Diachronic data analysis supports and refines conceptual metaphor theory
Fig 2
Anticommunities and metaphor persistence.
Left: Connectivity patterns in the metaphoric mapping network distinguish two classes of categories that coincide with concrete categories (Con) and abstract categories (Abs). These classes form anti-communities, that is, most of the connections are between the classes and not within them. The bar chart compares the number of connections between classes observed in the metaphorical network (green bars) and the average number of connections observed in an ensemble of 1000 configuration random graphs (red bars with error bars). It shows that there are two systematically dominating metaphor groups, mappings from the concrete to the abstract anti-communities, and another with mappings within the concrete anti-community, which shows the continuing re-determination and re-linking of concrete themes. Right: Comparison of multiplicity values of edges between configuration random model and the metaphor network.