Kami Ahrens
Biographic Data
| ID | 933200 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kami Ahrens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kami |
| FAMILY NAME | Ahrens |
| SIGNATURE | AHRENS K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hong Kong Polytechnic University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7863-3655 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 47 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Worldwide Perspectives on English Usage: Into the Third Millennium
The study of English usage has to take account of changes in grammar, word choice and nuances of communication. In recent decades, developments in linguistic methodologies have catalysed modifications In our approach to linguistic variation, with perspectives changing from a primarily prescriptive to a more descriptive approach. Bringing together contributions from a team of distinguished scholars, this book explores sociolinguistic and structura…
The changing Journey: Diachronic metaphorical framing and institutional communication in Hong Kong English (1997–2024)
Hyperboles we check-in: The language of exaggeration in luxury hospitality discourse
Modeling legitimation in discourse: A corpus-based textual analysis of government news
Legitimation strategies are communication efforts aimed at securing public or stakeholder approval, yet large-scale analysis of these strategies is limited. This study uses Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling to identify prominent topics as the potential ‘salient elements’ of a discourse that are legitimized across two comparable corpora of government COVID-19 news from Hong Kong and Mainland China. The corpus comprises 4,143,250 wor…
Spotting hyperbole in communication: Building a scalable framework with linguistic evidence
Although the Hyperbole Identification Procedure (HIP) offers operational definitions and procedural guidelines on hyperbole identification, suggesting that hyperbole occurs when the literal meaning of an expression is more extreme than what the context warrants, it does not provide concrete instructions for determining when such a disparity can be considered to occur. This operational ambiguity has hindered the development of clear, replicable cr…
War Trauma in Young Women's Memories of a Violent Past in Southeast Asia
Children's classics such as Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl (1947/1952) have proven to be very influential in helping young readers understand both the horror and the unending tedium of war. They have also been instrumental in encouraging publishers to make available other first-person narratives of children traumatised by war. However, life narratives of war have so far been explicitly white and western, overlooking stories from Asia and …
Casting nets, keeping fish: Fishing metaphors in China’s digital dating ocean
This study examines how fishing metaphors, where romantic partners become “fish” and dating becomes “fishing,” structure relationship discourse on Chinese social media. By analyzing the viral terms 海王 (Sea King) and 海后 (Sea Queen) in online discussions on Zhihu (a Chinese Q&A platform), we find gender asymmetries in evaluation and pursuit strategies, yet convergence on a central practice: “fish farming,” which sustains connections through minimal…
Cycles of support: A computational approach to online infertility-related interactions in China
Infertility, particularly among individuals undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF), is commonly accosiated with substantial psychological stress. This study examines interactions in a Chinese online support group (OSG) focused on IVF-related discussions, with particular attention to how textual and emotional features reflect variations across treatment stages and user roles (posters vs. commenters). Using the Chinese Linguistic Inquiry and Word …
A type-theoretical approach to categorical interaction and complex system adaptation: An empirical study based on register classification
Type theories provide a formal foundation for logic, mathematics, and computing. They have also been applied to the study of language in formal syntax and semantics, such as categorial grammar and Montague semantics. In this paper, we adopt insights from the type-theoretical definition of grammatical categories to model different registers in Mandarin Chinese. Through the modeling study of the classification of registers, we provide empirical evi…
Linguistic synesthesia and embodiment: A study based on Mandarin modality exclusivity norms
Metaphorical framing of democracy: How Nigerian military dictators and civilian leaders talk to gain legitimacy
Military dictatorships are inherently undemocratic, yet military leaders often frame democracy metaphorically. This raises critical questions: why do they do this, and how do their framings differ from civilian leaders? Existing studies on democratic conception provide limited answers. Addressing this paradox, this study employs mapping principle and discourse-conceptual analysis to examine the metaphorical contestation of democracy in Nigerian p…
Metaphor and gender: Are words associated with source domains perceived in a gendered way
Conceptual metaphors are one of many linguistic devices that can potentially encode and reinforce gender stereotypes. However, little is known about how metaphors encode gender stereotypes, and in previous literature the concept of “gendered metaphor” has been mostly assumed rather than attested. We take the first step to tackle this issue by examining the gender typicality of specific metaphorical source domains. In the present paper, we conduct…
