A corpus study of metaphors and metonyms

in English and Italian

Alice Deignan
a,*
, Liz Potter
b
a
School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
b
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Received 5 June 2000; received in revised form 12 September 2003; accepted 8 October 2003
Abstract
Apowerful claimof conceptual metaphor theory is that the most central metaphors are grounded in
bodily experience. It might be expected that these metaphors would be shared by different languages.
In this paper, we use large computerised corpora of English and Italian to examine the power of
conceptual metaphor theory to explain the non-literal senses of lexis fromthe eld of the human body.
We nd a number of equivalent expressions across the two languages which seem to be traceable to
the body-mind mappings described in work by Sweetser [FromEtymology to Pragmatics, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1990] and others. We also nd that metonymy is a signicant force for
generating non-literal expressions, and that a large number of expressions are apparently generated
by a combination of metaphor and metonymy [Cogn. Linguist. 1 (1990) 323]. This cross-linguistic
study suggests that while universal bodily experience may motivate many gurative expressions, the
process is sometimes complex, and will not necessarily result in equivalent expressions in different
languages, for cultural and linguistic reasons.
# 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Conceptual metaphor; Corpus linguistics; English; Italian; Metaphor; Metonymy
1. Introduction
For researchers in language description, the work of Lakoff and his followers
(e.g. Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) has potentially great explanatory power.
One implication is that the different senses of a polysemous word are not arbitrary
historical developments, but can be traced to an underlying conceptual metaphor. Their
Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
0378-2166/$ see front matter # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2003.10.010
*
Corresponding author. Fax: 44-113-233-4541.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Deignan), [email protected] (L. Potter).
model (often termed conceptual metaphor theory) thus offers an explanation for why
two distinct semantic elds can be talked about using many of the same words and
expressions: each of these pairs of words and expressions can be seen as the realisation of a
conceptual metaphor that connects the two domains at the level of thought. For instance,
lexical items from the eld of light, such as radiant or bright are also used in the eld of
emotion to describe happiness, realising the conceptual metaphor HAPPINESS IS LIGHT
(Kovecses, 1991).
Because conceptual metaphor theory claims to describe central processes and structures
of human thought, it is not language-specic and should have explanatory power for
languages other than English; it is therefore of potential use in cross-linguistic research.
Although Lakoff (1993) rarely refers to languages other than English, his discussion of the
theory is suggestive. He claims that the most central metaphors are grounded in our human
physical experience (1993: 240), and as evidence for this position, argues that where the
same conceptual metaphors exist in different languages, they tend to function in similar
ways. For instance, he claims that in languages where directions are used to talk
metaphorically about quantities, the equation is always UP with MORE and DOWN with LESS,
never the reverse. Gibbs (1993, 1994) also argues for the experiential basis of central
metaphors. He examines linguistic metaphors used to talk about anger and claims that
many of these are realisations of the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A
CONTAINER. Examples that reect this metaphor are She got all steamed up and I was
fuming (1994: 203). He claims that we each perceive our own body as a container and
when we become angry we experience physical sensations of heat and internal pressure,
and therefore, the metaphor has an experiential motivation. This would imply that the same
conceptual metaphor and similar linguistic realisations might be found in other cultures
and languages.
There have been a number of cross-linguistic studies which have investigated the
possibility that metaphors are not language-specic. Sweetser has carried out research on
conceptual metaphors of perception across a number of languages, nding that they are
highly consistent (1990). Detailed comparisons of individual languages suggest that
emotion metaphors are also shared. For instance, Yu (1995) analysed Chinese metaphors
for anger and found that the heat and pressure elements of the metaphor are the same as
those in English described by Gibbs (1994); the only difference between the two languages
is that gas is used instead of uid to characterise anger in the Chinese metaphor. Emanatian
(1995) studied metaphors in Chagga, a language spoken in Tanzania, and found lexicalisa-
tions of LUSTIS FIRE, a metaphor in English identied by Lakoff (1987). Kovecses examined
metaphors for happiness in Hungarian and found many commonalities with English and
Chinese (2002). The similarities between metaphorical mappings found by these research-
ers, across unrelated languages, show that at least some conceptual metaphors are widely
shared.
Researchers have not found complete consistency however. Deignan et al. (1997)
investigated metaphors in Polish and English by asking English-speaking Polish infor-
mants to gauge the translatability of English metaphors into Polish. They found a number
of close equivalents across the two languages, but they also found cases where linguistic
metaphors varied. In some cases it seemed likely that this was because the linguistic
expressions are different surface realisations of the same conceptual metaphor. However,
1232 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
they also found cases where apparently different conceptual metaphors were used. This
last nding might be reconcilable with the contemporary theory, if it were argued that the
language-specic conceptual metaphors they found are in some way less fundamental
than those that they found in both languages (but this is a somewhat circular argument).
Boers and Demecheleer (1997) studied metaphors in economics texts in English, French
and Dutch, and found differences in the frequencies of various metaphors across the three
languages, differences which they ascribed to cultural factors. It seems then that there is
evidence that some metaphors are common to a number of languages, but a great deal
more work is needed to determine the extent and relative frequencies of shared
metaphors.
2. Aims and approaches
The contemporary theory of metaphor has for the most part been developed by cognitive
linguists and psychologists, whose central goal is to nd out more about thought.
Researchers in language description have a different agenda; while they do not deny
the importance of thought, their own central concern is to account for patterns found in
language in use. This difference in aims leads to differences in focus and methodology. For
cognitive linguists, the purpose of examining language data is to prove or disprove
hypotheses about conceptual links and processes. This may mean that surface linguistic
features of the data, such as the preference for one lexical item over its synonym, are
relatively unimportant. It also seems to imply a tolerance, or even preference, for elicited or
invented data over naturally-occurring data. This is in part because by using elicitation
techniques, researchers can attempt to observe and measure the process of language
production itself. The use of invented sentences in experiments also enables close
comparisons to be made, for instance, between participants reactions to the literal and
metaphorical uses of the same language items in various contexts (see for example, Frisson
and Pickering, 2001).
