In conclusion, several factors have been discussed at length, which affect the interpretation of (or the degree of) metaphoricity. The study does not provide an exhaustive account, but a small, qualitative investigation into what is found in the present data, shedding light on why and in what circumstances readers may have a problem with identifying metaphoricity. Crucially, identifying problematic middle group instances, somewhere between a metaphoric and a non-metaphoric sense of an item, means identifying a grey area more generally amongst meanings and the ways in which meaning is expressed lexically. In order to accept this it is necessary to acknowledge that a level of subjectivity in interpretation exists.
In terms of the findings, firstly in a flame was found to be the most frequent cluster in the middle group dataset, often with the meaning of setting a town or city on fire. There were different degrees of metaphoricity in the individual instances based on the level of abstraction between city and nation. The item was treated as a lexical item to gain the full understanding, which in turn renders it non-metaphoric. This is because as a single item or chunk it has a single meaning. Secondly, the animate nature of the items used alongside flame were shown to play just as important a role in determining potential metaphoricity. It was acknowledged that whilst there are degrees of metaphoricity and conventionality, there are also degrees of animacy which can be more or less specifically associated with living beings. Often, some of the items’ original meanings have undergone a form of extension (concrete or abstract). An example of this is tongues which in the nineteenth century became a common description of other entities with the same shape
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as a non-metaphoric tongue (i.e. flames). These discussions on animacy led to an exploration of the types of nouns in the colligation noun + of flame, which are not necessarily animate but debateable in their literality (current of, heart of and sheets of flame). Often, the quantifiers can be defined as conventional (in particular jets of flame), which may also be a contributing factor to readers not identifying them as metaphoric in any unified or non-disputed sense. Most importantly, the adjectives and verbs that display a level of animacy and surround flame display elements of pragmatic association. The majority of verbs express a sense of positive restoration (e.g. grow, nourish, revive, excite). In each case, the flame is shown as a positive and desired occurrence and this is supported in the surrounding lexis. In contrast the adjectives largely display pragmatic association involving animalistic or base behaviour (avenging, fierce, lurking), often portraying a sense of terror and threat. This is supported by the types of collocates and lexis elsewhere in the concordance lines (e.g. furious, smothering, wildly and shrieks of death).
Finally, the analysis looked at individual instances of flame from the data. The aim of these smaller, qualitative discussions was to illustrate the importance of co-text and individual uses of words, as well as the nature of reader interpretation and writer aims. It may be, as shown for broke into flame, that there is an intentional ambiguity on the part of the writer. This may be working in parallel to or entirely independently of the reader’s own judgements.
One factor shown within this analysis is that a confidence in dictionary definitions can be unhelpful in trying to identify metaphoricity. Dictionaries overwhelmingly concentrate on words rather than lexical items and, as has been discussed, focusing on a word disregards the meaning of the combined item. In some cases above, the phrase or item in question has entered the dictionary as a non-figurative association or reference and developed its meaning through semantic extension rather than by making a clear-cut
distinction between senses. This was seen with tongue, first only used in reference to a Pentecostal flame, before becoming an accepted and conventional description of flame more generally in the nineteenth century. An important consideration in any discussion of lexical metaphor is the point at which semantic extension and metaphoricity become distinct (i.e. when a sense is recognised as dependent on the non-metaphoric sense, rather than simply a development or extension of it). The analysis thus far has shown that there may not be such a point of distinction, and that individual interpretation plays a considerable role in the decision.
5.2 Analysis and comparison of the metaphoric and non-metaphoric
datasets for flame (n)
In this section, the concordance data for each group of flame instances is compared and contrasted. The first group consists of the clear metaphors, which total 409 instances and comprises 34.08% of the total data. The second group comprises the non-metaphors, which total 582 instances and make up 48.50% of the total data. The chapter will follow the structure of the quantitative analysis in Chapter 4, beginning in 5.2.1 with an initial keyword analysis. 5.2.2 will then form the main collocation analysis, where lexical words collocates will be discussed (nouns, verbs, adjectives and personal pronouns). Section 5.2.3 will then summarise key findings related to semantic associations within each set of data, drawing on the findings from 5.2.2. The next section (5.2.4) will comprise an analysis of the top ten most frequent collocates. These form a new section because the analysis shifts focus from semantic relations to grammatical patterns. Colligations and instances of nesting will be discussed here. Finally section 5.2.5 develops this discussion further, exploring the cluster data from WordSmith.