Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary

在过去的30年里，人们已经清楚地认识到，隐喻不仅仅是一种文学现象;隐喻思维是我们从概念上理解世界的基础。当我们谈论“健康的经济”或“清晰的论点”时，我们使用的表达方式暗示了一个经验领域（例如医学，视觉）到另一个经验领域（例如金融，感知）的映射。当我们用战争或破坏来描述一个论点时（“他毁了我的案子”），我们可能是在谈论我们所生活的社会。因此，隐喻的研究对许多领域的学者，包括语言学家、心理学家和文学学者都有着至关重要的意义。关于隐喻的关键问题仍然有待回答，例如，隐喻是如何产生的？哪些经验领域在隐喻表达中最为突出？几个世纪以来，英语中的隐喻是如何随着社会的变化而发展的？随着《牛津英语词典历史叙词表》（HTOED）的完成，我们可以开始第一次全面而详细地解决这些问题。这就是这个项目计划要做的。经过近半个世纪的酝酿，HTOED是世界上第一本对构成一种语言书面记录的单词进行全面语义分类的参考书。就英语而言，这一记录涵盖了13个世纪的变化和发展，在隐喻中也是如此。我们将使用HTOED证据库来调查一个经验领域（例如医学）的语言如何对其他领域（例如金融）做出贡献。随着我们的继续，我们将能够看到特定时期或特定经验领域中隐喻思维的创新，如文艺复兴、科学革命和精神分析的早期。HTOED分为三个大的部分，外部世界，精神世界和社会世界，每个都包含详细的子类别，适合这种研究。为了实现我们的目标，我们将设计工具来分析隐喻的历史，首先设计一个数据库，让我们能够识别单词从一个域扩展到另一个域的情况。该数据库将生成一个注释的“隐喻地图”，这将使我们能够展示意义发生重大变化的时间和方式。在线展示将采取使用列表的形式，并伴有图表等可视化。在这些证据的基础上，该团队将编写一本书，研究隐喻意义的关键领域，以及英语隐喻的历史词库。随着项目的发展，在项目完成后，隐喻地图将在项目网站上免费提供给研究人员、教师和公众，并附有指导使用的材料。用户将能够联系项目团队，并在在线博客中阅读有关发展的信息。社区可用的和表达的隐喻是其思维方式随着时间的推移的索引。多亏了HTOED和Mapping Metaphor项目，我们现在有机会追踪隐喻思维方式在一千多年来的变化。因此，该项目的成果将不仅对许多领域的作家和学者感兴趣，而且对每个对意义，思想和语言感兴趣的人都感兴趣。它还将为语义学和历史语言学等学科的教学提供有用的资源，包括为本科生和研究生研究项目提供数据。

Over the past 30 years, it has become clear that metaphor is not simply a literary phenomenon; metaphorical thinking underlies the way we make sense of the world conceptually. When we talk about 'a healthy economy' or 'a clear argument' we are using expressions that imply the mapping of one domain of experience (e.g. medicine, sight) onto another (e.g. finance, perception). When we describe an argument in terms of warfare or destruction ('he demolished my case'), we may be saying something about the society we live in. The study of metaphor is therefore of vital interest to scholars in many fields, including linguists and psychologists, as well as to scholars of literature.Key questions about metaphor remain to be answered; for example, how did metaphors arise? Which domains of experience are most prominent in metaphorical expressions? How have the metaphors available in English developed over the centuries in response to social changes? With the completion of the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (HTOED), we can begin to address these questions comprehensively and in detail for the first time. That is what this project plans to do.Almost half a century in the making, HTOED is the first reference book in the world to offer a comprehensive semantic classification of the words forming the written record of a language. In the case of English, this record covers thirteen centuries of change and development, in metaphor as in other areas. We will use the HTOED evidence base to investigate how the language of one domain of experience (e.g. medicine) contributes to others (e.g. finance). As we proceed, we will be able to see innovations in metaphorical thinking at particular periods or in particular areas of experience, such as the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, and the early days of psychoanalysis. The organisation of HTOED into three general sections, the External World, the Mental World and the Social World, each containing detailed subcategories, lends itself to this kind of research.To achieve our goal, we will devise tools for the analysis of metaphor historically, starting by designing a database that will allow us to identify instances where words extend their meanings from one domain into another. The database will generate an annotated 'Metaphor Map' which will allow us to demonstrate when and how significant shifts in meaning took place. Online displays will take the form of lists of uses accompanied by visualisations such as graphs. On the basis of this evidence, the team will produce a book examining key domains of metaphorical meaning, together with a Historical Thesaurus of English Metaphor. As the project develops, and after its completion, the Metaphor Map will be made freely available on the project website to researchers, teachers and the general public, with materials giving guidance on its use. Users will be able to contact the project team and to read about developments in an online blog.The metaphors available to and articulated by a community are an index of its ways of thinking over time. Thanks to the HTOED and the Mapping Metaphor project, we now have the opportunity to track how metaphorical ways of thinking have changed over more than a millennium. The project outcomes will therefore be of interest not only to writers and academics in many fields, but to everyone with an interest in meaning, thought and language. It will also provide a useful resource for teaching in subjects such as semantics and historical linguistics, including making data available for undergraduate and postgraduate research projects.