For language description however, the value of a model of thought processes lies in its
potential to explain observed features of language in use. Conceptual metaphor theory is
highly relevant in its potential to explain some linguistic patterns, but the focus of
investigation is the linguistic data, and the explanatory power of the theory is tested
against the patterns found. In this approach, details of surface linguistic structure are of
central interest because it is believed that apparently minor surface features, if found to
occur regularly, may accumulate to reveal new patterns and generate more accurate
descriptions. Naturally-occurring data is preferred over elicited data, particularly given
ndings about the disparity between what people actually write and say, as revealed in
corpus studies, and what they think they write and say (Sinclair, 1991: 4). The concern is
with central and typical patterns of language (Tognini-Bonelli, 2001), but an adequate
description of these can then form the backdrop for studies of poetic or deviant language
(see for example, Louw, 1993). However, although the primary goal of a language
description approach is to account satisfactorily for language, it is nonetheless possible
that the detailed examination of supercial linguistic features could have implications for
our understanding of thought.
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1233
3. Corpora and methodology
The study described here aims to describe and compare a set of related linguistic
metaphors across two languages, English and Italian, within the framework of con-
ceptual metaphor theory. As discussed in Section 1, a central issue in the cross-linguistic
study of metaphor is the extent to which we draw on human universals in order to create
shared metaphors. Several important studies have suggested that the domain of body
parts is central in metaphorising bodily experience (for example, Goossens, 1990;
Sweetser, 1990), and we therefore chose to investigate metaphors from this source
domain.
Adifculty for any corpus investigation is the wealth of data that could be examined, and
a decision about which lexemes to focus on has to be made. There is a risk that patterns of
potential interest may be missed, a risk which is difcult to avoid completely, because
without a vast team of researchers and unlimited time, it is not possible to examine every
linguistic realisation of a whole semantic eld. In trying to minimise this risk when we
selected the lexemes to focus on in this study, we drew on an earlier overview of the source
domain that had been undertaken using a corpus approach (Deignan, 1995). This high-
lighted some key linguistic items in English, four of which were chosen for investigation
after initial corpus searches showed that they also have extensive metaphorical uses in
Italian. The items were nose, mouth, eye and heart, and their Italian translation equivalents
naso, bocca, occhio and cuore. All derived and inected forms of the items and some of
their collocates were also studied.
Three computerised corpora were used: the English corpus is the Bank of English, which
contained 329 million words at the time of the study, and the Italian data come from two
corpora totalling around 35 million words.
1
Corpus data were analysed using some of the
techniques developed in corpus lexicography as follows: rstly, the software was used to
randomly select manageable samples, as the lexemes we studied generated many thousands
of citations. Then, for general overviews of the main senses, 1000 citations of each word
form were examined; wider searches for a few specic expressions were also made. The
software we used presents citations using the Key Word In Context (KWIC) concordance
format, as illustrated in Fig. 1.
As can be seen, in most cases, the 80 characters of context provided are sufcient for a
preliminary identication of meaning. For instance, it is immediately evident that citations
1 and 7 contain a non-literal use of mouth; it is possible to study further context, which
conrms that the meanings in 8 and 11 are also non-literal.
The main collocates of each lexeme were identied automatically for the English data,
and manually for the Italian. Particular collocates are often associated with a particular
sense; attack and disease for instance, are overwhelmingly associated with the literal sense
of heart, while break occurs with a non-literal sense. Collocates can also signal evaluative
meaning or semantic prosody (Louw, 1993); for instance, when mouth is used to refer to
1
The Bank of English is owned by HarperCollins Publishers and is held at the University of Birmingham,
England. The Italian Reference Corpus and the Parole Corpus are held at the ILC-CNR in Pisa .The IRC consists
of approximately 15 million words of written Italian, two thirds of which is newspaper and magazine journalism,
the rest fiction and non-fiction books. The Parole corpus is approximately 20 million words and contains similar
types of material, with some overlap with the IRC.
1234 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
someones way of speaking, it is almost invariably premodied by a word which evaluates
negatively in this context, such as foul, lthy, and big.
The main literal and non-literal senses of each item were then identied. This process
was supported by dictionaries of each language and the researchers experience in
lexicography, particularly in the lexicographical description of non-literal language (see
for example, Deignan, 1995; Moon, 1995). Because neither researcher is a native
speaker of Italian, a native speaker informant was also consulted. The English
dictionary used was Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary (1995), and the
Italian dictionaries consulted were the Collins Italian Dictionary (1995), the Collins
Sansoni Italian-English Dictionary (1988), Il Nuovo Ragazzini (1984) and Il Nuovo
Zingarelli (1988).
The non-literal citations were then studied in more detail. We examined the different
types of non-literal meaning found, attempting to identify metonymies and metaphors, and
cases of interaction between the two (Goossens, 1990). In many cases, body metaphors
occurred in collocation with the metaphorical uses of other words, a fact which is
unsurprising given the frequency of metaphor in language generally. We did not study
these other metaphors, and they were disregarded except in the (fairly frequent) cases of
xed expressions such as heart of gold, where the entire phrase has a metaphorical meaning
that results from the collocation of a body-part word with another word. The process of
trying to determine what type of non-literal mapping had motivated each expression
inevitably ran parallel with deciding to what extent each was grounded in bodily
experience; that is, in practical terms, disentangling the various non-literal devices at
work is not separable from the process of analysing the various semantic links between
literal and non-literal uses.
Both corpora consist of contemporary texts, but while the English corpus contains both
written and spoken material, the Italian data is all written, and the proportions allotted to
various genres differ in the two corpora. Unfortunately, this means that the cross-
linguistic comparisons of the frequency of different senses of lexemes cannot be
considered reliable, and it could not be asserted that the frequencies of senses found
in either of these corpora exactly mirror frequencies in either language as a whole.
Nonetheless, some very general conclusions as to the frequency or rarity of expressions
can be drawn from these data.
1. nd thats straight from the horses mouth. Naylor: Grace al-Wasa is
2. drug was difficult to administer by mouth because patients suffering
3. He holds the bottle poised near his mouth but cannot remember to
4. The only thing he can play is the mouth organ. He makes his
5. to spit. Encourage him to rinse his mouth out with fresh water
6. topped breathing immediate mouth to mouth resuscitation must be
7. My son just took the words from my mouth," said Harry. And I have
8. of Clapham Junction. Nancys filthy mouth shouldnt distract from
9. said, raising his left thumb to his mouth. Thanks for the shells,
10. at Stan, her colourless little mouth was trembling. `Police?
