RCAAP Repository

This study concerns the use of corpus linguistics methodology in psycholinguistics research. Ten linguistic metaphors were selected from English and American newspapers. After that, we identified the underlying conceptual metaphor based on the conceptual metaphor inventory by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999). We seek to investigate what sort of knowledge EFL-learners use when trying to understand a linguistic metaphor. We examined how EFL-learners comprehend linguistic metaphors, firstly without using the context and then using the context. The sample comprised 221 Brazilian students and 16 American students at UCSC. We have also carried out an empirical research using WebCorp.

This work aims at presenting some results of the research developed in the Project named Metaphor, Discursive Genre and Argumentation (MGDA) which has the purpose of describing linguistic expressions that materialize conceptual metaphors in several discursive genres, searching for the identification of the semantic-discursive function(s) of such expressions. The researches were done by my students and me and the present results reveal some discursive functions not seen in the literature so far: the presence of metaphorical expressions that materialize conceptual metaphors with the function of approaching the advertiser to the interlocutor in publicity and linguistic expressions that literalize the everyday life conceptual metaphor, producing laughter in humor, among other semantic-discursive functions.

This discourse-based study investigated semantic and affective aspects of metaphors used by people talking about background risk of terrorism. 96 members of the UK public participated in 12 focus group discussions, organized by gender, religion (Muslim / non-Muslim), and socio-economic status. 12,362 metaphors were identified in transcribed talk, coded for vehicle domain and discourse topic, and subjected to qualitative and some quantitative analyses. In contrast to negative, dominant metaphors found in studies of media and political discourse, 'ordinary' people use an intersecting range of systematic metaphors, including "GAMES OF CHANCE", "NATURAL WORLD" and "THEATER". Affect works across linguistic metaphors with various source domains, and in connection with non-metaphorical language such as reflection on action and explicit expression of empathy. Gender, religion and social class intersect in metaphor preferences.

This paper is part of a research project whose central aim is to empirically investigate the multiple readings of 'metaphors' in literary texts. The methodology employed is interpretive and the main research technique is the 'Group-Think Aloud'. In this paper, the data discussed were generated by a group of readers engaged in the reading of 'The Pulverized Mountain', a poem by Drummond de Andrade. The analysis focuses on the interpretations of the final verses that, due to incongruities presented, constitute enigmas for the reader to decipher. Analysis has shown that the apparent data chaos and complexity has, in fact, an organization in inferential chains co-constructed by metonymic and metaphoric processes.

This article aims to show, in a summarized way, how different studies on metaphor can positively converge to a cognitive-linguistic perception of this phenomenon. This perception surpasses a merely stylistic vision of the metaphor. The paper also reports the research that was done by Huang (2005) about metaphors in scientific texts of Medicine, which is related to the topic of AIDS. The results and difficulties of Huang's research have given examples in the treatment of the theme of metaphor in Terminology and in studies of scientific texts. It is concluded that metaphor is one of the phenomena that make part of the technical and scientific communication and, because of the complexity in approaching such topic, it must also be investigated in Terminology.

Metaphor interpretation takes cognitive effort and produces some complex set of cognitive effects. Although most metaphor scholars assume that there are definitive ways for studying metaphor effort and effects, there are various methodological problems associated with specifying metaphorical meanings and the ways that people generally come to understand these meanings. My claim is that both metaphoric meaning and metaphor interpretation is fundamentally indeterminate. Nonetheless, there are a wide range of factors that shape the effort put into understanding a metaphor and the particular reffects that arise from this experience. These personal, linguistic, and socio-cultural factors are sometimes acknowledged by metaphor scholars, but we need to examine the complex ways these factors interact to systematically characterize people's metaphorical experiences.

The present paper briefly describes recent advances in cognitive science on the embodied nature of human cognition with the aim to better situating contemporary work on embodied metaphor in language and thought. We do this by talking about key experimental findings in five areas main areas of research in cognitive science: perception, concepts, mental imagery, memory, and language processing (Gibbs 2006a) We also describe some psycholinguistic studies on embodied metaphor understanding, and offer some details on one series of experiments in regard to people's embodied understanding of the DIFFICULTIES ARE WEIGHTS primary metaphor. Our conclusion draws connections between the research on embodied cognition and contemporary linguistic and psychological work on embodied metaphor.

One of the greatest challenges of recent studies on metaphor in discourse is to articulate, systematically, the discursive with the cognitive dimensions of figurative language. Within this perspective, the aim of this paper is to present and to discuss an analytical approach to the study of metaphor in argumentative texts which aims at observing how metaphoricity might emerge and be explored discursively, through underlying conceptual metaphors and textually dependent mappings. To this end, a unit of analysis is proposed: the metaphor niche.

On the "standard" view of conceptual metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Kövecses 2002), metaphorical creativity arises from the cognitive processes of extending, elaboration, questioning, and combining conceptual content in the source domain (Lakoff and Turner 1989). I will propose that such cases constitute only a part of metaphorical creativity. An equally important and common set of cases is comprised by what I call "context-induced" metaphors. I will discuss five types of these: metaphors induced by (1) the immediate linguistic context itself, (2) what we know about the major entities participating in the discourse, (3) the physical setting, (4) the social setting, and (5) the immediate cultural context. Such metaphors have not been systematically investigated so far, though they seem to form a large part of our metaphorical creativity.

