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“明确的论点”时，我们使用的表达意味着将一个经验领域（如医学、视觉）映射到另一个经验领域（如金融、感知）。当我们用战争或破坏来描述一个论点时（“he demolition my case”），我们可能是在谈论我们所生活的社会。因此，隐喻的研究是许多领域的学者，包括语言学家和心理学家，以及文学学者的重要兴趣。关于隐喻的关键问题仍有待解答；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变化而发展的？随着《牛津英语词典历史同义词典》（htoe）的完成，我们可以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。经过近半个世纪的制作，htoe是世界上第一本为形成语言书面记录的单词提供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，无论是隐喻还是其他领域。我们将使用htoe证据库来调查一个经验领域（如医学）的语言如何有助于其他领域（如金融）。随着我们的深入，我们将能够看到隐喻思维在特定时期或特定经验领域的创新，比如文艺复兴、科学革命和早期的精神分析。htoe分为三个部分，外部世界，心理世界和社会世界，每个部分都包含详细的子类别，适合这种研究。为了实现我们的目标，我们将设计用于分析隐喻历史的工具，首先设计一个数据库，使我们能够识别单词将其含义从一个领域扩展到另一个领域的实例。数据库将生成一个带注释的“隐喻地图”，这将使我们能够展示含义发生重大变化的时间和方式。在线展示将采用用途列表的形式，并附有图表等可视化形式。在此证据的基础上，该团队将出版一本考察隐喻意义关键领域的书，以及一本《英语隐喻历史同义词词典》。随着项目的发展和完成，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，并提供使用指南材料。用户将能够联系项目团队，并在在线博客上阅读有关开发的信息。一个社区可用的隐喻和表达的隐喻是其思维方式随时间变化的指标。多亏了htoe和隐喻映射项目，我们现在有机会追踪一千多年来隐喻思维方式的变化。因此，该项目的成果不仅会引起许多领域的作家和学者的兴趣，而且会引起对意义、思想和语言感兴趣的每个人的兴趣。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的研究项目提供数据。

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.