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Started 14 April 2025
Aida Coccia
Aida Coccia
  • Universita Roma Tre

Participants needed for research project interviews (oral or written)

Hi everyone,
Our research group is working on a project that focuses on the impact of language practices and British dominant narratives on the cultural integration and identity formation of migrants in the UK. We are looking for young workers (18+) coming from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds who have lived (or still live) in the UK for at least 1 year.
If you are interested and willing to be interviewed, please email aida.coccia.99@gmail.com and we can arrange a time slot. The duration of the interview will last max. 15 minutes.
IMPORTANT: interviews can also be conducted in writing via email, or whatsapp.
Questions and procedures will be further explained.
Thank you.
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  • Asked 13 June 2025
  • Don L. F. NilsenDon L. F. Nilsen
Nilsen, Don L. F. and Alleen Pace Nilsen. “Conceptual Metaphors (Metaphors We Live By).” in Cambridge Encyclopedia of English as a Foreign Language, Edited by Xu Wen. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2025, pages to be determined.
George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Mark Turner suggest that literary metaphors and linguistic metaphors are not the same. In many ways they are opposite of each other. Ironically, literary metaphors are called “Live Metaphors,” while linguistic metaphors are called “Dead Metaphors,” even though the opposite is true. A literary metaphor occurs only in one place, a particular poem, play, or literary work, where a linguistic metaphor occurs in the language itself.
Therefore, a linguistic (dead) metaphor is much more alive (dynamic) than is a literary metaphor. When Shakespeare used the expression “Something’s rotten in Denmark” in Hamlet, this was a literary metaphor, but when the expression “something’s rotten in Denmark” became a part of the living language (a linguistic metaphor), it became much more dynamic, alive, and significant.
So from now on, we will only be referring to Linguistic, or Conceptual Metaphors. There are three things to consider when dealing with a Conceptual Metaphor, the Source, the Target, and the Ground (what the Source and the Target have in common). Metaphor Sources tend to be the common, ordinary, old, prototypical, simple, and concrete aspects of life.
Common metaphor sources are body parts, animals, plants, weather, containers, up/down, journeys, hot/cold, building, food, war, etc. Typical metaphor targets are abstract, complex, and new. These include new technology (e.g. computers), social change, religious change, exploration, invention, discovery, macrocosm, microcosm, life, war, love, happiness, morality, anger, fear, politics, etc.
The Metaphor Ground is what the Metaphor Source and the Metaphor Target have in common. “Kidney beans” are the same color and same shape as “Kidneys”; but their size is different, and so is their texture and taste. “A Head of Lettuce” is the same size and shape as a human “Head”; but is different in color and intelligence. As a third example, consider “Elbow Macaroni,” which is the same shape and color as a human “Elbow,” but differs in size and taste.
Very important Ssources of conceptual metaphors (the metaphors we live by) are as follows: Animals, Body Parts, Clothing, Comparison and Contrast, Numbers, Plants and Food, Our Senses, Time, Life, and Death.
Animal Metaphors:
There are basically three types of animal metaphors:
Domestic Animals (Cats, Chickens, Cows, Dogs, Donkeys, Goats, Horses, Mice, Pigs, Rats, and Sheep
Fish & Water Animal Metaphors (Crabs, Clams, Fish, and Oysters), and
Wild Animals Metaphors: Bears, Buffalo, Foxes, Lions, Monkeys, Shrews, and Tigers).
Let us first look at some animal metaphor etymologies. A jumbo jet or jumbo shrimp are derived from a very large elephant in P. T. Barnnm’s circus, who was named “Jumbo.” A very easy high school or university course is called a “Mickey Mouse Course.” This is derived from Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Our word “pie” is a shortened form of “magpie,” a bird that makes its nest out of things it has collected. The expression “scapegoat” comes from the fact that during Yom Kipur, the sins of the people were symbolically piled on a goat, and the goat was sent into the wilderness. Sometimes a greenhorn (inexperienced person) is taken into the woods to go “snipe hunting,” but there are actually no Snipes in the woods. This is a practical joke. Nevertheless, in the military, we have the term “sniper,” who hides in trees or behind bushes and fires his rifle from that hiding place. Finally, a “Trojan Horse” is an expression that comes from a Greek war between the Spartans and the Trojans (who come from Sparta, and Troy respectively).
