Metaphor, hyperbole, and irony: Uses in isolation and in combination in written discourse

Abstract

Highlights We study how metaphor, hyperbole, and irony are used in isolation and combination. We conducted a corpus analysis of Dutch economic news discourse. Typical combinations of metaphor-hyperbole differ from their usage in isolation. Irony was associated with hyperbole, but not with metaphor. Combinations of the three tropes reflected conventional rather than novel word use. AbstractWhile classical theories on rhetoric cluster figurative devices like metaphor, hyperbole, and irony under the encompassing category of tropes, current theories and research typically focus on one of the tropes in isolation. To determine how these different tropes are used in combinations, we conducted a large-scale corpus analysis of Dutch printed news discourse (54,851 words). For metaphor and hyperbole, we find that typical combinations are found in nouns and adjectives, showing that such combinations differ from the use of either trope in isolation. For hyperbole and irony, we find a relation between the two tropes in that ironic clauses contain more hyperbole than non-ironic clauses. In contrast, for metaphor and irony, we find no empirical evidence that the use of metaphors differs between ironic and non-ironic clauses. Analysis of clauses containing the three tropes of metaphor, hyperbole and irony shows that these may not always reflect novel and creative word use. Instead, various cases seem to contain conventional uses of metaphor and hyperbole.

A Corpus-Based Study on Metaphor and Hyperbole in English News Discourse

“…"For metaphor, we know that the distribution of metaphor across word class differs from the general distribution of word class" (Burgers et al, 2018). Such conclusion involving the relation between rhetorical devices and word class has been early drawn by Krennmayr (2015).…”

“…The corpus comprises news articles written in English news media in February 2019. It focuses on articles on economic topics, which are usually related to figurative language use (Burgers et al, 2018). Articles are collected from websites of six different English news outlets: three quality newspapers (The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Guardian) and three popular newspapers (News Weekly, The Daily Express and The Daily Mail).…”

“…Next is to zoom in on the word types related to the two tropes and their combinations. Trailing the tabulation employed by Burgers (2018), the question whether and how the combined usages of metaphor and hyperbole are different from their respective usages can be answered through comparisons between the distribution of different configurations across word class and the general distribution of word class described in Figure 2.…”

“…A flood of researches turn to focus on the cognitive conception of metaphor, having far advanced studies of cognitive linguistics, but meanwhile promoting most contemporary literature on figurative language to center on one trope in isolation rather than on tropes in combination. "An important topic in current studies of figurative language relates to the ways in which different tropes are related" (Burgers et al, 2018).…”

“…On the other hand, Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1985, 2008 holds that metaphor is "simply a range of cases at one end of a continuum that includes literal, loose and hyperbolic interpretations" (Sperber & Wilson, 2008:84). Distinct from the perspective above, this view argues that the distinction between literal and intended meaning is not unique to metaphor in that every utterance in human communication contains implications that are expected to be inferred (Burgers et al, 2018). Thereby, RT scholars categorize metaphor and hyperbole together as the loose use of language, on a continuum with approximations (Sperber & Wilson, 2008).…”