11. was going was because he had a big mouth. We put two and two
12. merely stared, not answering, her mouth working as though she
Fig. 1. Extract of the KWIC concordance for mouth; text coding removed.
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1235
As would have been expected, given the ndings of the cross-linguistic studies cited
above, we found a range of equivalent and non-equivalent meanings across the two
languages. We identied some non-literal senses that have the same meaning in both
languages and are used with the same connotations and in similar contexts. We also found
non-literal senses that are roughly similar but have slightly different lexicalisations. In each
corpus there are non-literal senses that were not found in the other. In the following
sections, we present our ndings with examples, and we consider to what extent our data
can be explained by the conceptual metaphor theory, and what linguistic tendencies they
reveal.
4. Non-literal language in the corpora: frequency and fixedness
The most immediately striking nding is that non-literal language is extremely common,
often accounting for a substantial proportion of the corpus citations of a word. This is
consistent with the reported experience of corpus lexicographers (Lewis, 1993). In our
data, for example, around 65% of citations of head(s) and heart(s), around 50% of hand(s)
and eye(s), around 25% of citations of nose(s), and around 17% of citations of mouth are
non-literal (but see Section 5 where the difculty of distinguishing literal from non-literal
uses of body lexis is discussed).
Another general observation is that a very large proportion of metaphors and metonyms
appear in expressions that have some degree of xedness. This can be seen in an analysis of
the use of heart to refer to the seat of emotions. The following four citations of this use were
chosen at random from the concordance:
. . .opening her heart during the Cannes Film Festival.
It broke her heart.
I apologise from the bottom of my heart if I have hurt anyones feelings.
. . . talking until dawn about affairs of the heart.
At rst glance, the data might suggest a metaphor that combines freely with other lexical
items. However, a closer examination of citations reveals many semi-xed expressions
such as [ones] heart goes out to or [be] a child at heart. Table 1 shows a breakdown of the
citations of this use of non-literal heart. (This does not cover the whole range of the non-
literal use of heart; other uses such as the expression take heart, in which heart seems to
mean courage are not included in the table.)
Of the sample 1000 citations of heart, over half are non-literal, and of these, 247 seem to
have the meaning seat of emotions. As Table 1 shows, in 177 of these 247 citations, heart
appears in a collocation which occurs three or more times in the sample. The remaining 70
citations are apparently cases where heart combines freely with other words. However,
examination of some of these citations suggests that if a larger sample were studied, more
collocations and idioms would emerge. For instance, although the expressions in which
heart appears in the following citations occur only once in the sample, wider corpus
1236 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
Table 1
Freely combining uses and collocations with heart, meaning seat of emotions, found in a sample 1000
citations, ordered by frequency
Number of
citations
Freely
combining/collocation
Example
70 Freely combining . . . blue eyes that could melt a mothers heart . . .
. . . heart searching meetings
. . . dear to my heart
38 Break someones heart,
heart-broken, etc.
I havent been able to eat or sleep and it breaks
my heart to look at Elaine
20 In someones heart He is still with us, in our memory, in our hearts
and in our daily life
John knew in his heart that it was not Anthonys
age but his attitude which gave little hope
10 Open ones heart He opened his heart after an emotional first
round victory
9 At heart They had the interests of shareholders at heart
9 Win/capture someones heart . . . (his) predecessor, who won the hearts of the
entire world
David, as he became known, captured the hearts
of millions
8 From the heart I dont know how eloquent it will sound. It will
come from the heart and thats important
8 Rend/wrench heart/heart rending It is heart rending to see animals who have suffered
8 Warm someones heart,
heart warming
The funniest, corniest, heart-warmingest comedy
youll see for 20 years
6 Heart goes out Words cannot express my sorrowmy heart goes
out to the family
6 Have a heart It proved that even in a cruel business like the record
industry, many people have hearts
5 Affairs/matters of the heart (They are) inept especially when it comes to matters
of the heart
5 Set ones heart on I have really set my heart on getting married
5 Heart and soul . . . A two-man battle with Buchanan for the heart and
soul of the republican party
5 To heart He will probably take what is said to heart
4 Heart ache It is obvious how much her heart aches for Lin
4 Heart of hearts . . . even when we know in our heart of hearts its
time to switch from laid-back whizz kid to young
professional mode its so hard
4 Have a place in someones heart She has a very special place in your hearts
4 Have/with a heavy heart The decision to terminate his contract has been made
with a heavy heart
4 Hand on heart Hand on heart, I can tell they are looking forward to
the game
3 From the bottom of someones heart From the bottom of my heart I thank all the staff for
their warmth and kindness
3 Close to someones heart Go for something or some sort of subject which is
close to their heart
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1237
searches show that they are not unique in the corpus; intuition also suggests that they are
conventionalised:
. . . blue eyes that could melt a mothers heart . . .
. . . heart-searching meetings . . .
. . . dear to my heart.
It could be argued from these data then that this sense of heart is not a freestanding
lexical item; rather, the word occurs in a large number of multi-word expressions in which
it carries the idea of seat of emotions.
While we are not arguing that non-literal expressions are never single words, the
concordance analyses that we discuss in this paper have suggested that there is a strong
tendency towards the development of multi-word expressions when words are used non-
literally. This may be related to Cruses (1986: 72) observation about the modication of
metaphorical uses; he points out that metaphorical uses of mouth are usually post-
modied, in, for example, mouth of the river or mouth of the bottle. He argues that
unmodied mouth, used in an utterance such as his example At school we are doing
a project on mouths, would be assumed to refer to the non-metaphorical sense. It may
be then that there is a tendency for the non-literal uses of frequent words to have
regular collocates and syntactic patterns, as this helps to disambiguate them from literal
uses.
