Metaphor and Mills: Figurative language in business and economics. Introduction

Herrera-Soler, Honesto; White, Michael

doi:10.1515/9783110274585.1

Cited by 9 publications

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“…Metaphor ‘has played a major role in establishing and transmitting essential economic concepts down through the ages’, and conceptual metaphor is ‘a core factor in the very construction of Economics discourse itself’ (Herrera-Soler & White, 2012, p. 3). Some conventional economy metaphors in political discourse are economy is a mechanical process in the USA and Japanese policy documents (Fukuda, 2009) and economic development is a journey and free economy is a sport / building / journey / living organism in political speeches (Zeng et al, 2020, 2021).…”

Section: Research Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economy or ecology: metaphor use over time in China’s Government Work Reports

Kong

Zhou

2023

Lang. cogn.

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Government attention selectively distributed to various issues in policy-making processes is usually reflected in language, such as metaphors in political discourse. In addition, metaphor change may reveal how conceptualizations of major topics such as economy and ecology evolve over time. After self-building a corpus of China’s 45-year Government Work Reports, this study explores whether there is a difference in attention to topics of economy and ecology over time and investigates the diachronic change of metaphor use on them based on a modified framework for diachronic metaphor change analysis. Results show that attention to economy has been steadily decreasing while attention to ecology has been growing, and that there is an increasing tendency of using more economy and ecology metaphors. Metaphor change on the use of source domains is arranged on a continuum, ranging from constant use (war for economy and ecology, and journey and object for economy), incremental change (living organism and building for economy and ecology, and object for ecology) to fundamental change (building and living organism for ecology). This study may enrich the understanding of diachronic metaphor change by providing a Chinese perspective on the metaphor use in government discourse over time.

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Section: Research Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economy or ecology: metaphor use over time in China’s Government Work Reports

Kong

Zhou

2023

Lang. cogn.

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“…On a side note, there also exists a well-established research tradition on the rhetoric of economics (McCloskey, 1983) in general and economic metaphors in particular (for a survey, see Herrera-Soler and White, 2012;Khalil, 1998).…”

Section: Leadership or What's In A Metaphor?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Distributed Cognitive Economics of Reform: A Framework

Lieber

2015

Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics

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We present an enriched cognitive approach to the political economy of reform based on the notion of distributed cognition. Our aim is to describe the origination causation of economic reforms highlighting the interactions between people, artefacts as well as internal and external representations. In particular, we ask how reformers are able to turn a cognitively ill-defined situation into a cognitively well-defined situation. The proposed framework, we tentatively call 'the distributed cognitive economics of reform', emphasizes three key messages: First, economic reforms are creative processes largely driven by self-organized innovation and acts of public entrepreneurship. Second, the cognitive distance between individuals both enables and constraints cooperation and, most importantly, learning. Third, reformers' ability to communicate to a wide range of audiences is crucial in times of reform. In consequence, successful reformers often rely on policy metaphors as primary means to manage high levels of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Presenting post-1978 Chinese economic reform as a case study, we argue that the notion of distributed cognition can improve our understanding of economic reform processes. JEL: B41, B52, P41, Z18Economic agents bring to their actions not just their preferences and endowments, but also their understandings-associations and meanings they have derived from their history of previous actions and experiences. In many of the small, standard problems of economics, we can ignore this. In the larger issues of development and reconstruction, and in constructing an economics for problems of complication and ill-definition, we cannot. We need to take cognition seriously. (Arthur, 2000) Grand reformist plans to straighten out thought, to induce all of us to apply the same normative guidelines across content domains and social context, are fated to run into sharp resistance from ordinary people who insist on thinking, feeling, and acting in seemingly incommensurable ways across spheres of activity and who appear content with ad hoc "compartmentalizing" solutions when conflicts are called to their attention (Tetlock et al., 2004, p. 261).