Body-Part Metaphors:
When I was a child, we used to sing the following song, as we performed the actions:
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,
Knees, and toes, knees, and toes.
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,
Eyes, Ears, Mouth, and Nose.
So let’s consider these body parts. The head is in charge of the rest of the body. On animals, the head is the highest, and/or most foreward part of the body, because the head contains the eyes (for seeing), the ears (for hearing), the mouth (for tasting), and the nose (for smelling). In English, some head metaphors relate to its shape (head of lettuce or cabbage, headlight on a car). Other head metaphors are related to importance (head of a company, headquarters). Some are related to the head’s position at the top (headers vs. footers, headline, and even falling head over heels in love). And still other head metaphors relate to its position in the front (head start, headlights of a car). The Latin word for head is “caput,” from which we get the word “capital,” as in capital letters, the capital of a city, capital punishment, Captain, and decapitation.
Of course the most important part of the head is the face, so we have the façade of a building, facing the music, saving face, prima facie evidence (superficial), and facing time in jail. There are also many nose metaphors, such as the nasal twang of a guitar, or a nose dive in an airplane, or the nozzle of a hose. A person can win a race by a nose (barely), or can be a nosy (inquisitive) person. For the eyes we have the eye of a hurricane, the eyelets of a shoe, eye candy (an attractive female), and a person might give his eye teeth for a particular prize. The Latin word for eye is “oculis,” so we have monacle (for one eye), and binoculars (for both eyes), and an oculus (which is a round window). There are also conceptual metaphors related to teeth. In Congress, you might have a bill which has teeth in it, or you might fight tooth and nail. The Latin word for tooth is “dens” or “dentes), so we might say that a car has a dented fender (as if someone took a bite out of it). You can also have an indented paragraph, dentures, a dentist, and even a dandelion (tooth of a lion). The tongue is also a rich source of metaphor. We have the tongue of wagon, but most of our tongue metaphors come from the Latin word “lingua.” Thus, we have monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual. We also have language and language arts, lingo (a kind of slang) and Lingua Franca (universal tongue--which ironically is English). We also have the field of linguistics, and in an Italian restaurant, you can order “linguini,” which means “tongues.”
In English we have a lot of body metaphors based on the Latin term “corpus.” In the military there is the Marine Corps, and the Air Corps, and a soldier might be a corporal or a corpsman. If your body is too big, you are corpulent, and a person’s body of work is called a “corpus.” Even after a person dies, he becomes a corpse, and there is a city named “Corpus Christi” in Texas. When an organization becomes important enough, it can become “incorporated,” so that it is now a “corporation.” There are also metaphors for parts of the body. There is the noun “redneck” and the verb “necking,” and in traffic, we might run into a “bottleneck” (which might be part of a “traffic jam”). There are even metaphors for “skin.” A person might be “skinny,” or “all skin and bones;” he or she might go “skinny dipping” (swimming without clothes), and escape getting caught “by the skin of their teeth.” A person’s butt is also a metaphor source. There is a “cigarette butt,” a “rifle butt,” and the “butt of a joke” (target of the joke).
So let me end this section by restating the lyrics of this famous American ditty:
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,
Knees, and toes, knees, and toes.
Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,
Eyes, Ears, Mouth, and Nose.
Clothing Metaphors:
Some clothing terms are ironic. “Crowning” someone could be part of a coronation, or you could “crown someone” by hitting them on the head. Many clothing terms are actions. We can “spin” or “weave” a “yarn” (story). We also have “zip mail.” There are also some interesting clothing metaphor groupings. Based on the corps (body), the arm, the ankle, and the head, we have “corset,” “bracelet,” “anklet,” and “helmet.” We also have the grouping of “muff” (for hands) and “cuff” (on a shirt), and “shirt” (for men), and “skirt” for women.