Culture and language are connected in a myriad ways. Proverbs, rules of turn-taking in conversations, pronouns of power and solidarity, background knowledge to the understanding of conversations, politeness, linguistic relativity, the principle of cooperation, metaphor, metonymy, context, semantic change, discourse, ideology, print culture, oral culture, literacy, sociolinguistics, speech acts, and so forth, are just some of the concepts in which we find obvious connections between culture and language. Several disciplines within the language sciences attempt to analyze, describe, and explain the complex interrelations between the two broad areas. (For a brief and clear survey, see Kramsch 1998). Can we approach this vast variety of topics from a more unified perspective than it is traditionally done and currently available? The present paper focus on such possibilities.

O presente trabalho visa a relatar o desenvolvimento de uma metodologia de identificação de metáforas em corpora eletrônicos. Como exemplo, foi tomado o gênero teleconferências de apresentação de resultados financeiros. A metodologia é do tipo "bottom-up" / "corpus-driven" e se baseia na identificação de palavras com frequência marcante (palavras-chave) e de seus padrões de co-ocorrência, seguido do cálculo de similaridade semântica entre essas palavras. Com isso, chega-se a um conjunto de palavras que são então interpretadas em seu co-texto, por meio de concordâncias.

The present research is an investigation of the role played by pronunciation instruction in the discrimination of English CVC and CVCV syllabic patterns in word-final position. The participants of this study were two groups of Brazilian learners (beginners): the control group (10 students), and the experimental group (12 students). Both groups were given a discrimination pretest and posttest, between which the experimental group received instruction based on a pronunciation manual with activities focused on the English syllable and word-final consonants, whereas the control group received no such instruction. The pre and posttests consisted of an oddity discrimination test, in which the participants had to discriminate between the CVC and CVCV syllabic patterns. The posttest results showed somewhat greater improvement for the experimental group than for the control group, but this difference was not statistically significant.

Este artigo apresenta análise para alguns usos da preposição 'de' na língua portuguesa do Brasil, a partir dos preceitos teóricos e esquemas desenvolvidos pela Gramática Cognitiva. Adota-se a hipótese de serem as preposições marcações linguísticas, cuja evolução pode ser pelo menos parcialmente mapeável por gramaticalização. Propõe-se que a preposição em análise tem um significado inicial de valor espacial e que se manifesta, por processos derivados, em categorias semânticas nomeadas como NO (Nominal de Origem), NP (Nominal de Parte) e NI (Nominal Intrínseca). Esta pesquisa serve-se de um corpus coletado em textos da internet.

Objetiva-se neste artigo refletir sobre as práticas de letramento em alemão, introduzidas em uma escola rural a partir da implementação de mudanças nas políticas linguísticas municipais, e sua interface com as práticas de letramento locais em uma comunidade bilíngue de imigração alemã. Os dados da pesquisa, gerados a partir de um estudo de cunho etnográfico e analisados à luz dos Novos Estudos do Letramento e do bi/ multilinguismo de grupos de minorias linguísticas, sugerem que as professoras pertencentes ao grupo étnico-linguístico local esforçam-se por reconhecer a língua de herança das crianças e da comunidade, embora sofram pressão do currículo escolar, assentado, prioritariamente, no monolinguismo em português. Dentro de um cenário sociolinguístico complexo, as professoras necessitam tomar decisões pedagógicas sobre que práticas de letramento e em que língua valorizar na escola.

Defendo a relevância da aplicação do conceito de etnicidade na área dos Estudos do Letramento com vistas à compreensão mais adequada e detalhada de fenômenos que comportam aspectos de hibridismo e de tensão cultural inerentes ao diálogo intercultural. Apresento relato de pesquisa de campo de viés participativo com a intenção de explicitar a forma de aplicação desse conceito na área dos Estudos do Letramento. Concluo que o conceito de etnicidade mostra-se fértil para dar conta de situações que envolvem fatores de invisibilidade típicos de zonas de conflito, propiciando, ainda, a compreensão mais adequada dos conceitos bakhtinianos de dialogismo, de polifonia e de arena de conflito.

Je tenterai ici de montrer qu'une lecture d'abord structurale et sociologique du CLG a longtemps occulté l'importance de la parole dans le «phénomène socio-historique» du fonctionnement de la langue. «Une lecture sémiologique» permet de la mettre en évidence en réintroduisant le sujet et le temps. La lecture qu'en fait Benveniste, préoccupé de mettre en place sa propre théorie de «la double signifiance» et des deux linguistiques (sémiotique/ sémantique), réintroduit le sujet d'une tout autre façon qui l'amène, à la fois à accentuer une lecture structurale de Saussure et, sous l'annonce d'une théorie du discours, à se tourner vers une conception philosophique du langage.

Neste artigo, procedemos à análise de modos de produção de sentidos sobre o trabalho dos profissionais de Educação do ensino médio na mídia impressa, a partir de uma perspectiva enunciativa. Para fins de análise, selecionamos, como corpus, notícias de jornal tematizando o Programa de gratificação Nova Escola, instituído na rede pública estadual do Rio de Janeiro desde 2000. Abordando a problemática da heterogeneidade enunciativa (Authier-Revuz, 1990; Maingueneau, 1997), privilegiamos o discurso relatado como entrada de análise, com ênfase na categoria de discurso narrativizado (Genette, 1972; Sant'Anna, 2004; Deusdará, 2006). Os resultados obtidos mostram que o recurso ao discurso narrativizado cria um efeito de objetividade máxima na captação da voz oficial.

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