This paper examines the utility of metaphor as an investigative tool in “long-distance” corpora and discourse studies. I show that metaphor is both important for understanding discourses and useful for diachronic analysis because it allows us to abstract out above the purely lexical level, enabling comparison across contexts where the same concept could be lexicalised differently. The case-study is concerned with the oft-discussed metaphor of migrants are water in the UK-based Times newspaper from 1800–2018 and the conventionalisation and evaluative patterns are presented. The findings confirm that the water metaphor has an extensive discourse history regarding how migration is represented in the UK press, but also that evaluations may differ significantly. The paper shows how metaphor can provide a way to find discourse evaluations and framings across different time periods. The use of second-order collocates illustrates how corpus tools can help re-contextualise data to ensure interpretation heeds contemporary framings.

中文翻译：

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历时语料库和话语分析的隐喻可供性

本文考察了隐喻作为“远程”语料库和话语研究中的调查工具的效用。我展示了隐喻对于理解话语很重要，对历时分析也很有用，因为它允许我们在纯粹的词汇层面之上进行抽象，从而能够在相同概念可以不同词汇化的上下文中进行比较。该案例研究关注 1800 年至 2018 年英国泰晤士报中经常讨论的移民是水的隐喻，并介绍了约定俗成和评估模式。调查结果证实，水的隐喻在英国媒体如何代表移民方面有着广泛的讨论历史，但评估也可能存在很大差异。本文展示了隐喻如何提供一种方法来寻找不同时期的话语评估和框架。二阶搭配的使用说明了语料库工具如何帮助重新语境化数据以确保解释符合当代框架。