We have many clothing metaphors in English. We refer to the “foothills,” or the “outskirts” of a city, and sometimes we “skirt” an issue by not confronting it directly. Similar to the “girdle” of a woman, there is the “girth” of a horse—the measurement around the top and stomach of the horst. A person can have “something up his sleeve.” This refers to having cards up one’s sleeve to be able to win at the game of poker. In American English, we refer to the “hood” of a car, but in British English, this is the “bonnet.” Similarly, in American English we refer to the “trunk” of a car, but in British English, this is the “boot.” “Jack” is a generic term for any unidentified person, so we have the game of “jacks,” (where the jacks look like tiny people), and a human “jacket,” which becomes a “book jacket,” or a “record jacket,” and we also have a “jack of all trades” (a person who can do any job). During the French revolution, the ordinary people where called “le jacquerie,” and in Charles Dickens’ The Tale of Two Cities, there are three people named “Jacque Un,” “Jacque Deux,” and “Jacque Trois” respectively. These people were not important enough to have real names. Our word “pants” comes from the “pantaloons” of Italy’s Commedia dell’arte (16th Century). In English it is the man who “wears the pants in the family.” This means that the man is in charge, and the wife has to follow his instructions. Finally, the word “sabotage” came into the English language when the workers threw their “sabots” (French wooden shoes) into the machinery that was replacing them in the work place.
Comparison and Contrast Metaphors:
Many of our prefixes and suffixes occur in antithetical pairs.
Evaluation: Eu-Dis, Bene-Mal
Attitude: Pro-Con,
Size: Maxi-Mini
Position: Hyper-Hypo, Super-Sub, In-On-At
Time: Pre-Post
The bene- prefix can be seen in such words as “benediction” (a good prayer) “benefactor” (someone who does good things), “beneficial” (helpful or useful), “benefits” (something that you profit from), and “benign” (not dangerous). The bene- prefix can also be seen in the “Benedictine Order” of the church, and in the ironic name “Benedict Arnold” (an American traitor).
In contrast, the mal- prefix can be seen in such words as “maladjusted (badly adjusted), “malaise” (ill at ease), “malcontent” (not content), “malice” (bad intentions), “malicious” (evil), “malignant” (very bad, as with a tumor), “malodorous” (smells bad), “mal-practice” (bad medical actions), and “malnourished” (the result of eating only junk food). There is also the name “Mrs. Malaprop” in a Sheridan novel, and the resulting noun “malapropism” (an inappropriate expression).
Number Metaphors:
Some numbers in English are symbolic. If people makes a “180° turn” in an argument, they are arguing the opposite position from the one they started with. A “Catch 22” situation is one which has no solution. If your dog is of the “Heinz 57” variety, it is a “mutt” of no particular breed at all. The “Sabbath” is the day of rest in both Jewish and Christian traditions, but for Jews it is celebrated on Saturday, and for Christians it is celebrated on Sunday. “Sixty minutes” is a full hour, so the program on television named “Sixty Minutes” is supposedlyl one hour in length. And “V-8 Vegetable Juice” is said to contain eight vegetables (more or less), but the name comes from the “Ford V-8 Engine) which was an engine in the shape of a V with four pistons on each side, resulting in the “V-8.”
In English the expression “half-” means “not all the way.” There is the “half-back” in football, and a “half-baked idea,” which hasn’t been thought through well. There’s also “half-court” in basketball, and a “Halfway House” for a drug addict; this house is not in prison, but it’s also not all the way into the community.
Plant and Food Metaphors:
Plant and food metaphors are abundant in English and other languages. Related to “bush,” we have such expressions as “bushy hair,” “beating around the bush” (not getting to the point), “bushings” in a motor, “ambushing someone” (hiding and then attacking), and “bushwhacking” someone. After a tree dies, it is called “deadwood, so we can also use the term “deadwood” to refer to people who don’t do their job. Thereforre an employer might “fire all of the dead wood” (get rid of the unproductive people). If a discussion is successful, we say that it is “fruitful,” or that it “bears fruit.” After an atomic explosion, we might see a “mushroom cloud.” And we can “plant” an idea in someone’s head, or “plant” a person in the audience of a performer, or we can work in a “meat plant.” Wine glasses have “stems,” a politician might “stump for votes.” This means that politicians would stand on a “stump” (platform) to “make their pitch.” You can also “stump” a person by asking a question that the person can’t answer. The person would say, “I don’t know the answer; I’m stumped.” And finally, there is a “light bulb” and a “tulip bulb” both named because of their similar shape.
