Metaphors and anthropomorphism in medical discourse
Metaphors and anthropomorphism in medical discourse

Summary/Abstract: The crucial question in this study is how anthropomorphic metaphors influence medical discourse by attributing human characteristics to illnesses. We implemented the research design based on the frameworks of cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis, placing emphasis on developments in the conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), more recently elaborated by Kövecses (2010), Semino et al. (2017), and Gibbs (2017). In the process of analysing a manually collected corpus of communicative exchanges between patients, non-patients and medical workers retrieved from online platforms, the Metaphor Identification Procedure VU University Amsterdam (MIPVU) as outlined by Steen et al. (2010) was employed. We narrowed down the focus of our study to previously underexplored linguistic analysis of anthropomorphic metaphors in health and disease narratives. We hypothesized that 1) anthropomorphic metaphors are the most prevalent form of metaphors in medical communication, and 2) they are effective in bridging the experiential gap. Consequently, the research questions were formulated: What is the occurrence of anthropomorphic metaphors? What are the functions of anthropomorphic metaphors from the speakers’ and recipients’ perspectives? In what way can such language constructions influence patients’ mutual understanding and interaction? Which conceptual domains are most frequently represented through anthropomorphic metaphors? Results indicate that 40 per cent of the metaphors used in medical discussions are anthropomorphic. On the interpersonal level, they enhance both empathy and comprehension by creating a sense of shared experience. Corpus analysis further revealed that the strategic use of anthropomorphic metaphors in medical communication can potentially improve patients’ engagement and comprehension. In this sense our findings align with the current research on the impact of metaphors on speakers. More importantly, our research brings new perspectives on anthropomorphic metaphors, providing classification of direct and metaphoric anthropomorphism as well as further analysis of subtype categories.

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