Event Date: Thursday, 4 May, 2017, 11 a.m.
Location: Via Santa Maria, 36, Pisa, PI, Italia [2nd floor seminar room]
Speaker: Dr. Marianna Bolognesi (University of Amsterdam)
Title: Metaphorical similarity in visual metaphors and linguistic metaphors: A distributional approach
Abstract: Metaphorical similarity is a peculiar type of semantic relation, which is based on a very limited number of shared features between the two metaphor terms. The nature of these features is, at today, uncharted territory. Moreover, in metaphor studies it is commonly accepted that metaphors are matters of thought, and as such, they pertain to the conceptual level of analysis. This might suggest that the same (conceptual) metaphors can be expressed in different modalities, such as images and words.
In this study, metaphorical similarity is mined by means of distributional semantics in a representative sample of visual and linguistic metaphors. Three types of distributional similarity are taken into account and operationalized through three different distributional methods: attributional similarity (entity-related properties), experience-based similarity (extra-linguistic relations), and language-based similarity (linguistic relations). The different patterns of similarity emerging from the analyses contribute to explain how images vs. words construct and represent metaphors in these two modalities.
Marianna Bolognesi obtained her PhD in Linguistics (2011) in Torino, working on the structure of the mental lexicon in L1 and L2, and its correlation with language-based vector spaces. After teaching in Siena for a few years, she won a Marie Curie and worked in Amsterdam at the Metaphor Lab (2015-2017) on the CogVim project (Cognitive Grounding of visual Metaphor). Her current research agenda involves metaphor and multimodality, and the nature and structure of abstract concepts.