Novel metaphor and embodiment: Comprehending novel synesthetic metaphors
Linguistic synesthesia links two concepts from two distinct sensory domains and creates conceptual conflicts at the level of embodied cognition. Previous studies focused on constraints on the directionality of synesthetic mapping as a way to establish the conceptual hierarchy among the five senses (i.e., vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch). This study goes beyond examining the directionality of conventionalized synesthetic terms by adopting…
Making the Unseen Seen: The Role of Signaling and Novelty in Rating Metaphors
Comprehension of metaphorical expressions differs with their degree of novelty. Conventional metaphors are typically comprehended as easily as literal sentences, while novel metaphors are responded to less quickly than their conventional counterparts. However, the influence of metaphor signals on the interpretability and acceptability of sentences with metaphors, especially their potential interaction with novelty, remains an open question. We co…
Entity, event, and sensory modalities: An onto-cognitive account of sensory nouns
Nouns in human languages mostly profile concrete and abstract entities. But how much eventive information can be found in nouns? Will such eventive information found in sensory nouns have anything to do with the cognitive representation of the basic human senses? Importantly, is there any ontological and/or cognitive motivation that can account for this noun–verb dichotomy via body-and-world interactions? This study presents the first comprehensi…
Corpus-Based Metaphorical Framing Analysis: WAR Metaphors in Hong Kong Public Discourse
This study proposes an operational approach to a metaphorical framing analysis using large-scale data. We conducted a case analysis of how war metaphors are framed to address various societal issues in a corpus of public speeches by Hong Kong government officials. By investigating patterns of lexical choices under the source domain of WAR and the underlying reasons for the source-target domain mappings (i.e. Mapping Principles), we found that the…
Regional varieties and diachronic changes in Chinese political discourse
The present paper explores the synchronic variations and diachronic changes in political discourses in Hong Kong (HK) and in Mainland of People’s Republic of China (PRC). The relationship between lengths of linguistic constructs and their immediate constituents (including sentences and clauses, and clauses and words) are fitted using the function y = ax b based on the Menzerath–Altmann (MA) law to capture the characteristics of language as self-o…
The distance between illocution and perlocution: A tale of different pragmemes to call for social distancing in two cities
On the basis of Mey’s Pragmatic Act Theory, this paper investigates the cross-cultural and cross-language variations in the pragmemes to call for social distancing in public health campaigns to combat COVID-19. We compare the officially released posters calling for social distancing in English and Chinese in two neighboring cities with distinctive socio-cultural contexts – Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Our main findings are: (1) Guangzhou takes one pr…
Linguistic synesthesia is metaphorical: A lexical-conceptual account
This study seeks to clarify the nature of linguistic synesthesia using a lexical-conceptual account. Based on a lexical analysis of Mandarin synesthetic usages, we find that (1) linguistic synesthesia maps the metaphorical meaning between two domains; and (2) linguistic synesthetic mappings and conceptual metaphoric mappings have similar behaviors when sense modalities are treated as conceptual domains that contain a set of mappings constrained b…
Andreas Musolff. Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and Scenarios
Preview this article: Andreas Musolff. Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and Scenarios, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/ps.00006.ahr-1.gif
Assertion, presumption and presupposition: An account of the erstwhile nominalizer YUM in Khalkha Mongolian
In this paper, we analyze the clitic YUM (
Contesting territory via editorials in different varieties of English
This article broadens Schneider's (2018) proposal relating to finding culture in corpora by examining keyness, conceptual frames, and metaphorical signals in newspaper editorials in two varieties of world Englishes: Chinese and American English. These editorials focus on opinion articles and commentaries about territorial issues in the South China Sea during 2013–2015. The results demonstrate that keywords and metaphorical signals are used differ…
Referential and evaluative strategies of conceptual metaphor use in government discourse
We undertake a corpus-based diachronic analysis in order to explore how leaders in China and Hong Kong have employed metaphors of EDUCATION in major governmental speeches and reports both before and after Hong Kong's handover from Britain to China. The results of this study demonstrate that Hong Kong SAR Chief Executives have similar patterns of source domain selections with Chinese Premiers as compared with Hong Kong Colonial Governors, indicati…
Human-Hair Bifurcated Tumplines from Old Man Cave, Utah
Unwrapping a bundle of Basketmaker II textiles from Old Man Cave disclosed two examples of a previously undocumented textile form: bifurcated tumplines. At more than twice the width of standard tumplines, these warp-faced plain weave bands of human hair cordage have one flat end, with the other splitting into two separate parallel bands—one longer and the other shorter. Both narrow bands terminate in tumpline suspension loops. Strains, breaks, an…
