Metaphor and Discourse

The contributors to Metaphor and Discourse present a collection of work on the functioning of metaphor in public discourse and related discourse areas from a broadly cognitive-linguistic background. Discourse scholars have for a long time been concerned with the methodological difficulties of identifying, annotating, and analysing metaphors, as well as with the complex relations between the embodiment of metaphorical thought on the one hand and the socio-cultural grounding of metaphorical communication on the other. A substantial body of work has grown out of these concerns over the last two decades. The present book provides a state-of-the-art overview of this lively research field, and furthermore contributes to debates in Cognitive Linguistics (and beyond) regarding tensions between conceptualist idealizations and empirically observable variation. Book jacket.

ANDREAS MUSOLFF is Professor of German at the University of Durham, UK and has published on German and English public discourse and metaphor theory. His books include Metaphor and Political Discourse and Mirror Images of Europe; he has co-edited volumes on Attitudes Toward Europe and Discourses of Intercultural Identity. 

JORG ZINKEN is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His research interests include the discursive grounding of metaphorical meaning, the use of metaphor in expressive writing, and the history of metaphors which frame debates about the significance of language diversity for understanding human psychology.