Change and social distribution of figurative language on Uruguayan female population
- Roberto Aguirre, Center of Basic Research in Psychology, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- Manuel García-Ruiz, CIES-IUL, University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
- Yliana Rodríguez, Foreign Languages Center, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- María Macedo, Center of Basic Research in Psychology, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- Mauricio Castillo, Center of Basic Research in Psychology, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
AbstractMetaphors change through time in different cultures, languages and across generations. This research aimed to test the change and social distribution of some metaphors in Uruguayan Spanish. This study tested figurative expressions for the metaphors BEING IN THE OVEN IS DIFFICULTIES / HAZARDNESS, BANKING SOMETHING OR SOMEBODY IS BEARING IT and TO BE FLYING IS DOING SOMETHING WELL. On a multiple choice online questionnaire 267 Uruguayan female chose the meaning and the frequency that they believe they use previous metaphors. By using Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) as a visual exploratory statistical tool, the study suggested Cultural Immersion and Metaphorical Proficiency as dimensions for explaining the social distribution of the aforementioned metaphors. But even though MCA seems to be a useful tool for understanding the metaphors’ vitality, the short percentage of the variance explained by the dimensions suggests introducing additional categories for obtaining an adequate proportion of this variance.