There are many plant metaphors relating to the early stage of their development. We can have a “fertile imagination,” or “put down roots” (decide on a place to live). A person can be intelligent “a budding genius,” or not intelligent “ a blooming idiot,” or both “an idiot savant.” And even a “young sprout” (young person) might be able to manage a “Lotus Spread Sheet” if he is good in accounting.
Many of our colors are the names of fruit, such as “apricot,” “peach,” “coffee,” “strawberry blond,” “cherry red,” “orange,” and even “black forest cake”; note that for this last one, it is the forest and not the cake that is black. We also have many metaphors relating to the sweetness of the food. A “sugar daddy” is a rich person who takes care of a young lady, who is his “honey.” Or his “sweet heart,” or his “sweety pie,” or his “sweet cheeks.” On a tennis racket, there is the “sweet spot.” And the daughter of Popeye and Olive Oil is named “Sweet Pea.” We have the expression “sweet lemon” to refer to a bad attitude that is made good. We also have “sour grapes” to refer to a good attitude that is made worse.
Sense Metaphors: Taste, Smell, Touch, Sound, and Sight:
Consider, for example, the color red, which is one of the primary colors—red, yellow, and blue. In accounting the balance can be “in the red,” which is bad, or “in the black” which is good. In a crime, a person might be caught “red handed” (actually doing the crime). If your flight in a passenger plane starts at midnight, it is called “the red-eye special.” A “red herring” is something that takes you off task; it comes from fox hunting where a red herring can mess up the ability of the hounds to smell the fox. The “Red Cross” helps out in tragic situations, like earthquakes or floods, and the term “Red Letter Day” refers to a holiday.
During the American revolutionary war a “Red Coat” was a British soldier, and if he joined the Americans and turned his coat inside out, he was called a “Turn Coat.” Communists are called “Reds,” and a person who works outside is called a “red neck” because he gets sunburned. A college athlete has four years of eligibility, but if he “red shirts,” he doesn’t play for a year, and this makes him available for the next four years. And if someone is really special, we might “roll out the red carpet,” a term which can be either metaphorically or literally true.
Living, Dying, and Time Metaphors:
One of the reasons that there are so many Latin words for birth, life, and death is that the Christian missionaries from Rome carried these root words to the New World. When metaphors become firmly established, speakers use them as the basis for new metaphors. These are what we call “second generation metaphors.” Consider, for example, our days of the month. January is named after “Janus,” the god of doors, because it opens the the door into the next year. Note that our term “janitor” is also named after “Janus,” because he opens the doors each morning. February is named after “februum” a Roman god of purification. March is named after “Mars,” the Greek god of war. April is named after the Roman god “Aprilis,” who is said to open the Spring time. May is named after “Maia” the Roman god of fertility. The months of September, October, November, and December were the seventh (sept-), eighth (oct-), ninth (Nov-) and tenth (Dec-) months of the year. But then along came Julius Caesar who wanted a month named after him, so he got “July.” And then Augustus Caesar also wanted a month named after him, so he got “August.” And both Julius and Augustus Caesar wanted their months to have thirty-one days, so they took some days from February, so that now February has only twenty-eight days, except on leap years, when it has twenty eight or twenty nine days.
Our days of the week are also named after Roman, Greek, and Norse gods. Monday is named after the moon. Tuesday is named after “Tyr” (god of single combat). Wednesday is named after “Woden,” the chief Roman god. Thursday is named after “Thor,” the Norse god of thunder and lightening. Friday is named after “Fria” a Norse goddess. Saturday is named after Saturn (one of the Greek Titans). And Sunday is named after the sun.