Table 1 shows 24 multi-word expressions for this sense of heart alone; it also shows that
a few of these, such as break someones heart, are relatively frequent. The other lexemes
that we studied also appeared in a number of fairly frequent, non-literal, semi-xed
collocations. However, we found a rather different picture for a related class of multi-word
expressions, namely, pure idioms, or opaque metaphors. Following Moon (1998), we
use these terms to refer to the class of colourful multi-word expressions that are
semantically opaque and relatively xed, and that are probably prototypical of the category
idiom for most people. In the corpora that we searched, idioms of this kind are rare both in
terms of type and token: that is, a limited number was found, and those that were found
were infrequent. For instance, the English expressions wear ones heart on ones sleeve,
meaning display romantic feelings openly, put someones nose out of joint, meaning
upset someone, and the Italian expression avere il cuore sulle labbra, meaning show
ones (strong) feelings [literally, have ones heart on ones lips], were all infrequent. The
English expressions were found once per thousand citations of heart and nose, while the
Table 1 (Continued )
Number of
citations
Freely
combining/collocation
Example
3 Hard heart/harden ones heart He has hardened his heart against the misery
he is causing
3 Heart to heart Well you know rely on your friends and whatever
you do, do try and yeah have a heart to heart
3 Heart/head His heart ruled his head
1238 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
Italian expression was found just once in the entire corpus. The nding that pure idioms are
relatively infrequent is consistent with the detailed corpus study of xed expressions and
idioms carried out by Moon (1998), who also raises the interesting question of how these
colourful idioms can be so apparently familiar to language users when their actual
occurrence is generally rare.
5. Types of non-literal language found
Having made some general observations about frequency and about the linguistic
patterns we noted, we move on to describe the different kinds of non-literal language
that we found in the data. We divide these into metaphor, metonymy, and two further
classes which involve the interaction of metaphor and metonymy, which are taken from
Goossens dictionary-based explorations of non-literal language (1990, 1995). We add a
fth category, image, which spans the literal/non-literal boundary.
5.1. Metaphor
A strong view of conceptual metaphor theory suggests that clusters of semantically
related lexis are mapped onto an abstract semantic domain, recreating the lexical
relationships which hold in the concrete source domain. Lakoff and Johnson, for
example, show how ideas are talked of in terms of plants (1980: 47). In this mapping,
the relationship of antonymy that holds between barren and fertile in the source domain
is maintained in the target domain, as are the causal and temporal relationships between
words and phrases such as sow a seed, grow, blossom, and bear fruit. Corpus research has
shown that systematic metaphorical mappings of this type are frequent in naturally-
occurring language (Deignan, 1995). In this study, one such metaphor that we found
maps the source domain of an animals body onto the target domain of an aircraft or
vehicle, in citations such as
The helicopter would land, her nose into the wind.
The pair had driven nose to tail on the rain-soaked track.
Weve replaced some wide-body aircraft with narrow-body aircraft on various
routes for more efficiency.
However, we found that there were relatively few clear-cut cases of systematic
metaphorical mappings like this; this study did not suggest that such mappings result
in many signicant frequent senses of body part lexis.
We also found a few instances of one-shot metaphors, that is, metaphors which are
apparently not part of a systematic mapping. For instance, mouth is used to talk about
openings of tunnels or buildings, and the point where a river meets the sea. This is a fairly
frequent use in English, accounting for 5% of citations of singular mouth (see Table 2).
However, such clear-cut cases of metaphor were not common in either the English or
Italian concordance data examined; most of the non-literal language found was more
complex in nature.
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1239
5.2. Metonymy
Up to this point we have tended to talk in general terms about non-literal language,
rather than attempting to distinguish metaphor and metonymy; to do so necessitates a
clarication of the notion of metonymy. This trope is generally understood as being a
transference within a single semantic eld rather than across two elds, the metonymbeing
Table 2
Non-literal senses of bocca found in sample 1000 citations from the Italian corpus
Number of
citations
Italian English Example
Mouth standing for speech
45 rimanere/restare etc a bocca aperta:
be amazed (lit. have ones mouth open)
Resteranno tutti a bocca aperta
18 aprir bocca/non ha aperto bocca: open
ones mouth/not open ones mouth,
speak/not speak
Ma non avevo ancora aperto bocca
16 (parlare) per bocca di qualcuno:
(speak) through the mouth of someone
essi parlano per bocca sua
Il commento piu` aspro e` venuto dalla
Confindustria, per bocca del vicedirettore
generale, Carlo Ferronil
15 essere sulla bocca di (tutti/qualcuno):
be on everyone/someones lips
La storia del gran rifiuto e` sulla bocca di tutti
5 chiudere la bocca: to shut up Meglio anzi che teniate chiusa la bocca.
E
`
la cosa migliore che possiate fare
2 mettere parole, una storia in bocca a
qualcuno: put words, a story into
someones mouth
. . . mette in bocca a Socrate la leggenda
del dio egizio Thot
1 essere trasmessa dalla bocca di
qualcuno: be passed from the mouth
of someone
. . . quanti quantita` innumerevole di figli hanno,
trasmessi loro dalla bocca dei loro padri e
dei loro nonni . . .
(102)
Mouth standing for eating
4 rimanere a bocca asciutta: to
have a dry mouth, be disappointed
Aveva la bocca asciutta perche era stato a
discutere tutto il pomeriggio
Tutto questo mentre lEuropa e` rimasta a
bocca asciutta
1 riempirsi la bocca: fill the
mouth/talk about
In Italia ci riempiamo la bocca di Europa,
ma siamo ancora troppo nazionalisti
(5)
Other
10 la bocca da fuoco/di cannone/di caverna:
the muzzle of a gun/cannon/the mouth
of a cave
Stavano dietro la bocca da fuoco,
traguardavano dallalzo panoramico
. . . la bocca di un cannone di enorme calibro
Finita la cerimonia rinchiusero la bocca della
caverna col pietrone e lo lasciarono la`
(10)
1240 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
one aspect of an entity which is used to refer to its whole. Warren (1999: 133) talks about
the distinction in terms of interpretation, arguing that the basic difference between
metonymy and metaphor is that the interpretation of metonyms involves retrieving a
relation, whereas the interpretation of metaphors involves retrieving at least one attribute,
shared by the conventional and intended referents.
