Metaphors Across Languages
Author : David Gil and Yeshayahu Shen
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Bibliographical references :
David Gil and Yeshayahu Shen. "Metaphors Across Languages: A Questionnaire (short version)".
Goals
"The goal of this questionnaire is to provide an overview of metaphorical expressions in a wide variety of the world's languages." (Gil and Shen, questionnaire, p.1)
Protocol summary
The questionnaire is divided in two parts:
- Part 1: there is a list of English words that have to be translated in the investigated language and then described according to their non-literal or metaphorical potential usages. This part gathers:
- perceptions terms
- sensory terms
- body part terms
- texture terms
- food terms
- travel terms.
- Part 2 : the linguist has to "list as many metaphorical expressions as [they] can think of in [their] language"(Gil and Shen, questionnaire, p.3), according to the following domains:
- emotions
- mental states and activities
- time
Development context
''The questionnaire may be filled out in varying degrees of detail. Realistic response times might vary from half an hour to a few hours. The questionnaire is currently available in English, Indonesian and Portuguese versions, for use by linguists in different contact-language situations.'' (Typological tools for field linguistics website, https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/tools-at-lingboard/questionnaire/figurative-language_description.php)