Even as we look into the heavens we can see the Greek and Roman influences. “Aries” is a ram; “Taurus” is a bull; “Gemini” are twins (Casper and Polux); “Cancer” is the crab; “Leo” is the lion; “Virgo” is the virgin; “Libra” is the scales; “Scorpio” is the scorpion; “Sagitarius” is the archer or the centaur; “Capricorn” is the horn of a goat; “Aquarius is the water carrier; and “Pisces” are the fish.
Conclusion: The Theory Behind the Source-Based Approach to Vocabulary Instruction:
Literary metaphors are confined to particular literary works, and are therefore very limited in their scope. In dealing with conceptual metaphors (metaphors we live by) we could concentrate on the targets (beans) or the sources (kidneys) when discussing a metaphor like “kidney beans.” We have chosen to focus on the sources, this makes the discussion more synthesis and less analysis. Our approach has the following advantages: We go from the known to the unknown; we go from the literal to the metaphorical; this approach allows for prediction and intelligent guessing.
We are making the following assumptions: 1. English is constantly changing because of inventions, discoveries, social changes, paradigm shifts, etc.; 2. English is enriched by words from other languages; 3. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs tend to have many meanings, not just one meaning; 4. Words move from literal to metaphorical meanings, not the other direction; and 5. Usually words follow regular patterns as they acquire new meanings.
In our discussions, the following distinctions are necessary: 1. The difference between bound and free morphemes; 2. The distinction between ambiguity, paraphrase, and anomaly; 3. The distinction between lexical categories (noun, verb, adjective, adverb), and grammatical categories (determiner, auxiliary verb, conjunction, preposition, expletive, etc.); 4. The nature of borrowings from French, Spanish, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, Arabic, American Indian languages, etc. 5. We must also need to understand such processes as metonymy (word associations), synecdoche (hierarchical word relationships, like part-to-whole or top-to-bottom), and epiphany (like the punchline of a joke, or the denoument of a novel).
Synecdoche is when a part of a concept is used for the entire concept. Movies, therefore, are referred to as “the Big Screen;” a sailor is referred to as a “deck hand” (because it’s his hands that are important); we say that we have 250 “head of cattle” even though we have the entire cow, not just the head. We wear “glasses” and drink from “glasses” even though they may not be made of glass. We also talk about “paperback books,” “wheels” (for cars), “the tube” for television, and “the Pigskin” for a football. If it is not a part-whole connection, but is rather a looser relationship, we refer to it as Metonymy. Examples include “jocks” (for athletes who wear “jock straps”), Red Cap,” “Skirt,” and “Suit” (for the people who traditionally wear red caps (helpers), skirts (women), and suits (business people).
We should be aware of etymologies and folk etymologies, and know that the expression “pidgin language”) does not come from the bird, but rather comes from a simplification of the word “business.” It’s also nice to know that in the expression “Mackinaw Island” the expression “mackinaw” comes from the Algonquian term “milikamacinac” meaning “big turtle in the water.”
Eponyms are also important. Eponyms are words named after people, like “Adams Apple” (from Adam’s eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden), and “Cesarean Section” (from the way that Julius Caesar was born), and “Maudlin” (from Mary Magdelin at the time of Christ’s crucifixion), and “the Sousaphone” named after John Phillips Sousa, a musician who wrote marches), and “hay derrick” (from Godfrey Derrick, who was a public executioner), and “Silhouette” (from Étienne de Silhouette, who was Loouis XIV’s Controller General). Knowing these stories will help people remember these words and work them into their conversations.
There are also some interesting place metaphors, like “Boston Baked Beans” (from Boston, Massachusetts), “Buffalo Wings (from Buffalo, New York), “Denim” (from “de Nimes” in France), “Jeans (from Genoa, Italy), “Manhattan Clam Chowder (from Manhattan, New York), and a “Tex-Mex Restaurant) (from Texas and Mexico).