Much of the earlier literature on metonymy cites examples such as the use of wheels to
refer to a car, ham sandwich to refer to a person who has ordered a ham sandwich, or sax to
refer to a saxophone player (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Many such examples are context-
bound, and so outside a general description of language, as is the case for the second and
third of the above examples. These are of interest as a device by which speakers use shared
context for efcient communication, but they do not result in permanent additions to the
lexicon and are therefore of minor interest to researchers concerned with the description of
general and typical language use. However, work such as that of Kovecses (2000, 2002) has
shown that metonymy can be a broader and more generative force than these examples
suggest. Particularly relevant to the analysis of body part lexis is the argument that the
physical effects and the emotional experience of a feeling could be regarded as part of the
same domain. This means that describing the physiological effects of an emotion in order
to refer to that emotion is an instance of metonymy. Drawing on his own and Kovecses
important work in the eld of emotions, Lakoff argues that there is a general metonymic
principle that the effects of an emotion can stand for the emotion (1987). Kovecses uses this
argument to suggest that numerous expressions such as to have cold feet are metonyms;
one part or element of the domain of fear is an assumed drop in body temperature (2000:
5). Thus, to have cold feet is an example of the conceptual metonymy A DROP IN BODY
TEMPERATURE STANDS FOR FEAR, (ibid.). Similarly, it could be argued that describing a
physical gesture that conventionally expresses a feeling, can be a metonymic reference to
the feeling.
With this understanding of metonymy, it seems likely that the language of the human
body is the basis for a large number of metonyms, because our physical selves constantly
reect our mental states. However, the concordance data that we examined showed few
such clear-cut metonymies. While much of the non-literal language that we analysed has a
component of metonymy, most of the mappings were complex, as described in the
following two subsections.
5.3. Metonymy within metaphor
The traditional understanding that there is a sharp distinction between metaphor and
metonymy has been reconsidered by a number of researchers. The position is now widely
taken that the two tropes should be seen as interacting with each other (Goossens, 1990,
1995), or existing on a continuum (Barcelona, 2000a,b; Radden, 2000). This view was
strongly supported by our analysis of citations from both English and Italian.
In each of the corpora, some citations were found that seem to show both metaphoric and
metonymic processes in their development. Some of these appear to be examples of an
interaction which Goossens terms metonymy within metaphor (1990, 1995), where a
metonymically used entity is embedded within a (complex) metaphorical expression (1995:
172). Oneof Goossens examplesistheexpressionbiteonestongueoff: herethetongueisused
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1241
metonymically to stand for speech, and the expression as a whole is used metaphorically
to mean deprive oneself of the facility of speech. If metaphorical language is viewed as
the product of an etymological process, we could see metonymy within metaphor as
having two stages; rst a metonymy stands for an associated entity within a wider, literal
context, producing the literal bite ones tongue off, meaning prevent oneself
from speaking. In the second stage, the phrase containing the metonym is itself used to
talk metaphorically about a more abstract idea: I could bite my tongue off is very rarely
interpreted literally but is understood to mean prevent myself from speaking again.
In our data we found a number of expressions which seem to show this type of
interaction. For instance, the Italian expression essere di bocca buona can be translated
literally into English as to be of good mouth. The mouth is a conventional metonym for
eating, and therefore one of the meanings of the Italian expression is to describe someone
who habitually eats well. However, the expression is also used to describe a person who is
easily pleased, a meaning which appears to result from a metaphorical transfer from the
eld of eating to the more abstract eld of likes and dislikes.
In both English and Italian, the mouth often also stands metonymically for speaking (the
lexical item lips rather than mouth often realises the mapping in English). The Italian
expression parlare a mezza bocca [literally, speak with half-mouth] has a meaning of
speak unclearly. It also has a non-literal meaning of hinting, which has connotations of
dishonesty or reluctance, as in the following citation:
Propone a mezza bocca un referendum consultivo. [He reluctantly (literally,
with half mouth) proposes a consultative referendum.]
There are a number of similar examples in the data. For instance, the nose stands
metonymically for the foremost part of the body in both languages, which leads to the
expression follow your nose and its Italian translation equivalent, both meaning go
forward in a straight line. The expression is then used metaphorically to mean follow
ones instincts.
The expression to get back on ones feet is used to talk about physical recovery from an
illness; this seems to be an instance of metonymy, on the grounds that a sick person
prototypically lies down, and when they recover they stand up again. The expression is
used metaphorically to refer to situations such as improvements in a companys fortunes, in
citations such as:
Bankruptcy laws are designed to give ailing companies a chance to get back on their
feet.
5.4. Metaphor from metonymy
A clear division between literal and non-literal citations of a word is not always
possible: for some citations both a metaphorical and a literal interpretation are possible,
with one shading into the other. For instance, Kittay discusses the expression my hands
were tied, and argues that it may not always be possible to be sure whether a literal or
metaphorical meaning is intended (1987). Goossens describes expressions of this type as
being the product of metaphor from metonymy. He shows how the expression
1242 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
close-lipped can be understood in two different ways; rstly it can mean remain silent
through metonymy, a persons closed lips standing for lack of speech. Alternatively, it
may refer to someone who could be talking a lot, but is not giving away the information
that the hearer wants; in this case the expression is a metaphor, one which is derived
through a metonymy (1990).
A number of examples of metaphor from metonymy were found in our data. These
include turn ones nose up at something, meaning reject, which is a metonymy when it is
true literally, and metaphor frommetonymy when it is not literally true but refers to another
form of rejection, as in the following citation.
Two trees in Horaces garden demonstrate that you should never turn your nose
up at inexpensive plants.
In both English and Italian, there are several expressions in which the mouth stands for
speech. Here, opening or closing the mouth stands for speaking or remaining silent, and
again these relations may be physically true, in which case they are instances of metonymy,
or they may refer more generally to giving or refusing to give information, in which case
they are cases of metaphor from metonymy. For example, open ones mouth in the
following citation probably does not apply literally, yet it seems to refer metaphorically to
the act of saying something indiscreet:
No one could be trusted, and no one could open his mouth in public or in private
without wondering if his partner in conversation belonged to the secret police.
A further example is the expression bite ones lip, which can be interpreted literally,
meaning physically prevent oneself from speaking, or metaphorically, meaning refrain
from speaking. Turn ones back works in the same way; the expressions appear together in
the following citation:
I know better than most how difficult it is to bite your lip and turn your back on all
the name calling.
As can be seen from the range of examples in these last two categories, our corpus data
fully support Goossens work on metaphor and metonymy. It is even possible that the
interactions between metaphor and metonymy that Goossens describes are more important
than he suggests, because the data that he uses, dictionary entries, may under-represent
these types of expression. Moon notes that dictionaries tend to focus on pure idioms
rather than more transparent collocations, because the purpose of a dictionary is to describe
language at the lexical level. They therefore attempt to list pure idioms as fully as possible
because these cannot be broken down into their component words (1998). More transparent
metaphorical collocations, on the other hand, are not usually seen as the territory of a
dictionary, because they are the product of their components. Goossens collection of
metaphors is likely therefore to have included a relatively high number of pure idioms
and fewer transparent metaphorical collocations. Our corpus approach, which considers
metaphors and metaphorical expressions on the basis of frequency, regardless of whether
they are semantically transparent, has shown large numbers of Goossens metonymies
within metaphor in fairly transparent metaphorical collocations, which presumably his
analysis would not have picked up.
