| Keywords [eng] |
creative metaphors, conventional metaphors, space sciences, popular science literature, university-level textbooks, academic articles, kūrybinės metaforos, konvencinės metaforos, kosmoso srities mokslai, populiarioji mokslinė literatūra, universitetiniai mokomieji vadovėliai, moksliniai straipsniai |
| Abstract [eng] |
This paper aims to examine the distribution of creative and conventional metaphors across three genres: educational textbooks aimed at university students, popular science literature, and academic articles. The study also aims to identify which source domains are most frequently found in space sciences, comparing whether they appear across all three genres or dominate in particular ones. The theoretical framework is based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1980), emphasizing that the conceptualization of metaphors is a part of embodied cognition, alongside the Career of Metaphor Hypothesis (Bowdle & Gentner 2005), focusing on explaining how a metaphor shifts from being novel to conventional over repeated use. The distinction between creative and conventional metaphors, central to the work, was based on works by Phillip (2017) and Littlemore (2019). For this study, three genre-specific corpora (approx. 50,000 words each) were compiled from texts published between 2017 and 2024. A mixed-method approach was used, combining qualitative and quantitative analysis. To help identify and relate metaphorical expressions to their conceptual domains, the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) (Pragglejaz 2007) is utilized. The results show that creative and conventional metaphors are present across all genres, with creative metaphors dominating in the popular science while conventional metaphors in the university-level textbook genre. Source domain analysis showed that the most frequently identified source domains were LIVING BEING, CONTAINER, and NATURAL PHENOMENON, with over 100 metaphorical expressions identified in each. The study results demonstrate that conventional metaphors rely on already established familiar mappings to ensure clarity and consistency, especially noticeable in the usage of conventionalized, well-established field-centered terminology. In contrast, creative metaphors tend to be mainly used to attract readers’ attention and help to portray complex issues in more everyday terms, thus not requiring readers to have background knowledge in the field of space sciences. |
