Lynne Cameron

The Open University · Faculty of Education and Language Studies

In this article, the researchers explore how insights from complex systems theory might resonate with the experience of TESOL practitioners and argue that complexity can function as a shared discourse space where connections might be drawn between research and practice. The article grew out of a meeting between TESOL practitioners and researchers a...

Complex dynamic systems (CDS) theory offers a powerful metaphorical model of applied linguistic processes, allowing holistic descriptions of situated phenomena, and addressing the connectedness and change that often characterise issues in our field. A recent study of Kenyan conflict transformation illustrates application of a CDS perspective. Key C...

The concept of framing has been widely used to help understand how aspects of messages can shape people's expectations and consequently influence the outcomes of communicative interactions. In this study we examine transcripts of a contentious and ultimately unsuccessful public meeting between police officials and members of the African American co...

A cross-linguistic/cultural study of verbal metaphor compares responses to terrorism in the UK (N = 96) and to urban violence in Brazil (N = 11). Focus groups discussed how violence changes perceptions of risk, decisions of daily life, and attitudes to others. Metaphor vehicles were identified in transcribed data, then grouped together semantically...

This paper reports on analyses of data gathered from discourse interactions of two focus groups of Brazilian university students (n = 11) as they talk about urban violence in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil. The analytical procedure follows Cameron et al.’s (2009) metaphor-led discourse analysis which focuses on the role metaphor vehicles play in the emer...

We employ Positioning Theory in a reanalysis of data from postconflict reconciliation conversations between Jo Berry, whose father was killed in an IRA bombing, and Patrick Magee, who planted the bomb. The analysis shows how discourse activity simultaneously positions not just the Self and the Other as individuals, but also in dialogic relation to...

Este artigo apresenta, sob a ótica da análise do discurso à luz da metáfora, resultados parciais de análises sobre a influência que a mídia parece exercer sobre as falas de vítimas de violência urbana em Fortaleza-Ceará-Brasil. Entendemos a metáfora como emergência dinâmica complexa, capaz de expressar sentimentos, valores, crenças e atitudes dos p...

An applied linguistic study of talk in 12 focus groups (N = 96)-six in London, where bombs exploded in July 2005, and six in Leeds, home to three of the bombers-investigates the effects of terrorism on people's personal and social landscapes. Emotional responses of fear, of both violence and retaliation, and suspicion contribute to multiple disrupt...

This study re-analyses focus group data on responses to human rights abuses, to investigate how participants’ experiences in their local social and physical worlds influence empathy with distant suffering others. Metaphors, metonymies, narratives and typifying scenarios were identified in the discourse dynamics. Scenarios, metaphors and metonymies...

Event synopsis: Empathy -- understanding another person’s emotions and perspective -- plays a vital role in societies affected by conflict, reducing the probability of violence and offering the potential for reconciling differences. This conference will present new research into empathy in dialogue from the Global Uncertainties project Living with...

Event synopsis: A conference for professionals and practitioners. Examining empathy across international contexts (responses to terrorism in UK and to urban violence in Brazil, police-community interactions in USA, conflict transformation in Northern Ireland and Kenya) has revealed how people block empathy through the interaction of emotions, moral...

This paper examines language development in mainstream education through analysis of the language demands made on bilingual pupils by tasks and interactions in subject classrooms and the responses pupils make to these demands The data was gathered while working with mainstream secondary subject teachers on an in service language development project...

Metaphor is recognised as an important way of thinking constructing analogies and making connections between ideas and an important way of using language to explain abstract ideas or to find indirect but powerful ways of conveying feelings. By investigating peoples use of metaphors, we can better understand their emotions, attitudes and conceptuali...

This discourse-based study investigated semantic and affective aspects of metaphors used by people talking about background risk of terrorism. 96 members of the UK public participated in 12 focus group discussions, organized by gender, religion (Muslim / non-Muslim), and socio-economic status. 12,362 metaphors were identified in transcribed talk, c...

The use of metaphor as a tool to uncover people's ideas, attitudes, and values through analysis of discourse is demonstrated and illustrated with data collected in a social science research project. A “discourse dynamics” approach to metaphor situated within a complexity/dynamic systems perspective is developed. This approach is turned into a metho...

Cognitive metaphor theorists have identified a number of mappings that, it has been claimed, are both central to thinking and productive of linguistic metaphors. One of these is UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING. In this article, we re-examine UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING using two sources of naturally occurring data. Our first source is the Oxford English Corpus...

Changes to research methodology motivated by the adoption of a complexity theory perspective on language development are considered. The dynamic, nonlinear, and open nature of complex systems, together with their tendency to self-organization and interaction across levels and time scales, require changes in traditional views of the functions and ro...

This paper describes some of the social-cognitive dynamics in people’s production and understanding of metaphoric language. We adopt a dynamical systems approach to outline how different social and cognitive processes operates simultaneously as talk unfolds along different nested time-scales, which interact in complex, nonlinear ways to shape “meta...

