Metaphor variations in public discourse in a dynamic multilingual society

Abstract

This chapter presents a synthesis of results on the patterns of metaphor use in corpora of public discourse in Hong Kong. The corpora cover three critical periods: before and after the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty from Great Britain to China in 1997, and during the COVID-19 crisis. We summarise and compare the use of metaphors over time in terms of two types of changes: fundamental changes involving the transformation of source domains and incremental changes involving the transformation of source-to-target domain mapping principles. We find that patterns of diachronic metaphor variations in Hong Kong English (HKE) reflect changes in target domains based on different social dynamics, especially shifting priorities in societal issues, such as a FREE ECONOMY and ELECTIONS. We also demonstrate that the shifts in focused target domains extend to mapping principles in frequently used source domains, such as WAR, JOURNEY and BUILDING. By examining metaphors and their associated mappings across different varieties of HKE, this study contributes to a framework for understanding cultural differences within the lexical-conceptual dimension of HKE.