An Introduction to Text Mining by Gabe Ignatow & Rada Mihalcea

Author:Gabe Ignatow & Rada Mihalcea
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-09-28T13:31:21.191569+00:00

Mixed Methods Studies

Social scientists have developed a number of mixed methods strategies for metaphor analysis. Generally, these involve human coding of metaphors in combination with statistical tests for both interrater reliability and differences in rates of metaphor use across multiple document collections. The document collections are typically produced by social groups with different social or cultural backgrounds. Where qualitative metaphor analysis is mostly inductive, mixed methods research is mostly deductive, although it often involves abductive inference as well (see Chapter 5).

The social psychologist Moser (2000) has developed a metaphor-based method of text analysis that she has applied in her research on the psychology of work and organizations. Moser’s mixed methods approach involves categorizing metaphors for the self during transitions from school to work. The self-concept is highly complex and abstract and is thus often represented with metaphors. The subjects Moser studied were Swiss German students who participated in a questionnaire study about their anticipated transition from university to work. A subsample of 12 students was included in the study and interviewed about their experiences with success and relationship quality and their expectations and wishes for the future. The transcribed interviews were analyzed thematically and for self-related metaphors and other aspects of the students’ self-concepts. Moser’s quantitative analysis of these data revealed statistically significant relationships between themes and metaphors and between metaphors and self-concepts. There was a general preference for scientific and technological metaphors, followed by container, path, visual, balance, war, and economic metaphors. Metaphor use is also significantly influenced by variables such as students’ general orientation toward the future, field of study, and gender.

Clinical psychologists have analyzed metaphors used by subjects in psychoanalytic therapy (Buchholz & von Kleist, 1995; Roderburg, 1998), and cognitive and experimental psychologists have studied metaphors as examples of mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983). But within psychology, only Schmitt (2000, 2005) has developed a qualitative method of text analysis centered on metaphor. Schmitt’s (2000) “rule-based and step-by-step approach” is idiographic and qualitative and is based on inductive inferential logic (p. 2). It operates at a sociological level of analysis that involves making inferences about the community that generates the text being analyzed and involves a multiple-document-collection data selection strategy (see Chapter 2). The goal of Schmitt’s (2005) method of systematic metaphor analysis is to “discover sub-cultural thinking patterns,” and his method accomplishes this in several steps (p. 365). The first step is for the researcher to choose a topic of analysis. Schmitt gives the example of abstinence from his own empirical work on metaphors for abstinence and alcoholism. The next step is to assemble a “broad-based collection of background metaphors” for the topic (Schmitt, 2005, p. 370). These metaphors can be collected from sources such as encyclopedias, journals, and specialist and generalist books. In Schmitt’s own work, background metaphors include metaphors for the effects of drinking alcohol such as being more open versus fencing off from others. The third step is to analyze the metaphors used in the natural language of the subgroup. This involves creating the second

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