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“…Henderson, 1994;Charteris-Black & Ennis, 2001;Charteris-Black & Musolff, 2003;Herrera-Soler & White, 2012), few have examined the use of metaphor in project management discourse. The research conducted so far has revealed that building metaphors are generally more frequent in project management discourse than in general business discourse (Skorczynska, 2010).…”

Section: Metaphors In the Discipline Of Project Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

A case study of building and animal metaphors in specialized discourse: Are scholars’ metaphorical conceptualizations represented in discourse?

Skorczynska¹

2015

Rev. signos

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This study provides corpus-based evidence for the claim that metaphorical conceptualizations postulated by scholars in a particular discipline are expressed in specialized discourse. Scholars often propose alternative metaphors to address particular issues, and these metaphors may become more or less linguistically productive in specialized discourse. This corpus-based study looks into project management discourse to find evidence of two conceptual metaphors, proposed by scholars to enhance the understanding and management of real-life projects. The Chinese wall metaphor (Angling, 1988) was first postulated to depict situations in which several projects are managed simultaneously in a stone wall building-like manner. The alternative Chinese dragon metaphor (Eskerod, 1996) was later proposed to highlight the complexity and unpredictability of multi-project management. This study follows Philip's (2010) method to identify conceptual metaphors or metaphor themes in specialized discourse. The corpus of nearly 400,000 words used in this study included research papers as well as periodical journal articles. The results show a higher frequency and a broader range of metaphorical expressions for the animal theme, including the Chinese dragon metaphor. The study discusses how metaphorbased theoretical claims are reflected in specialized discourse and the consequences for management practices. ResumenEste estudio aporta pruebas basadas en los datos de corpus sobre cómo las conceptualizaciones metafóricas postuladas por los académicos en una disciplina encuentran su expresión en el discurso especializado. Los académicos a menudo proponen aproximaciones teóricas alternativas para afrontar problemáticas concretas. Estas aproximaciones pueden llegar a ser más o menos productivas a nivel lingüístico en el discurso especializado. En este trabajo se analiza el discurso sobre la gestión de proyectos para buscar evidencias del uso de las metáforas conceptuales que en su momento fueron propuestas por los académicos para mejorar el entendimiento y la gestión de los proyectos reales. La metáfora de la muralla china (Angling, 1988) fue postulada para describir las situaciones en las que se gestionan simultáneamente varios proyectos de una manera similar a la construcción de un muro. La alternativa metáfora del dragón chino (Eskerod, 1996) fue lanzada para realzar la complejidad de la gestión de proyectos múltiples. El estudio siguió el método de Philip (2010) para identificar las metáforas conceptuales o temas metafóricos en el discurso especializado. Un corpus de aproximadamente 400.000 palabras que incluye artículos de investigación, así como los artículos de revistas profesionales fue creado para este estudio. Los resultados obtenidos muestran los usos más frecuentes y expresiones metafóricas más variadas correspondientes al tema metafórico de animales, incluyendo la metáfora del dragón chino. El estudio comenta como las reivindicaciones basadas en metáforas se reflejan en el discurso especializado y sus consecuencias para...

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Metaphor and Mills: Figurative language in business and economics. Introduction

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Economy or ecology: metaphor use over time in China’s Government Work Reports

Economy or ecology: metaphor use over time in China’s Government Work Reports

The Distributed Cognitive Economics of Reform: A Framework

A case study of building and animal metaphors in specialized discourse: Are scholars’ metaphorical conceptualizations represented in discourse?

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Metaphor and Mills: Figurative language in business and economics. Introduction

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Economy or ecology: metaphor use over time in China’s Government Work Reports

Economy or ecology: metaphor use over time in China’s Government Work Reports

The Distributed Cognitive Economics of Reform: A Framework

A case study of building and animal metaphors in specialized discourse: Are scholars&#8217; metaphorical conceptualizations represented in discourse?

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A case study of building and animal metaphors in specialized discourse: Are scholars’ metaphorical conceptualizations represented in discourse?