ABSTRACT
Metaphor can be defined as the phenomenon whereby we talk and potentially think about one concept/experience in terms of another on the basis of a perception of similarities or correspondences between the two different concepts/experiences. As such, metaphor has been shown to be central to language in many respects, including the lexicon, diachronic change, the language/thought interface and discourse. Most work on metaphor has so far been carried out on English in particular. This chapter shows how digital tools, methods and data are increasingly being used to study metaphor and discusses both the critical issues and contributions involved in this kind of research. In particular, the chapter considers:
The use of corpus linguistic methods to study metaphor in large datasets
The creation and/or use of digital resources in the study of metaphor
The study of metaphor in digital communication
These different lines of research address a number of critical issues in the study of metaphor (e.g. evidence about systematicity in metaphor use and the language/thought interface) but also raise their own issues (e.g. how to identify metaphors in large datasets and how to generalise from large numbers of instances). The contributions of these different lines of research are wide-ranging and include advances in terms of metaphor theory, historical accounts of English and other languages and practical applications (e.g. in education and healthcare). Two sample analyses will be provided: a corpus-based study of metaphors for cancer and end of life in online forum data (which has implications for healthcare) and a study of the source domain of reptiles using the data of the ‘Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus’ project (illustrating what the study of metaphor can contribute to our understanding of the history of English). The chapter will finish with some reflections on future directions, particularly in view of continuing advances in corpus linguistics, digital tools and digital communication.