Two other ways that English has to simplify words are the processes of Clipping and Blending. Examples of Clipping include “Abs” for Abdominal Muscles, “Bike” and “Trike” for Bicycle, and Tricycle, “”Deli” for Delicatessen, “Exam” for Examination, “Goodbye” for God Be With You, and “Hazmat” for Hazardous Materials, “Copter” for Helicopter, “Vegas” for Las Vegas, “Meds” for Medications, “Fridge” for Refrigerator, and “Zoo” for Zoological Garden. Examples of blending include “Alcoholidays” for Alcohol Holidays, “Brunch” for Breakfast and Lunch, “Electrocute” for Electric Execute, “Motel” for Motor Hotel, “Smog” for Smoke and Fog, “Urinalysis” for Urine Analysis,” and “NABISCO” for National Biscuit Company.
Sometimes an expression is reduced to only the first letters of the expression. This is how we get Acronyms. Thus we have “AID” for Agency for International Development, “ASAP” for As Soon As Possible, “BCNU” for Be Seeing You, “BIRP” for Beverage Industry Recycling Program, “COD” for Cash on Delivery, “POTUS” for President of the United States, and “FLOTUS” for First Lady of the United States. “LOL” means “Laugh Out Loud, and “ROFLMYAO” MEANS Rolling on the Floor Laughing My Ass Off. In the military, the word “MASH” means Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. For the Post Office, the “ZIP” in “ZIP CODE” MEANS Zoning Improvement Plan. “NOW” stands for National Organization for Women; “SAG” is the Screen Actor’s Guild, and “MANURE” stands for Man and Nature United in Rational Enterprise. This organization is concerned with the environmental issues.
Another generative process of word formation in English is Compounding. Consider all of the following contrasting expressions: “blackbird” vs. “black bird;” “Bluebeard” vs. “blue beard;” “goldfish” vs. “gold fish,” “greenhouse” vs. “green house,” “Redcap” vs. “red cap;” “Redcoat” vs. “red coat;” “readhead” vs. “red head;” “Whitehouse” vs. “white house,” and “yellowjacket” (a waspe) vs. “yellow jacket.” The first expression in all of these pairs is a Compound, while the second expression is an Adjective followed by a Noun. For all of the Compounds, it is the first word that is stressed, but for all of the Adjectrive-plus-Noun expressions, it is the second word that receives the stress. Thus, we have the blackbird vs. black bird, stress pattern for all of these pairs.
Still another process of adding words to the English language is Part-Of-Speech Change. Consider the word “dress” in the following sentences:
She likes to wear dresses (noun).
She dresses up at night (verb).
It is a dress shirt (adjective).
It’s is just window dressing (progressive adjective).
The boss gave him a dressing down (progressive adverb).
Put your clothes in this dresser (noun with a different denotation).
Up to this point, we have been dealing with Denotation (what a word refers to in the real world). So we’ll end with some examples of Connotation (the emotional or psychological impact of words). Very often a word in English is used to mean the opposite of what it usually means. This, if a person says that something is “Bad!” or “Really Bad!” it means that is Great, or Magnificent.
The Connotations of words change through time. A “Villain” used to mean a person from a small village, but now it refers to a criminal. The German word “Selig” means holy, but if a person becomes holier, and holier, and holier, at some point he becomes “Silly.” The word “awful” used to mean the same as “Awe Inspiring,” but now it is used only in the negative sense. The French word “Salon” has very positive connotations, but when it came to the American West, it became “saloon,” which is a place where cowboys go to get rowdy.
The metaphorical process for bringing words into English are numerous and complex. In this article, we’ve not attempted to give answers so much as we’ve attempted to show how dynamic and complex the processes are for bring new words into English or any other language. So, we’ll end with an enigmatic paraphrase from our favorite author, Gertrude Stein, who said:
There is no answer.
There never has been an answer.
There never will be an answer.
That’s the answer.
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Declercq, Dieter. “Satire as Safety Valve: Moving Beyond a Mistaken Metaphor.” HUMOR: International Journal of Humor ResearchAugust 24, 2021.
Haidari-Shahreza, Ali. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. New York, NY: Routledge, 2024.
