Interpretive Metaphor Analysis — Qualitative Metaphor Research

Discourse analysis broadly examines how language constructs meaning and social reality. Interpretive metaphor analysis is a more specialized tool that focuses specifically on conceptual mappings — how one domain of experience is systematically understood through another. It uses Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory as a framework for identifying and grouping metaphorical expressions, whereas discourse analysis may employ a wider range of linguistic and rhetorical tools. The two can be combined, with metaphor analysis serving as one analytical strand within a broader discourse study.

There is no fixed minimum, but the principle is conceptual saturation: you need enough data that the dominant metaphorical frames and their tensions have had opportunity to emerge. In interview-based studies, 8–20 participants is common. For document or media analysis, the relevant criterion is sufficient variety in the text corpus to capture range, not just repetition. More important than sample size is the richness and spontaneity of the language in the data.

A metaphorical expression is a specific word or phrase in the text (e.g., 'I am drowning in work'). A conceptual metaphor is the underlying cognitive mapping that generates multiple such expressions (e.g., DIFFICULTIES ARE FLOODS). Interpretive metaphor analysis works by collecting many metaphorical expressions, grouping them by their shared source and target domains, and then naming and interpreting the conceptual metaphor that underlies each cluster.

Qualitative data management software (NVivo, ATLAS.ti, MaxQDA) can assist with organizing and retrieving coded expressions, and corpus linguistics tools can help identify candidate metaphorical terms across large text collections. However, the intellectual work of identifying conceptual domains, grouping expressions into mappings, and interpreting what those mappings mean in context must be done by the analyst. There is no software that performs genuine interpretive metaphor analysis automatically.

With caution. Metaphors are language- and culture-specific, so direct translation can destroy or alter conceptual mappings. Best practice is to conduct metaphor identification in the original language with bilingual coders, note culturally specific source domains, and be explicit in the write-up about how translation choices were managed. Cross-linguistic metaphor analysis is an active area of methodological development.