LINGUIST List 14.1046

Tue Apr 8 2003

Diss: Text/Corpus Ling: Koller "Metaphor Clusters..."

Editor for this issue: Anita Yahui Huang <anitalinguistlist.org>

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  • veronika.koller, Text/Corpus Ling: Koller "Metaphor Clusters in Business Media..."

    Message 1: Text/Corpus Ling: Koller "Metaphor Clusters in Business Media..."

     Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2003 08:04:45 +0000
    From: veronika.koller <veronika.kollerwu-wien.ac.at>
    Subject: Text/Corpus Ling: Koller "Metaphor Clusters in Business Media..."




    Institution: Vienna University Program: Department of English Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2003

    Author: Veronika Koller

    Dissertation Title: Metaphor Clusters in Business Media Discourse: A Social Cognition Approach

    Linguistic Field: Text/Corpus Linguistics, Semantics, Discourse Analysis

    Subject Language: English (code: ENG)

    Dissertation Director 1: Herbert Schendl Dissertation Director 2: Wolfgang Obenaus

    Dissertation Abstract:

    Combining critical language study with cognitive semantics, this thesis looks at how metaphor usage in business media texts on a) marketing and b) mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is linked to discourse and cognition as well as to the socio-economic framework these are embedded in.

    The study is based on two purpose-built machine-readable corpora of texts from British and US businessmagazines and newspapers. These were first subjected to computer-assisted quantitative analysis to search for metaphoric usage of items from previously established lexical fields (war, sports and games for marketing as well as evolutionary struggle--sub-divided into fighting, mating and feeding--for M&A). The quantitative results then served as the starting point for a qualitative functional grammar analysis of sample texts, which in turn resulted in assumed socio-cognitive models underlying the two discourses.

    The analyses show that in quantitative terms, metaphorical expressions of war/fighting dominate both discourses, followed by sports and mating and then games and feeding, resp. In addition, the dominant metaphors are also qualitatively supported by the other metaphors in the clusters, with alternative romance (marketing) or dancing (M&A) metaphors being either marginalized or co-opted into the dominant cluster.

    Discussed critically, the features of business media discourse thus ascertained are seen as originating from and impacting on cognition and the wider socio-economic sphere by reifiying business as a male-defined social practice.