Lakoff, George. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Turner. More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Nilsen, Alleen. Changing Words in a Changing World: Pop Goes the Language. Newton, MA: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 2000.
Nilsen, Alleen. Living Language: Reading, Thinking, Writing. New York, NY: Allyn and Bacon, 1999.
Nilsen, Alleen, and Don Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 2000.
Nilsen, Alleen, and Don Nilsen. The Language of Humor: An Introduction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Nilsen, Alleen, and Don Nilsen. Vocabulary Plus High School and Up: A Source-Based Approach. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2004.
Nilsen, Alleen, and Don Nilsen. Vocabulary Plus K-8: A Source-Based Approach. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2004.
Nilsen, Don L. F., and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Language Play: An Introduction to Linguistics. Rowley, MA : Newbury House, 1978.
Seaman, David, and Carol Fulmer. Metaphors and Other Challenges for Learners of American English. Detroit, MI: Waldorf/Steiner School. 2019.
Solopova, Olga. A., Don Nilsen, and Alleen Nilsen. “The Image of Russia through Animal Metaphors: A Diachronic Case Study of American Media Discourse” Russian Journal of Linguistics 27.3 (2023), pp. 521-542.
Why can the DOI only be linked to one conference article/poster/abstract it references?
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  • Asked 15 June 2025
  • James SaffinJames Saffin
The following DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.13223
Is connected to a single poster.
However there are multiple abstracts/posters linked to this DOI.
Research gate does not allow duplicate DOIs (and is throwing an error when trying to link).
I think the fault lies with ResearchGate In requiring unique DOIs
What do we lose, as individuals and as a research community, when we stop reading deeply and rely on AI-generated summaries instead
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  • Asked 14 June 2025
  • Ahmad azmi EsmaeilAhmad azmi Esmaeil
I was walking in the library, searching for the only book we have about cyberpsychology. And I did find it. However, I put it aside and decided to read it after I finished the book I'm currently reading. And then, a series of thoughts kept coming to my mind. And it ends up with this big question: What did we lose when we stopped reading books? Instead, we rely on summaries provided by the AI. And here I am, not speaking about degree students for whom the issue of reading is not even a question that anyone would bother asking( because no one reads). Instead, I am referring to post-graduate students. Who is supposed to get a master's degree and become an expert in their field? However, I realise that with myself and others, most of them do not read any books or even articles. More and more people (me included) rely on summaries provided by AI. Or, if they are diligent enough, they will only read the abstract of the article. I recall from my degree that I wrote multiple articles, and each might have had at least 20 articles cited without reading any of them fully. I just relied on the summaries provided by the AI. It is hard to imagine that my situation will be much different from that of other researchers in the field. Perhaps for the old and classic researcher who grew up with books, their ability to read a whole book or literature remains intact. However, in my case, and to a great extent, my generation of researchers does not commonly read a whole book. And the question that brings me back to my original question: What would the research community and science lose when a whole generation grows up in this way? And what might be the impact of such things on our future as a researcher? One of the clear impacts that comes to mind is reducing the number of knowledgeable people in society. I assume that we all love listening to these people who seem to know everything. When you ask them questions that are somehow related to their fields or even beyond them. They can always give you a perfect answer based on their deep and wide reading. These people can speak about different issues that are happening in our lives with certain levels of spontaneity. In other words, the real intellectuals. I believe after 5 to 10 years, when my current generation becomes the new leader, these types of people( who are already rare) will be about to become extinct. Instead, we will have more false intellectuals who may know about many topics but in TikTok Videos depth( like some lecturers that I know). And I do not see any real attempts to reverse such effects. In the last few months, I have heard about multiple webinars regarding how to use AI to write your articles faster and more efficiently. I have yet to see any webinar about the value of reading and knowledge regarding your field. Like recently, I started listening back to Egyptian influencers whom I admire and how much knowledge they have. And their ability to suggest books to read for every question people ask them. And I really kept thinking, How can I be like them? How can I reach and develop this reading ability that allows me to read this amount of books? However, it is something that concerns me and possibly another lecturer as well. But it is not something that I see anyone in the