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1243
5.5. Image
The nal group of non-literal expressions that we found in our data is very closely linked
to the above category, and in fact straddles the boundary between literal and non-literal
language. Here, the use of body lexis seems to have a symbolic function: its lexical
reference is indisputably literal, but it seems in addition to reect something about a
characters inner state. Expressions in this group draw on the hearer or readers knowledge
of body-mind links to encourage them to make inferences that could be seen as
metaphorical. The following citations of mouth, bocca and heart illustrate this:
I didnt realize that, sir, said Tom, his mouth open.
I fratelli spalancano la bocca dallo stupore. [The brothers mouths hang open in
amazement.]
My heart was pounding.
Il cuore mi batteva da scoppiare. [literally: My heart was pounding fit to burst.]
In each of these citations, the utterance is understood as literally true, and no
metaphorical sense can be ascribed to the body part lexis. However, the citations seem
to connote mental states, in the rst and second cases, surprise, and in the third and fourth,
fear or another strong emotion.
In both languages, there are many citations in which the eyes are mentioned in order to
describe a state of mind. An example from the English corpus is
Indignation blazed in her eyes.
The Italian corpus contains a number of citations of occhi [eyes] qualied by an
adjective such as tristi [sad], calmi [calm], ridenti [laughing] and gelidi [frozen].
It does not seem that this device could ever be captured in a linguistic description,
because its effect is dependent on speaker and hearer sharing associations between physical
and mental processes, such as the connection between having ones mouth open and being
very surprised.
6. Non-literal language in English and Italian: meaning
Having classied the various kinds of non-literal language that we found in the various
corpora we studied, we can now compare them across the two languages. We begin with a
close comparison of metaphorical uses of the English and Italian translation equivalents of
one word. We then consider which non-literal uses are shared by English and Italian, and
which seem to be motivated by direct bodily experience, or other shared metaphors. We
then look at metaphors that do not exist with the same meaning in both languages.
6.1. Non-literal uses of mouth/bocca: a comparison
In this section, we present an analysis of 1000 citations of mouth fromthe English corpus
and 1000 citations of bocca from the Italian corpora. It is important to stress again that the
1244 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
two corpora are composed differently; the Italian corpus is all written, while the English
corpus contains some spoken data and tabloid journalism as well as serious newspaper and
radio data. This means that the frequency information should be treated as an approximate
guide only, and that detailed comparisons are not robust. Tables 2 and 3 give the non-literal
senses found in the samples.
These tables show that for each language, a very large proportion of non-literal language
is metonymically-grounded rather than metaphorical. The only sense that could be
described as a metaphor in the classical sense is the use of mouth/bocca to refer to the
Table 3
Non-literal senses of mouth found in sample 1000 citations from English corpus
Number of citations English expression Example
Mouth standing for speech
27 By word of mouth Most of her work comes by word of mouth
19 Shut mouth/keep mouth shut:
not talk
He had to keep his mouth shut
17 [modifier] mouth describing
manner of speech
motor mouth/loud mouth/big mouth/filthy
mouth/foul mouth/all mouth
12 Put money where mouth is The best way forward is to insist that
meat purchased is produced using
welfare-friendly methods, but it will cost.
It demands that the consumer puts his
money where his mouth is
9 Put words in someones
mouth
I hope Im not putting words in your mouth
but it seems to me that this special
collection is very special to you
8 Open your mouth (to speak) Every time he opened his mouth a writ was
served on him
(92)
Mouth standing for eating
2 Leave a sour taste in the
mouth
The taunts left a sour taste in the mouth
of the manager
2 Mouth-watering (non-literal) Virgin interactive has released a
mouth-watering PC CD compilation
entitled Temptation (4)
Other
50 River mouth/goal
mouth/tunnel mouth
[The carrier] ran aground on the Hebe Reef,
near the mouth of the Tamar River
Ahead, the tunnel mouth gaped
5 Butter wouldnt melt in the
mouth
. . . as though butter wouldnt melt in
his mouth
5 From the horses mouth That [story] is from the horses mouth
5 Live hand to mouth Every penny counts when youre on
benefits. Ill defy anyone to say that they
dont live hand to mouth on benefits
4 Froth/foam at the mouth The sight of [him] would have the
chattering classes foaming at the mouth
(69)
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1245
opening of a cave, tunnel, or gun, or the point where a river meets the sea. This latter use is
conventionalised in English but not in Italian, which accounts for the large difference in
numbers of citations.
For both languages, the majority of expressions are derived from the metonymic use of
mouth/bocca to stand for speaking or eating. Of these, all seem to fall into Goossens
metonymy within metaphor or metaphor from metonymy categories. Instances of
metonymy within metaphor include parlare per bocca di qualcuno which means, roughly,
to put ones message across through someone else; here the mouth stands metonymically
for speaking, and the whole expression is metaphorical. The English expressions put words
in someones mouth and put money where ones mouth is work in the same way. The Italian
rimanere a bocca asciutta and the English mouth-watering, as well as most of the
expressions referring to closed or open mouths, are examples of metaphor frommetonymy:
all could be literally true, based on a metonymy, but all are also used metaphorically. The
group of English expressions that includes big mouth, foul mouth, and lthy mouth could be
seen as pure metonyms, if mouth is viewed alone as standing for speech. It can be argued
though that since this use of mouth never does occur without a premodier, the whole noun
phrase should be considered. All the adjectives found before these occurrences of mouth
are themselves metaphorical, and from this perspective such uses are cases of metonymy
within metaphor.
One difference between Tables 2 and 3 is the number of pure idioms in the English table,
which includes butter wouldnt melt in someones mouth, and live hand to mouth. The
Italian sample did not show any idioms of this kind, but much more extensive searches
would be needed to see whether this is more widely the case in the language, because (as
suggested above), the absence of these expressions in Italian could simply be the result of
the different balance of text types in the two corpora.
