Talks by Katie J Patterson
• What differences can be seen in the two authors' use of metaphor?
Papers by Katie J Patterson
Revista Documentos Lingüísticos y Literarios UACh, Apr 29, 2019
Metáfora, transitividad y el mundo literario-Cómo Dickens y Hardy representan su mundo a través d... more Metáfora, transitividad y el mundo literario-Cómo Dickens y Hardy representan su mundo a través de la metáfora.
In recent research, metaphor is increasingly confronted in terms of a cline rather than a dichoto... more In recent research, metaphor is increasingly confronted in terms of a cline rather than a dichotomy. Yet the decision of whether a word or phrase is metaphoric is not as straightforward as a one-level cline suggests. The notion of 'metaphoric meaning' has further reaching implications on our language understanding and use than is commonly discussed. Metaphor is often subjective and dependent on changes in language specific to time period, genre, environment of the speakers or writers, and context. Furthermore personal experience and judgment are crucial factors in addressing and understanding meaning, whether metaphoric or literal. Approaching metaphor from a lexical stance, this research project adopts the psychological theory of lexical priming (Hoey 2005) as a way of explaining the collective linguistic patternings and associations within metaphor. The data is taken from a corpus of Nineteenth Century writings and focuses upon the single item flame. The focus is on a qualitative analysis of problematic cases of metaphor, which are not easily identifiable or characterized through collective primings. The research concludes that the functionality of 'metaphor' as an umbrella term is often too restrictive. Moreover the research serves to illustrate that the perspective on lexical metaphor should be re-focused on to the individual language user and the social processes that dominate our ever-changing use of language and meaning.
The ideological discourse of jihadist groups depends largely on their use of persuasive technique... more The ideological discourse of jihadist groups depends largely on their use of persuasive techniques as instruments for recruitment, radicalisation and more generally "to convince the audience of the veracity of the doctrine presented through it" [1]. The language choices of jihadists therefore play a crucial role in reflecting their social relationships, and their motivations and beliefs, as well as what attempts they make to justify or enforce these values. By adopting Charteris-Black's [3] Critical Metaphor Analysis framework, this paper explores the use of metaphor as an important rhetorical and ideological dimension to jihadist texts. Data are taken from a collection of jihadist magazines which have been compared against the Qur'an. Results show that the pervasiveness of religiously inspired concepts like the JOURNEY metaphor help the writers to anchor their message to a deeply seated and authoritative set of ideologies. At the same time, semantic and pragmatic differences in the use of these metaphors suggest an ability to manipulate pre-existing conceptualisations to embody the principles of jihadist groups.
Journal of language aggression and conflict, Jun 6, 2023
Identity conflict and the loss of meaning experienced by some Muslim young people in Western coun... more Identity conflict and the loss of meaning experienced by some Muslim young people in Western countries are key factors behind fanaticism, leading some of them to find purpose in life within extremist groups (Adam-Troian et al. 2021; Moyano and González 2021). The narrative that emerges from the radicalisation process provides a rich source for psychologists and discourse analysts, exploring not only the ‘why’ and the ‘how’, but also issues stemming from self-perception and other-representation. Such conflict-based narratives materialise in individuals’ evaluative language patterns (Etaywe and Zappavigna 2022). In this paper, we conduct a close analysis of the discursive construction of emotion and opinion in a collection of semi-structured interviews with social workers or neighbours who knew the perpetrators of the 2017 terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils. To do so, we use corpus-driven methodologies and a refined version of Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal framework (see Benítez-Castro and Hidalgo-Tenorio 2019). Our analysis aims to cast light on the social frictions that may have contributed to their endorsement of violence (Moyano et al. 2021).
Metaphor and Symbol, Apr 3, 2017
Research background and aims Research into lexical metaphor, within a range of disciplines, has p... more Research background and aims Research into lexical metaphor, within a range of disciplines, has provided welldocumented evidence that calls for a rejection to the dichotomist stance. The introduction of corpus methods has, for instance, led to more usage-driven approaches, addressing the sociolinguistic and interpersonal contexts in which metaphors are used (
Pragmatics and Society
The ideological discourse of Jihadist groups like Al Qaeda or Islamic State is largely built on t... more The ideological discourse of Jihadist groups like Al Qaeda or Islamic State is largely built on the use of persuasive techniques which act as instruments for radicalisation and recruitment, and more generally, “convince the audience of the veracity of the doctrine presented” (Adam 2017: 5). This article explores the use of metaphor as an important rhetorical and ideological dimension to jihadist texts. Current findings suggest that religious writings often make use of rich conceptual metaphors to convey distinctive ideological perspectives (Prentice, Rayson and Taylor 2012), for instance, the well-known journey conceptual metaphor, with the image schemata of a path, leading towards a better life, reward in an afterlife, moral choice, hope, and a closeness to God (Jäkel 2002). Specifically, the research adopts a Critical Metaphor Analysis framework (Charteris-Black 2004), which combines Corpus Linguistics with Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. The data for this s...
Pragmatics and Society
This chapter presents an investigation into the evidence of fixed language use within jihadist ma... more This chapter presents an investigation into the evidence of fixed language use within jihadist magazines and the extent to which these fixed patterns reflect specific power relations within the text community. The research presents the hypothesis that the writers of articles in jihadist magazines have become primed to employ the words and sets of words through their repeat usage (cf. Hoey 2005, 2017). Thus, lexical and grammatical associations and constructions are analysed to determine the extent to which language use is unique in our corpus. Evidence is presented in the unique way power relationships are linguistically expressed; it is argued here that this reflects the ways in which the writers are primed for their motives or aims of recruitment. Here, a number of words, which are fairly common in news discourse and are in the sematic field of power relations, have been identified as keywords in jihadist magazines. These show the collocation and colligation divergence where they ...
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Talks by Katie J Patterson
Papers by Katie J Patterson