Framing metaphor use over time: Free Economy' metaphors in Hong Kong political discourse (1997-2017)
Ideological influence on Building metaphors in Taiwanese presidential speeches
This article studies the conceptual metaphor A COUNTRY IS A BUILDING in Taiwanese presidential speeches. Two culture-specific metaphor patterns are identified as being unusually productive in the corpora: retrospective BUILDING metaphors and RECONSTRUCTION metaphors. These clusters of BUILDING metaphors deviate from the BUILDING metaphors reported in previous literature at two levels. At the conceptual level, retrospective BUILDING metaphors incl…
Functional MRI of conventional and anomalous metaphors in Mandarin Chinese
Individuals, kinds and events
Framing metaphor use over time: Free Economy' metaphors in Hong Kong political discourse (1997-2017)
Ambiguity Advantage Revisited: Two Meanings are Better than One When Accessing Chinese Nouns
Participant roles and the processing of verbs during sentence comprehension
Referential and evaluative strategies of conceptual metaphor use in government discourse
We undertake a corpus-based diachronic analysis in order to explore how leaders in China and Hong Kong have employed metaphors of EDUCATION in major governmental speeches and reports both before and after Hong Kong's handover from Britain to China. The results of this study demonstrate that Hong Kong SAR Chief Executives have similar patterns of source domain selections with Chinese Premiers as compared with Hong Kong Colonial Governors, indicati…
Directionality of linguistic synesthesia in Mandarin: A corpus-based study
Verbal Integration: The Interaction of Participant Roles and Sentential Argument Structure
Participant roles and the processing of verbs during sentence comprehension
On-Line Sentence Comprehension of Ambiguous Verbs in Mandarin
Verbal Integration: The Interaction of Participant Roles and Sentential Argument Structure
Individuals, kinds and events
Functional MRI of conventional and anomalous metaphors in Mandarin Chinese
Processing Conceptual Metaphors in On-Going Discourse
In this study, we investigate whether or not conceptual mappings are accessed and used in on-going discourse when people process conceptual metaphors. In particular, we postulate that the conflicting results of previous studies (Nayak & Gibbs, 1990; Glucksberg et al., 1993) may be due to either one or both of the two diverse methods employed: (1) the different task demands (a judgment task employed by the former versus a reading task employed by …
Ideological influence on Building metaphors in Taiwanese presidential speeches
This article studies the conceptual metaphor A COUNTRY IS A BUILDING in Taiwanese presidential speeches. Two culture-specific metaphor patterns are identified as being unusually productive in the corpora: retrospective BUILDING metaphors and RECONSTRUCTION metaphors. These clusters of BUILDING metaphors deviate from the BUILDING metaphors reported in previous literature at two levels. At the conceptual level, retrospective BUILDING metaphors incl…
Ambiguity Advantage Revisited: Two Meanings are Better than One When Accessing Chinese Nouns
A corpus-based study of metaphor signaling variations in three genres
This study examines the use of words and phrases that signal metaphors in three genres in order to further examine the corpus-based evidence for signaling variation mentioned in previous research. While previous studies have focused on pragmatic functions, discourse functions, and the level of conventionalization, this study demonstrates that the communicative goals within each genre underlie the reasons for the metaphor signaling. Three corpora …
Directionality of linguistic synesthesia in Mandarin: A corpus-based study
A multifactorial analysis of metaphors in political discourse: Gendered influence in Hong Kong political speeches
The rising prominence of women in politics has sparked a growing interest in comparing the language of male and female politicians. Many researchers have explored whether gender in politics has had an impact on their metaphor styles. While these studies have been oriented qualitatively and have concentrated on the two-way interaction between metaphor and gender, the possibility that metaphor and gender may interact with other additional factors i…
Source Domain Verification Using Corpus-based Tools
Source domain verification has not received as much attention as criteria for metaphor identification in the study of conceptual metaphor. In this paper, we provide a replicable approach to source domain verification which we hope will provide a foundation for new approaches to this important question. We adopt an empirical method extended from previous research that used corpus-based linguistic tools such as SUMO (Suggested Upper Merged Ontology…
Andreas Musolff. Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and Scenarios
Preview this article: Andreas Musolff. Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and Scenarios, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/ps.00006.ahr-1.gif
Assertion, presumption and presupposition: An account of the erstwhile nominalizer YUM in Khalkha Mongolian
In this paper, we analyze the clitic YUM (
Contesting territory via editorials in different varieties of English
