Hicham Lahlou

This study explores English metaphors in the linguistic landscapes of Shanghai, China, focusing on four distinct research sites: Biyun, Gubei, Xin Tiandi, and the Bund. Through a mixed-methods approach, this research combines the qualitative framework, Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU), with quantitative analysis using the R software to examine 428 photographs. The study specifically investigates metaphor density and the prevalence of conceptual metaphors across official and private signage. The findings reveal that official signage in public spaces tends to avoid metaphorical expressions compared to private entities that exhibit a greater use of metaphors. Furthermore, while official sources predominantly employ WAR metaphors, private institutions show a typical preference for metaphors from the HUMAN BEING domain. These results contribute to the growing body of research on the cognitive theories of metaphor by demonstrating their practical application in urban linguistic landscapes. Additionally, the study provides a more profound understanding of how conceptual metaphors are used to convey embedded social and cultural meanings, highlighting the influence of context on metaphorical expression in public spaces.

This study aims to evaluate the degree to which core and peripheral meanings of polysemous verbs are used in the English textbook Full Blast Plus 4 for upper secondary students and to determine the cognitive processes underlying their semantic extensions. Polysemy is common in natural languages; however, it has received limited research interest. This is because research on vocabulary prioritised breadth - the number of form-meaning pairings acquired by learners - over depth of vocabulary knowledge, which encompasses a broader range of lexical features beyond basic form-meaning connections. Recent studies have begun to acknowledge the significance of polysemous senses in vocabulary education and learners’ lexical proficiency, especially from a cognitive linguistics perspective. Still, few studies have examined polysemous word senses in educational materials; therefore, this paper addresses this research gap. This mixed-method, corpus-based research uses Sketch Engine’s Word List and Concordance tools to compile a list of polysemous verbs and explore their meanings. The Concordance tool is also applied to find metaphorical senses, which are manually analysed to find incongruous vehicle verbs and their context or co-text and determine conceptual metaphors that underpin them. The findings show that the textbook under study does not offer opportunities to engage with less common or peripheral senses. In addition, despite the apparent neglect of conceptual metaphor in the textbook’s design, conventional conceptual metaphors underpin most peripheral and figurative senses of the verbs examined. The results have significant implications for comprehending, as well as applying, polysemy and underlying cognitive mechanisms in second and foreign language learning.

Traditional vocabulary research often overlooks the crucial role of metaphorical language, essential for comprehensive lexical understanding. The presence of conceptual metaphors in English language textbooks for nonnative speakers remains under-examined, despite their pervasive nature. This study addresses this gap, investigating conceptual metaphors of time in selected Malaysian English language textbooks to highlight their importance for second language learning. A qualitative, corpus-driven study analysed conceptual metaphors of time in two intermediate and upper-intermediate secondary English language textbooks: Healan et al.’s (2018) Close-Up and Mitchell and Malkogianni's Full Blast Plus 4 (2019). Using Sketch Engine’s Word Sketch and Concordance tools, the research identified verb + time collocations, cross-referencing them with the British National Corpus (BNC). For comparative analysis, the Malaysian Web Corpus in Sketch Engine was used to investigate verb + waktu (Malay for time) collocations. Linguistic metaphors in both corpora were manually analysed to identify incongruous vehicle terms and their target domain (time). Analysis of verb + time collocations in Close-Up and Full Blast Plus 4 revealed nine distinct verbs: have, take, spend, and leave. All identified collocations were metaphorical, predominantly conceptualising TIME as MONEY, VALUABLE COMMODITY, or LIMITED RESOURCE. A comparative analysis with the Malaysian Web Corpus showed striking similarities, with Malay waktu + verb collocations also conceptualising time as MONEY, VALUABLE COMMODITY, and LIMITED RESOURCE. The conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY emerged as a pervasive underlying system characterising all time-related collocations in both languages, reflecting cultural conceptualisation tied to time's quantification. The results of the current study have substantial theoretical and practical implications for integrating conceptual metaphor understanding in second language teaching.

This research adopts a quantitative-qualitative mixed-methods approach to examine the role of flipped classroom pedagogy in fostering critical thinking skills in English argumentative essays among Chinese EFL undergraduates. Specifically, the pilot study compares the mean scores of the pretest and posttest, focusing on the performance in English argumentative essays between the experimental group (N=32) and the control group (N=28). It investigates the impact of the flipped classroom on developing critical thinking skills in argumentative essays. It explores the experiences and perceptions of Chinese EFL learners regarding how the flipped classroom enhances their critical thinking skills in such essays. The ultimate goal is to assist these students in improving their writing quality, achieving better academic outcomes, and enhancing their competitiveness in future job markets. The significance of this research lies in its potential to promote the adoption of the flipped classroom as an effective pedagogical tool for supporting Chinese EFL undergraduates. The findings indicate that the experimental group’s mean scores steadily increased throughout the intervention, providing robust evidence of the effectiveness of the flipped classroom approach in fostering critical thinking skills in Chinese EFL undergraduates’ argumentative essays writing. We hope this study will inspire more researchers to propose meaningful pedagogical implications and recommendations to improve teaching and learning processes within EFL contexts