Two points seemto emerge fromthis comparison. Firstly, apart fromminor differences,
it is perhaps surprising how similar the non-literal uses of the words are. Secondly, this
very limited evidence suggests that metonymically grounded expressions are easily the
most frequent type of non-literal language from this source domain in both English and
Italian.
6.2. Shared metaphors grounded in bodily experience
In this and the following sub-sections, we consider and compare the non-literal language
that we found in the various corpora from a semantic perspective, as opposed to analysing
the various gurative devices at work as we have done up to this point. We begin by looking
at what is shared by the two languages, having found that there is a large area of overlap. In
many cases it seems likely that shared mappings are motivated by bodily experience.
Expressions common to both languages include look beyond the end of ones nose, in
citations such as
. . . your attention and energy are naturally freed up and you can start to look
beyond the end of your nose to the rest of the world around you.
The Italian translation equivalent, vedere al di la` del proprio naso, is used with the same
non-literal meaning, of paying attention to matters that do not immediately concern one,
1246 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
with the same positive evaluation of this behaviour. The expression seems to have two
motivations: seeing stands metaphorically for thinking (Sweetser, 1990), and the physical
body stands for a persons immediate concerns. Because the nose is literally the extreme
edge of the head, it stands here for the boundaries of the physical body, and thus
metaphorically for the limits of ones immediate interests. The following example is
typical of its use in Italian:
Non vedeva la realta` umana a pochi centimetri dal suo naso. [He could not see
the human reality just beyond the end of his nose.]
Citations for eye and its translation equivalent occhio also show a number of shared or
very similar expressions, including keep an eye on (tener docchio). Sweetser found that
there is a large number of expressions across many languages which show an equation of
the eye, and sight in general, with paying attention, and argues that this is experientially
motivated (1990).
In some cases we found different lexicalisations of what seems to be the same underlying
metaphor. For instance the English turn a blind eye, meaning ignore misbehaviour, can be
translated as Italian chiudere un occhio [shut an eye], and can again be explained by
Sweetsers argument.
In both languages, the nose seems to stand for instinct, and there is a suggestion that this
is in contrast with analytical intelligence, as in the following citation:
Dwight was an instinctive journalist. He had a nose for changes in the cultural
climate.
The Italian citations are close in meaning:
E
`
rimasto il suo Mi affido al mio naso in unintervista rilasciata a Giampaolo
Pansa . . . [We still remember when he said in an interview with Giampaolo
Pansa I trust my nose . . .]
Related lexis such as avere uto (literally have a sense of smell, have a nose for) are
also used in both languages. These expressions seem to be realisations of a metaphorical
equation of smell with intuitive intelligence.
All the expressions discussed in this subsection are consistent with the view of Sweetser
(1990) that many ways of talking about perception are shared across languages and link
bodily experience with mental processes.
6.3. Shared metaphors grounded in cultural knowledge
For some non-literal senses found in both languages, the grounds of the metaphor do
not seem to be purely based on bodily experience, but also have roots in folk beliefs or
conventional behaviour. In particular, some common metaphorical expressions are
grounded in shared notions about the equation of a particular body part with particular
emotions. This seems to be the case for a number of uses of English heart and Italian
cuore, such as have a heart and heart of gold, both meaning, roughly, be generous,
translatable as essere di buon cuore and cuore doro. Fernando (1996) argues that
physical experience is ltered through culture and that many non-literal expressions
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1247
may have their origins partially in meaning systems traceable to medieval beliefs.
Niemeier (2000) claims that while the use of the heart to stand for emotions is not a
cultural universal, it is widely shared, and generates a large number of metaphorical and
metonymic expressions.
Gestures that are conventional in a culture also appear to motivate non-literal senses, the
gurative meaning standing for the emotion expressed through the gesture. As some
conventional gestures are in turn partly motivated by an instinctive physical reaction, not
surprisingly, some close similarities between the two languages were found. For instance,
the English turn up ones nose is used to convey a sense of superiority in citations such as
the following:
If you turn your nose up at eat-all-you-can curry houses, you shouldnt be reading
this column.
The non-literal sense of this expression is translatable into Italian with storcere or
arricciare il naso [twist or wrinkle the nose] in citations such as the following:
I critici storcono un po il naso, ma il film e` un trionfo. [The critics twist/turn up
their noses, but the film is a hit.]
A closer English equivalent, wrinkle ones nose, also exists but is rare in the corpus, and
seems to connote less strong feelings.
Expressions motivated by gestures show in varying degrees a cline from literal to non-
literal meaning. The Italian expression stare col naso in aria [be with ones nose in the
air] can connote a feeling of superiority, but is only used when it is also literally true, that
is, it falls into our category of image. In contrast, the English turn ones nose up is
sometimes used with a purely gurative meaning, that is, it can be used about someone who
is not literally making this gesture, as in the above citation, and so falls into the category
metaphor from metonymy. For English wince and its near equivalent in Italian, storcere
la bocca [twist ones mouth], the reverse is found: the English word is always literal, but
in connoting discomfort, it also serves to describe feelings, while the Italian expression can
be used when the literal meaning does not apply. These close equivalents also differ slightly
in their non-literal meaning: while the facial expressions referred to are similar, the English
expression usually connotes embarrassment, pain, or sympathy with anothers pain, while
the Italian expression connotes disgust or disapproval.
These examples suggest that some non-literal expressions referring to gestures have
translation equivalents and convey broadly similar ideas, but that there may be subtle
differences both in the type of gurative mapping involved, and in details of meaning.
6.4. Differences in metaphorical meaning
We found some evidence of differences in metaphorical senses between the two
languages. For each of the words studied, one or more non-literal senses were found
in one of the corpora but not the other. For instance, a full search of the Italian corpora
suggested that Italian has a wider range of expressions than does English in which bocca
[mouth] stands for eating, and by extension stands metaphorically for feelings and
behaviour. Expressions found in the Italian corpus include bocca dolce, bocca amara,
1248 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
bocca asciutta [have a sweet taste or a bitter taste in the mouth, have a dry mouth] and
riempirsi la bocca [ll your mouth], all with metaphorical meanings, as in the following
citation.
In Italia ci riempiamo la bocca di Europa, ma siamo ancora troppo nazionalisti.
