Readership and Purpose in the Choice of Economics Metaphors

Skorczynska, Hanna; Deignan, Alice

doi:10.1207/s15327868ms2102_2

Cited by 81 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…There are two major strands of research regarding figurative language in English for business and economics. One is concerned with conceptual metaphor in business discourse, more specifically the types of metaphors used in economics texts and their cross-cultural variation (Boers, 1999;Boers & Demecheleer, 1997), metaphor use in business discourse (Charteris-Black & Musolff, 2003;Koller, 2004;Skorczynska & Deignan, 2006), and the function of metaphor in business meetings (Handford & Koester, 2010). Studies of metaphors in business discourse have shown that very productive source domains for metaphorical expressions in the language of economics and business are HEALTH, WAR and SPORT.…”

Section: Figurative Language In Business Discourse and Esp Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Idiom Variation in Business English Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study

Parizoska¹,

Rajh²

2017

ESP Today

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This paper deals with the variation of idioms from sport which are used to talk about competition in business, e.g. a level playing field. In business English textbooks they are listed in one form, whereas corpus data show that they occur in two or more lexical and/or syntactic forms. Furthermore, it has been shown that alterations result in a change in the overall meaning of the idiom and that different variation types serve specific functions. In order to explore the variability of idioms included in business English textbooks, we conducted two corpus studies of ten competition idioms. The aim is to show that competition idioms vary lexically and syntactically, and that there may be considerable differences between the textbook form and those in which the idioms occur in the corpora. In addition, we will give a cognitive linguistic account of how different variation types affect the idiomatic meaning and what functions they fulfil. The findings may have implications for teaching figurative language in ESP given that (1) idiom variation presents a challenge to non-native users of English, (2) idioms are frequently creatively exploited in discourse, and (3) idioms are used not only to convey information but also evaluation.Key words idioms, variation, business English, textbook, corpus. * Corresponding address: Jelena Parizoska, Studij dizajna, Frankopanska 12, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. IDIOM VARIATION IN BUSINESS ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS:A CORPUS-BASED STUDY Vol. 5(1)(2017): SažetakTema ovoga rada je varijantnost engleskih idioma koji tržišnu konkurenciju opisuju na osnovu sporta, npr. a level playing field 'ista pravila za sve'. U udžbenicima poslovnog engleskog jezika ti se idiomi navode u samo jednom obliku premda podaci iz korpusa pokazuju da se javljaju u dva ili više leksičkih i(li) sintaktičkih oblika. Prethodna istraživanja pokazuju da upotreba idioma u različitim oblicima ujedno znači i promenu njihovog značenja, kao i da se različite vrste varijanata upotrebljavaju u različite svrhe. U ovom radu prikazujemo dva korpusna istraživanja varijantnosti deset idioma koji se odnose na tržišnu konkurenciju, a koriste se u udžbenicima poslovnog engleskog jezika. Cilj nam je da pokažemo kako ti idiomi imaju promenljiv leksički sastav i strukturu, te da postoje značajne razlike između oblika idioma navedenih u udžbenicima i oblika koji se javljaju u korpusu. Uticaj različitih vrsta varijanata idioma na njegovo značenje i funkciju tumači se u teorijskom okviru kognitivne lingvistike. Rezultati imaju važne posledice za poučavanje figurativnih izraza u engleskom jeziku struke, uzevši u obzir sledeće: (1) varijantnost idioma predstavlja velik izazov za neizvorne govornike engleskog; (2) u diskursu je česta kreativna upotreba idioma; (3) idiomi nisu samo način prenosa informacija, nego imaju i evaluativnu funkciju.Ključne reči idiomi, varijantnost, poslovni engleski jezik, udžbenik, korpus.

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Section: Figurative Language In Business Discourse and Esp Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Idiom Variation in Business English Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study

Parizoska¹,

Rajh²

2017

ESP Today

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“…Research in this area to date has involved the use of corpus methods mainly (i) to test the claims of CMT by carrying out systematic investigations of metaphorical expressions in general-purpose corpora (e.g. Deignan 2005, Stefanowitsch 2006), or (ii) to carry out specific investigations of patterns of metaphorical expressions in particular genres and discourses (e.g. Charteris-Black 2004, Koller 2004, Nacey 2013).…”

Section: The Corpus and Our Approach To Metaphor Identification And Amentioning

confidence: 99%

A computer-assisted study of the use of Violence metaphors for cancer and end of life by patients, family carers and health professionals

Demmen

Semino

Demjén

et al. 2015

IJCL

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This study combines quantitative semi-automated corpus methods with manual qualitative analysis to investigate the use of Violence metaphors for cancer and end of life in a 1,500,000-word corpus of data from three stakeholder groups in healthcare: patients, family carers and healthcare professionals. Violence metaphors in general, especially military metaphors, are conventionally used to talk about illness, particularly cancer. However, they have also been criticized for their potentially negative implications. The use of innovative methodology enables us to undertake a more rigorous and systematic investigation of Violence metaphors than has previously been possible. Our findings show that patients, carers and professionals use a much wider set of Violence-related metaphors than noted in previous studies, and that metaphor use varies between interview and online forum genres and amongst different stakeholder groups. Our study has implications for the computer-assisted study of metaphor, metaphor theory and analysis more generally, and communication in healthcare settings.

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“…On the one hand, there is a solid research tradition focusing on the classification of the main economic metaphors in basic source domains (natural phenomena, living organisms, health and disease, mechanical objects, etc.). This category of research includes works with a generic and universal approach (Boers & Demecheleer, 1997;Boers, 1999;Jáckel, 1997;Resche, 1998;Richardt, 2005;Skorcynska & Deignan, 2006) as well as studies on the peculiarities of national economic discourses (Fukuda, 2009;Orts & Rojo, 2009). It is relatively common that both types of studies deal with the metaphorical representation of economic issues in the media, above all in the economic and financial media (Herrera Soler, 2008;Koller, 2003;Koller, 2006;Porto & Romano, 2013;Sarmiento, 2007;Greco, 2009).…”

Section: Metaphors Economics and Financementioning

confidence: 99%

Euro crisis metaphors in the Spanish press

Arrese

2015

Communication & Society

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This article aims to analyze the use of economic metaphors in the particular case of the European sovereign debt crisis, by the examination of the public discourse as reflected in the Spanish press. The general hypothesis, in accordance with the research undertaken in similar studies on economic metaphors, is that one can expect a fairly common use of the same metaphors -the most traditional ones-and with the same weight among different newspapers, in spite of their editorial and journalistic diversity. The context of the study and the research approach are justified by addressing in the first part of this article a synthetic review of three research fields that converge around this topic: the analysis of conceptual metaphors, the use of them in financial and economic discourses and their particular categorization to make sense of the crisis situations. In the second part, the empirical research design is explained. Finally, the main results are stated and their significance explained. The study confirms the hypothesis of a very high uniformity in the use of the main metaphors among newspapers, which is translated into a problematic, one-sided, interpretation of the crisis.

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Readership and Purpose in the Choice of Economics Metaphors

Cited by 81 publications

References 27 publications

Idiom Variation in Business English Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study

Idiom Variation in Business English Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study

A computer-assisted study of the use of Violence metaphors for cancer and end of life by patients, family carers and health professionals

Euro crisis metaphors in the Spanish press

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