In a new paper published in PLOS Complex Systems, Max-Planck-Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences researchers Marie Teich and Wilmer Leal together with director Jürgen Jost have developed a formal framework and large-scale empirical methodology to analyze metaphors and their role in conceptual metaphor theory.

The study confirms the fundamental assumption in conceptual metaphor theory that metaphors are enduring linguistic and cognitive structures, not merely rhetorical figures. Using complex systems tools, the researchers identified a metaphor network with distinctions between abstract and concrete categories, and two significant metaphorical processes: mappings from concrete to abstract topics and the emergence of new mappings between concrete domains.

The study also found that metaphors concentrate on two small sets of everyday topics, with one within the concrete group serving as both strong source and target domains, and the other in the abstract group primarily acting as targets. These findings indicate that metaphor is a creative process driven by contrast and tension between topics which allow re-conceptualizations and the emergence of new similarities.

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