Metadiscursive functions of conceptual metaphor in guided meditatation
Círculo de lingüística aplicada a la comunicación November 14, 2025 Ignasi Navarro Ferrando, Antonio-José Silvestre-López
Metaphors serve as a metadiscursive mechanism that organizes guided meditation discourse, helping maintain audience attention and comprehension of mental processes during practice. Analysis of a corpus of recorded guided meditations from lay and religious contexts, using the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU), identified explicit signals that mark successive genre stages. Comparing three types of guided meditation, the results show metaphor signaling plays an ostensive communicative function in organizing text contents and guiding meditative practice. The conclusions suggest metaphor usage conveys non-denotational meaning and acts as a clue factor in meditation discourse.