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Top1. Introduction
For many years, metaphor research has mostly followed the traditional literal-metaphorical dichotomy to identify metaphors. However, the research on metaphor in the past ten years has shown that there exists no clear-cut boundary between metaphorical language and literal language since both operate along a cline or continuum, that metaphorical language is more common than literal language in terms of linguistic manifestations and functions. Recently, corpus-based researches on metaphor, in most cases, rely on quantitative methods and empirical evidence, focusing on frequencies, forms and functions of metaphorical language (Deignan, 2005; Steen et al., 2010; Davies, 2012; Skorczynska, 2010; Semino et al., 2017). In particular, Deignan (2005) proposes that every metaphor has a life of its own and emphasizes the importance of semantic analysis through corpus methods. Semino et al. (2017) stands out for combining cognitive linguistics and quantitative analysis of conceptual domains with a corpus-assisted, quantitative methodology, incorporating lexical analysis at the level of the text. In fact, corpus linguistics is now a well-established methodology in the field of metaphor studies. How to integrate quantitative and qualitative methods to make a systematic exploration on the lexical, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic features of metaphorical language instances in a corpus-based metaphor research? Katie J. Patterson’ work, Understanding metaphor through corpora: A case study of metaphors in nineteenth century writing, one of the latest additions to the Routledge Advances in Corpus Linguistics series, provides an innovative solution to this problem.
In the monograph under review, Patterson introduces an original approach to studying metaphor by describing its lexical behaviors within nineteenth century writing, in an attempt to “show how far the theory of Lexical Priming is applicable to metaphoric language” and “determine the extent to which corpus linguistic methods and lexical priming enrich our understanding of metaphor” (p. 5). Hoey’s (2005) theory of Lexical Priming provides an explanation for the pervasiveness of the concepts collocation and colligation (Sinclair, 1991), and accounts for our motivation to conform to expectations or primings, which are dependent upon a community, genre and time, and have the ability to change. Hoey (2005) claims that every time we encounter a word we subconsciously note the patterns it tends to form with other words in certain contexts, eventually, owing to the cumulative effects of our encounters with this word, it becomes “part of our knowledge of a lexical item that it is used in certain combinations in certain kinds of text” (p. 10). These patterns, manifest in grammar and lexis as well as semantic association and pragmatic association, are encountered psychologically and created through repetition. When we reuse a lexical item, it is likely that we reproduce these combinations in their respective contexts in our own language production. Thus what makes this work engaging and pertinent is its holistic approach to the study of metaphor, focusing on both quantitative and qualitative methods, while integrating a corpus linguistic approach to explore the lexical, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic characteristics of metaphoric instances of language.