library or at my university address. And I believe, to some extent, it will be weird to ask people and expect them to read books. The other indirect influence might be the lack of comprehensive and multi-disciplinary understanding of any issue. Since I am using AI, I already know what are the articles and the theories that might be directly relevant. This also means that I will be less likely to come across other studies that can be relevant but in an indirect way and may help me have a newer approach to my research. When we are not reading any books related to our field, let alone another relevant field. It is hard to expect a psychology student who rarely reads any of his main textbooks to go to other textbooks in sociology. Which might result in having a narrow understanding or view of our research areas. Or even ignoring other issues that might be an interconnection of different fields. Another effect is based on a book that I read last year( the book called Shallow), which points out that reliance or fragmented sources of information might affect our ability to think deeply about the issues that we are facing. This problem I realised recently when I was trying to write the literature review. For me, I had already made the AI give me summaries of the main points for each article. But my ability to think and keep information was bad till the point that I had to ask The Ai also to arrange them into themes. And to make it even more shorter and simpler for me to report. While previously I would have done these things myself. It will not be perfect by any means, but I do not remember having this sense of incapacity. So, am I saying that we should not use AI summaries? I would be lying if I said so. However, the hard question is how to balance between developing your reading and deep focus skills while also using AI to get your work done. Let us be honest: it seems more attractive for me to spend the whole day on my laptop writing the thesis using AI summaries than spending 3 to 5 hours reading books. And then do the writing, but the question that started all these lines of thought in the first place: Which one would be more effective and efficient for our future as a researcher? And I really do not know.
What is the suitable reliability test for my instrument?
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  • Asked 10 June 2025
  • Ahmad Defa MaulanaAhmad Defa Maulana
Hello there, I would like to ask some questions in terms of my research "The Effectiveness of Fishbowl Technique Towards Students Speaking Ability." I've been looking for a suitable reliability for my instrument that i am making recently. I use oral test of Interview to obtain data to measure students' speaking skill that uses likert scale assessment (1-5) on 5 components of speaking. The lecturer advised me to bring three raters (including me) to avoid the biases from subjectivity, and make time efficient since educational institution is my target population (11th grade students). When I planned to conduct the tryout for 35 students in class. I am still confused on which reliability tests are usable for my case. I planned to divide students into three rater groups as lecturer suggests so, which rater 1 for students number 1-12, rater 2 for 13-24, and so on. I tried to use ICC or pearson correlation (through test-retest) but it needs overlapping data which raters should assess all same students but it will took longer and it may disturb the learning progess on the school. I might be so clueless that I can't solve this myself. Please, any suggestions or feedback regarding my case will be appreciated. Thank you, and pardon me about the long text.
All the Doctoral Scholars of Indian Universities, Can you please help me in this survey for data collection?
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  • Asked 9 June 2025
  • Shalini PorwalShalini Porwal
Greetings for the day, everyone
I'm sharing a questionnaire link to collect data from the doctoral Scholars for research purpose in my PhD.
I request to all kindly give your precious time to this message, fill the questionnaire and contribute your opinion in this study.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3MZpwq_3DANWPOo9z08T_RsqE34FTyHDea0Wjp1ok7ulVxg/viewform?usp=header
Thank You!
Required authors for review article
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  • Asked 11 June 2025
  • Dwaipayan SinhaDwaipayan Sinha
Co-authors are required for a review article for a special issue titled Redox Metals in Health and Disease to be published in Redox Biochemistry and Chemistry (Elsevier). Interested candidates should have a very strong command of English with sufficient exposure to scientific papers and article writing. The candidates should desirably have a PhD in biochemistry, human physiology, life sciences, or allied disciplines. Candidates are also expected to fully participate in the article writing and prioritize the venture. Though the journal is waiving off the APC for this time, the manuscript would be subjected to rigorous peer review, and acceptance would solely depend on the quality of the write-up. However, if recommended for any other journals, APC may apply on the second attempt. That would be discussed later on. Interested candidates may kindly communicate personally. The deadline for the venture is 30.09.2025.

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