“In Search of Conceptual Metaphors Through Text and Beyond”

What is a conceptual metaphor and how to search for it in a text? This workshop aims to introduce conceptual metaphor as an object and search tool when dealing with digital contexts and methodologies. Starting from an introductory definition of its conceptual essence (Lakoff & Johnson 1980, Lakoff 1993), we will start to question the challenging relationship between what is a metaphor, what is a text and eventually what can be done with and made of texts by using corpus based materials and methodologies. In other words, the “problem […] of interrogating something which is made of textual units for something which is a conceptual entity” (Ferrari, 2018: 106), well discussed and differently met by various scholars (e.g. Steen 1999, Steen et al 2010, among others), encounters a further challenge when the textual horizon is digitalized and we would like to treat it using the advances offered by digital engines (Charteris-Black 2004, Partington 1998, 2003, 2006, Stefanowitsch 2006a, 2006b). Various theoretical and methodological attempts at solving the problem of how to directly detect conceptual metaphors from the text using quantitative approaches have been made but much of the problem seems to remain unsolved. A practical exploration of a chosen conceptual metaphor will be offered using tools like Sketch Engine as source of textual materials as well as other search engines. Potentials and limits of encompassing digital tools when dealing with conceptual metaphor in texts will emerge to fuel further research and discussion. “What is certain though is that there is no way, as for what the research advancements have offered at present, to click a bottom and ask for research extraction directly” (Ferrari 2018: 108)