory of our own, reflecting our practice, with tested and tried methods, software, tools. Just a spreadsheet... Will it become magic? Well, here we are: happy to share with you all a spreadsheet that will hopefully become truly awesome. Let’s create the magic together! ..

SIG DLS Activities and COVID-19

The global COVID-19 pandemic also affects the SIG DLS. Our forthcoming Workshop on “Tool Criticism 3.0, originally scheduled for DH2020 at Ottawa, Canada, will not take place in in-person format. We will keep you posted as to new developments. The SIG-DLS endorsed workshop "Finally, a Tool! Introducing CATMA for Identification and Metaphor Analysis with MIPVU,” originally scheduled for RaAM 2020 at Hamar, Norway, has been canceled.