IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v14y2024i4p21582440241292871.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Functions of Ideational Metaphor in English

Author

Listed:
  • Jiangping Zhou

Abstract

Types of ideational metaphor in English considered in this research incorporate nominalization, verbalization, and adjectivization. Previous studies particularly highlighted functions of nominalization, leaving the other types of ideational metaphor unconsidered; in addition, expressions of ideational metaphor are not carefully selected while exploring the functions realized by these expressions. Against this backdrop, functions of ideational metaphor uncovered in previous studies are insufficient of coverage and typicality. Drawing on COCA in this research, a corpus of typical American English, expressions of the three types of ideational metaphor with significant attraction by means of the simple collexeme analysis are employed to analyze the functions that these metaphorical expressions actually realize in their linguistic contexts. The findings demonstrated that expressions of ideational metaphor could realize such interpersonal functions as authoritativeness and objectivity, such ideational functions as conciseness, abstractness, ambiguity, and semantic condensation, and such textual functions as formality and cohesion. Explanations to these realized functions of ideational metaphor are also provided. This research is of great significance in that the documented functions are typical and representative of ideational metaphor in English.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiangping Zhou, 2024. "Functions of Ideational Metaphor in English," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(4), pages 21582440241, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:21582440241292871
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440241292871
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440241292871
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440241292871?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:21582440241292871. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.