Metadiscursive functions of conceptual metaphor in guided meditatation

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.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Metadiscourse focuses on the interactional dimension of communication, what Sinclair (1981) called the 'interactive plane', and the coherence of interpersonal resources used to organise discourse (Hyland, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2010). In this vein, we have analysed a corpus of recorded guided meditations from lay and religious meditation contexts. We have searched for explicit signals instantiating metaphors that guide the meditation practice by marking successive genre stages. The Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU) (Steen et al., 2010) is applied to identify this type of meta-discursive mark. Three types of guided meditation are compared for the signalled metaphors used to guide meditative practice and their functions. The results show that metaphor signalling plays an ostensive communicative function in organising the text contents and serving the purpose of both maintaining the audience's attention and achieving their comprehension of the mental processes they are involved in during the meditative practice. The conclusions suggest a view of metaphor usage as a metadiscursive mechanism conveying non-denotational meaning and a clue factor in meditation discourse.