Metaphor and the Context of Use: A Multidimensional Approach

Abstract

This article reports on a research project using logistical regression analysis to explain and predict the naming patterns of a set of financial or economic concepts. It presents a method seeking to describe and analyze the relationship between metaphor and context of use in the financial press. Recently, critical discourse researchers and cognitive linguists have been discussing the overwhelming recourse to metaphor in the economic domain. It has been shown that the host of interrelated metaphorical expressions may not only contribute to the cohesion of the text but also be used to support an ideological agenda. Hitherto, insight has not ventured beyond the demonstration of a connection between ideology and metaphors in financial reports. The author suggests that a comprehensive model should include all the variables that act on the creation of these metaphors. The results indicate that one may predict with a satisfying degree of accuracy how and why financial or economic concepts will be assigned names or concepts from a particular source domain.