[In Italy we fill our mouths with Europe but we are still too nationalistic]
The concordances of heart and cuore show further examples of differences between the
two languages in both the frequency and scope of non-literal senses. Heart used to stand for
courage occurs in several conventional phrases in English:
I took heart at least in knowing I was not alone.
Opposing voters lost heart throughout the day.
This sense is not unknown in Italian but was not found in the corpus citations. In Italian
these meanings are sometimes expressed by verbs containing the root of the word for heart,
cuore: rincorarsi and scoraggiarsi.
The range is wider in Italian for the expression fromthe bottom of ones heart. In English
this has just one main meaning, of sincerity, while its Italian translation equivalent can also
refer to feelings that are kept hidden, as in the following example:
Nutriva in fondo a suo cuore una passione segreta e infelice per la scena. [literally,
At the bottom of his heart he nourished a secret and unhappy passion for the stage.]
However, such differences in non-literal meanings between the two languages seem
slight in comparison with the huge numbers of similarities found.
7. Non-literal language in English and Italian: linguistic realisations
In this section, we discuss more closely some of the linguistic patterns that were found.
Differences between the two languages were found to be more marked when the data was
examined at this level of detail.
7.1. Extension
Many metaphorical mappings are shared by the two languages, and are realised by
semantically equivalent lexis. However, we sometimes found that the range of colloca-
tions differs. For example, both languages talk about a persons heart beating for
someone or something to refer to holding strong emotions. In the English corpus the
non-literal use of ones heart beats is relatively infrequent, occurring less than once per
thousand citations, and it occurs exclusively in talk about romantic objects. In the
Italian corpus the expression il cuore batte is much more frequent, and can be used to
talk about anger as well as positive and romantic feelings. The range of objects towards
which feelings are directed is wider in Italian. In the following example the object is
political:
Il suo cuore batte per il partito liberale. [His heart beats for the Liberal party.]
A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252 1249
The English translation sounds rather odd because of the connotations of romance
associated with the expression.
As with many of the expressions discussed in previous sections, there is an element
of literal meaning in this sense of heart, and the experiential basis seems intuitively
clear. Nonetheless, the existence of experiential motivation does not necessarily
mean expressions will have identical uses in different languages, as this example
shows. It seems that the non-literal meanings that speakers express through specic
lexis are generally constrained by the conventions of particular languages, and are only
a small subset of the many meanings that could potentially be generated by conceptual
metaphors.
7.2. Fixedness
Detailed examination of corpus citations suggests that the range of variation in non-
literal expressions containing the lexis under study differs. For example, the mouth is used
to stand for speech in both languages, and in both languages speakers use the lexis of
closing to mean becoming or staying silent: shut ones mouth in English, chiudere bocca in
Italian. Both languages have expressions such as put words into somebodys mouth, the
Italian equivalent being mettere le parole in bocca a qualcuno, and take the words out of
somebodys mouth (levare/togliere le parole di bocca a qualcuno). However, the lexis used
in the Italian non-literal expressions is far more varied. In the senses of speaking or
refraining from speaking, the verbs which collocate with bocca include spalancare [open
very wide], serrare [shut tight], tappare [literally, stop up, cork], and cucire [sew
shut], used in the following example:
La Casella ha la bocca cucita. [Casellas mouth is sewn shut.]
English is far more restricted. Shut is used, but its synonym closed is rarely used
guratively in this context: shut occurs after mouth 18 times more frequently than closed in
the corpus, and the majority of the citations of mouth closed are purely literal. Open
occurs with mouth in expressions that refer metonymically to speech, but shows a degree of
xedness, being mainly used with this meaning following clauses expressing negativity, as
in citations such as the following:
No one could be trusted, and no one could open his mouth in public or in private
without wondering if his partner in conversation belonged to the secret police.
In English the expression is not only relatively xed lexically; structurally there is also
little variation. It usually occurs in the form keep ones mouth shut, with variations such as
shut someones mouth with a non-literal sense being far less frequent in the corpus. Lexical
variation is not impossible for these English expressions, but the data suggest that this
would be innovative and marked. This contrasts with Italian, the pattern emerging in Italian
being that of a fairly freely combining lexical set.
In both languages it seems that although metaphorical and metonymical connections at
the level of thought motivate the creation of non-literal senses and expressions, their use is
constrained conventionally. Linguistic realisations vary in ways that cannot be explained
by a straightforward mapping of one semantic eld onto another.
1250 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252
8. Conclusion
Returning to the explanatory possibilities of conceptual metaphor theory, the results of our
corpus searches seem initially a little disappointing. This limited study has not reected a
picture of freely-forming networks of metaphorical senses in either language. Rather, what
emerges is a patchy picture of a few words from the same literal domain being used with a
non-literal meaning that could be attributed to a body-mind mapping. The various mappings
have resultedina limitednumber of expressions, variations onwhichare limited. The stockof
these expressions is nodoubt addedto over time, but the data wouldsuggest that this is a fairly
slow process and not something that most speakers do habitually. It seems then that
conceptual metaphor theory may not be able to offer a predictive framework for the
description of non-literal language, although it certainly provides a convincing explanation.
However, this study has brought out two important points. Firstly, metonymy and, in
particular, its interactions with metaphor, account for vastly more non-literal expressions
than metaphor alone, both in terms of type and token. Secondly, despite some differences at
a fairly detailed level, very similar patterns were noted in English and Italian. The two
languages appear to be similar both in the types of non-literal language that is used, and in
its grounds: both show interactions between metaphor and metonymy, and both draw on
roughly the same small set of body-mind mappings.
Acknowledgements
Our thanks are due to Dr. Eugenio Picchi for permission to use the data from the two
Italian corpora, and Lisa Biagini for her kindness and patience in providing the con-
cordances. We would also like to thank former colleagues at Cobuild for many invaluable
discussions about meaning and collocational patterns.
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Alice Deignan is a senior lecturer at the School of Education, University of Leeds. She is the author of Collins
Cobuild Guides to English 7: Metaphor (HarperCollins, London, 1995) and her research focuses on using
corpora to investigate non-literal language use.
Liz Potter is a research fellow of the University of Birmingham. She has worked as a bilingual lexicographer for
Longman and as a lexicographer for various publishers including Collins Cobuild. She researches in the eld of
corpus lexicography.
1252 A. Deignan, L. Potter / Journal of Pragmatics 36 (2004) 12311252