Using The Oxford English Dictionary to identify metaphors in historical corpus data

Abstract This chapter discusses the possibility of using The Oxford English Dictionary to identify metaphors in historical corpus data, especially to analyze abstract concepts in Early or Late Modern English. The discussion centers around two corpus examples which are analyzed and discussed in detail. The examples are analyzed both using the metaphorical pattern analysis (MPA) presented by Stefanowitsch (2006) and the metaphor identification procedure (MIP) suggested by the Pragglejaz group (2007) . The comparison of these two methods reveals that while they seemingly give different results, they are in fact complementary. It is suggested that the same applies to MPA and MIPVU.