This article broadens Schneider's (2018) proposal relating to finding culture in corpora by examining keyness, conceptual frames, and metaphorical signals in newspaper editorials in two varieties of world Englishes: Chinese and American English. These editorials focus on opinion articles and commentaries about territorial issues in the South China Sea during 2013–2015. The results demonstrate that keywords and metaphorical signals are used differ…
Referential and evaluative strategies of conceptual metaphor use in government discourse
We undertake a corpus-based diachronic analysis in order to explore how leaders in China and Hong Kong have employed metaphors of EDUCATION in major governmental speeches and reports both before and after Hong Kong's handover from Britain to China. The results of this study demonstrate that Hong Kong SAR Chief Executives have similar patterns of source domain selections with Chinese Premiers as compared with Hong Kong Colonial Governors, indicati…
Human-Hair Bifurcated Tumplines from Old Man Cave, Utah
Unwrapping a bundle of Basketmaker II textiles from Old Man Cave disclosed two examples of a previously undocumented textile form: bifurcated tumplines. At more than twice the width of standard tumplines, these warp-faced plain weave bands of human hair cordage have one flat end, with the other splitting into two separate parallel bands—one longer and the other shorter. Both narrow bands terminate in tumpline suspension loops. Strains, breaks, an…
Framing metaphor use over time: Free Economy' metaphors in Hong Kong political discourse (1997-2017)
Regional varieties and diachronic changes in Chinese political discourse
The present paper explores the synchronic variations and diachronic changes in political discourses in Hong Kong (HK) and in Mainland of People’s Republic of China (PRC). The relationship between lengths of linguistic constructs and their immediate constituents (including sentences and clauses, and clauses and words) are fitted using the function y = ax b based on the Menzerath–Altmann (MA) law to capture the characteristics of language as self-o…
The distance between illocution and perlocution: A tale of different pragmemes to call for social distancing in two cities
On the basis of Mey’s Pragmatic Act Theory, this paper investigates the cross-cultural and cross-language variations in the pragmemes to call for social distancing in public health campaigns to combat COVID-19. We compare the officially released posters calling for social distancing in English and Chinese in two neighboring cities with distinctive socio-cultural contexts – Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Our main findings are: (1) Guangzhou takes one pr…
Linguistic synesthesia is metaphorical: A lexical-conceptual account
This study seeks to clarify the nature of linguistic synesthesia using a lexical-conceptual account. Based on a lexical analysis of Mandarin synesthetic usages, we find that (1) linguistic synesthesia maps the metaphorical meaning between two domains; and (2) linguistic synesthetic mappings and conceptual metaphoric mappings have similar behaviors when sense modalities are treated as conceptual domains that contain a set of mappings constrained b…
Entity, event, and sensory modalities: An onto-cognitive account of sensory nouns
Nouns in human languages mostly profile concrete and abstract entities. But how much eventive information can be found in nouns? Will such eventive information found in sensory nouns have anything to do with the cognitive representation of the basic human senses? Importantly, is there any ontological and/or cognitive motivation that can account for this noun–verb dichotomy via body-and-world interactions? This study presents the first comprehensi…
Corpus-Based Metaphorical Framing Analysis: WAR Metaphors in Hong Kong Public Discourse
This study proposes an operational approach to a metaphorical framing analysis using large-scale data. We conducted a case analysis of how war metaphors are framed to address various societal issues in a corpus of public speeches by Hong Kong government officials. By investigating patterns of lexical choices under the source domain of WAR and the underlying reasons for the source-target domain mappings (i.e. Mapping Principles), we found that the…
Metaphor and gender: Are words associated with source domains perceived in a gendered way
Conceptual metaphors are one of many linguistic devices that can potentially encode and reinforce gender stereotypes. However, little is known about how metaphors encode gender stereotypes, and in previous literature the concept of “gendered metaphor” has been mostly assumed rather than attested. We take the first step to tackle this issue by examining the gender typicality of specific metaphorical source domains. In the present paper, we conduct…
Novel metaphor and embodiment: Comprehending novel synesthetic metaphors
Linguistic synesthesia links two concepts from two distinct sensory domains and creates conceptual conflicts at the level of embodied cognition. Previous studies focused on constraints on the directionality of synesthetic mapping as a way to establish the conceptual hierarchy among the five senses (i.e., vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch). This study goes beyond examining the directionality of conventionalized synesthetic terms by adopting…
Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (25 works) · Linguistics (25 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Metaphor (15 works) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies (11 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (11 works) · Artificial Intelligence (10 works) · Political science (9 works)