This chapter explores what happens to a metaphor after it has been first used. Metaphor shifting refers to changes in adaptations made to the metaphor as the talk or text proceeds. Shifting is analysed from the perspective of what language users do with the vehicle (or source domain) term, its connecting concepts and lexical fields, in a dynamic fl...

The book introduces key concepts in complexity theory to readers concerned with language, its learning, and its use. It demonstrates the applicability and usefulness of these concepts to a range of areas in applied linguistics including first and second language development, language teaching, and discourse analysis. It concludes with a chapter tha...

The phenomenon of clustering, where speakers or writers suddenly produce multiple metaphors, is widespread and intriguing. This paper presents an innovative visualization methodology for identifying and exploring metaphor clusters, comparing it to existing methods that use cumulative frequency graphs and Poisson curve fitting, and addressing issues...

In a violent world, reconciliation between perpetrators and victims offers an alternative to revenge or retaliation. In such discourse, participants must make extended efforts to explain themselves to, and to understand, the Other. This article investigates emergent patterns of metaphor in reconciliation talk between an IRA bomber and victim, recor...

This paper describes the transcription process and the development of transcription skills in a research project using recorded spoken interaction as its main data. The spoken data was transcribed using intonation units, and the paper traces the development of the first author's skills in identifying such intonation units. Intertranscriber checks o...

Theory and method for the study of metaphor in face-to-face conversation language use reveals a range of differences with conceptual metaphor theory. This article explores whether these differences reflect an essential incompatibility or can be turned into something more positive that can develop cognitive approaches to metaphor. begins by proposin...

This article presents an explicit method that can be reliably employed to identify metaphorically used words in discourse. Our aim is to provide metaphor scholars with a tool that may be flexibly applied to many research contexts. We present the “metaphor identification procedure” (MIP), followed by an example of how the procedure can be applied to...

We show how emergence offers new explanations for the behaviour of metaphorically-used expressions. Analysis of metaphors in two types of natural language data are combined: detailed analysis of continuous discourse, which offers wealth of context and the possibility of monitoring emergent forms as the discourse unfolds, and computer-assisted corpu...

Compares on the use of metaphor in classroom discussion and literature. Parameters of variation in metaphor use; Types of metaphor variation; Significance of the teacher's knowledge on readers to the metaphor use of teachers in developing explanations.

About the book: Recent years have seen rapid growth in the numbers of children being taught foreign languages at younger ages. While course books aimed at young learners are appearing on the market, there is scant theoretical reference in the teacher education literature. Teaching Languages to Young Learners is one of the few to develop readers' un...

We studied metaphorical language in spoken discourse from a number of settings to explore the words and expressions that regularly appear in the cotext of both conventional and innovative metaphors. We found that expressions that we call "tuning devices" are frequent in all the data consulted. Tuning devices have a number of different functions, cl...

This paper argues that the continuing expansion of teaching English to young learners (TEYL) brings challenges to the wider ELT field. It discusses why starting younger may not bring automatic improvement to language standards unless teacher education and secondary language teaching both rise to the challenges of the new situation. Young learners w...

‘Metaphor in Educational Discourse is a superb piece of applied linguistics research that integrates Vygotsky’s theory of concepts with current work on metaphor into a coherent framework for investigating how teachers and learners negotiate figurative language in order to promote development in the classroom setting. In what is likely to become the...

The paper reports findings from a study in two stages to trial tests of vocabulary size in English as an additional language (EAL). The first, pilot, stage trialled the Levels test (Nation, 1990) and the Yes/No test (Meara, 1992) with secondary students aged 15 years, with an average of 11 years of education in the target language. The Levels test...

In this paper we present a simple evolutionary model of childrens’ language development, whose central nonlinearity is represented by noninvertible discrete dynamical systems. The underlying assumption of the model is that children learn from other children through their interactions. The concrete learning mechanism used is based on imitation,...

GoatlyAndrew, The language of metaphors. London: Routledge, 1997. Pp. xvi + 360. Hardback £60, ISBN 0 415 12876 5; paperback £17.99, ISBN 0 415 12877 3. - Volume 2 Issue 1 - Lynne J. Cameron

Discusses a project in which staff from a British university worked with subject teachers in a local secondary school to investigate classroom practice and develop effective strategies to teach English as a Second Language. Findings suggest that inservice education may generate change in classroom practices more effectively if teachers are given th...

This briefing paper was published by the International Security Programme at Chatham House, in conjunction with the New Security Challenges Programme of the Economic and Social Research Council. Copyright © The Royal Institute of International Affairs. It is available from http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/9803_bp1007islamuk.pdf In 2002 the UK’s...

It has become increasingly clear that metaphor needs to be explored in terms of the social and discourse context in which it is used, especially where the aim is to address real-world problems. The notion of 'real world' metaphor research has been developed to describe this important area of investigation. This book starts by describing the nature...