Despite their prevalence, internal semantic relations within English compound adjectives remain a relatively underexplored area in compounding research. This research aims to enhance our understanding of hyphenated Noun- Adjective compounds (hereinafter referred to as “HNAC”) and hyphenated Adjective-Adjective compounds (hereinafter referred to as “HAAC”) by revealing the patterns of internal semantic relations between the constituents of compounds. The HNAC and HAAC types of compound adjectives share common structural and semantic features. The existing categorizations of compound adjectives often rely on concepts such as subordinative, attributive, coordinative and copulative. Similarly, analyses of sense relations within compound adjectives frequently employ these same notions. This study integrates empirical data with systemic functional theories to elucidate the semantics of HNAC and HAAC, offering a complementary perspective. The dataset, comprising 716 HNACs and HAACs sourced from the online Oxford English Dictionary, is treated as a collection of word complexes. Drawing on the ideational metafunction and the model of taxis and logico-semantic relation of expansion within Systemic Functional Linguistics, the study investigates the internal semantic relations between the constituents of HNAC and HAAC. Data analysis results in the categorization of HNAC and HAAC into five prototypical types: hypotactic-elaborating compound, hypotactic-enhancing compound, paratactic-elaborating compound, paratactic-extending compound, and paratactic-enhancing compound. Furthermore, fourteen common patterns of internal semantic relations between the constituents of HNAC and HAAC are generalized using the theories of taxis and expansion. The findings demonstrate that the systemic functional theories provide a valuable framework for describing the morphological and semantic features of HNAC and HAAC.

The current study focuses on politicians’ use of idiomatic language and audience idiomatic knowledge in a popular Channels Television (Channels TV) talk show known as Politics Today. The objective is to explore language use, frequencies of idiomatic language used, and conceptualisation of idiomatic meaning in political talk shows. The mixed research design used the Cultural Conceptualisations (CCs) framework to guide the analysis of language use qualitatively and using descriptive statistics limited to frequency count distribution, percentages of occurrences, and ranking scores to calculate quantitatively. The authors collected 10 talk show episodes from Channels TV website and transcribed them, selecting 318 figurative languages that met purposive sampling criteria. They extracted 60 idioms from the transcribed text to examine 400 participants and investigate the extent of idiomatic meaning and language use. The correlation between language use and idiomatic meaning on Channels TV was statistically significant. The frequency of idioms used in talk shows is evidence that politicians are fond of persuading electorates and using different verbal expression tactics to make the most impression, which may convince their voters. The language used in political talk shows allows politicians to be politically inclined while remaining relevant. This study's findings have important implications for future research on idiomatic language use in political talk shows across cultural and political contexts.

Written language emerges from spoken language and is a refined form of it. Certain oral activities can prepare for corresponding written expression. Based on this principle, this study carried out an action research to investigate the effectiveness of a composite model of ‘Speak-Write’ in EFL writing instruction in a mechanical engineering 1st year undergraduate class in a northwestern Chinese university. The study addressed the challenges faced by these students in developing fluency, confidence, and coherence in their writing. The model integrates speaking activities into the writing process, aiming to enhance vocabulary, fluency, and idea generation. The author has consistently used this model throughout the freshman year. Data analysis, including pre- and post-tests, writing sample analysis, teacher observations, and student surveys, revealed significant improvements in students’ writing proficiency, confidence, and engagement. Students demonstrated increased fluency, vocabulary use, and grammatical accuracy in their writing, alongside enhanced participation and positive attitudes towards writing. The ‘Speak-Write’ composite model provides a valuable framework for EFL teachers working with Chinese university freshmen. The findings suggest that integrating speaking activities into EFL writing instruction can effectively address the specific needs and challenges of Chinese university freshmen, fostering a more engaging and effective learning environment, and promoting both language acquisition and confidence in written communication. This study has implication for university EFL learners and EFL writing teachers.

From a cognitive linguistic perspective, this article delves into the polysemy between the English term sour and its Chinese counterpart suan. The research aims to achieve two key objectives: (1) To explore the similarities and differences in the polysemy of sour in English and suan in Chinese; (2) To identify the cognitive mechanisms that motivate the semantic expansion of sour in English and suan in Chinese. To this end, 《汉语大词典》(the Great Chinese Dictionary), The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the British National Corpus (BNC), and the Centre for Chinese Linguistics (CCL) Chinese-English Parallel Corpus were used. The dictionaries are utilized to explore the polysemy of sour and suan, while the BNC and CCL Chinese-English Parallel Corpus are employed to investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying the semantic extensions of the selected terms. Theoretically, this article draws upon the conceptual metaphor and metonymy theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson. The findings reveal significant semantic overlap between sour in English and suan in Chinese, yet notable distinctions remain. This study has implications for vocabulary teaching as well as cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication.

This study explores the polysemy of the word “bitter” in English and ku in Chinese. It examines the similarities and differences between their semantics and identifies the cognitive mechanisms that motivate their semantic expansion. The study attempts to answer two questions: (1) What are the similarities and differences between Chinese ku and English “bitter” in terms of meaning? (2) What cognitive mechanisms motivate meaning extensions of these two words? To this end, 汉语大词典 (Chinese Dictionary), 英汉大词典 (English-Chinese Dictionary), the British National Corpus (BNC) and BLCU Corpus Center (BCC) were employed. The two dictionaries were utilised to investigate the multiple meanings of the two terms, while the BNC and the BCC were employed to identify metaphors and metonymies in sentences. Theoretically, the study is informed by Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy. The results showed that half of the meanings of “bitter” and ku overlapped, but there were still some differences. Their semantic expansion is motivated by both conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor. In addition, the words under investigation differ in the emotions expressed. English “bitter” is more negative, while Chinese ku is more positive. The present findings have important implications for education and cross-cultural communication in language.

Most research on image schema examined the meaning configuration of words connotation. However, previous studies of adjectives are meaningful in cognitive linguistics because they provide insight into how those adjectives are involved with psychological movement. In this sense, from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, one’s conceptualization and cognition are closely associated with their bodily experience and surroundings; adjectives are no exception. The varieties of transformations of image schemas lay the foundation for the conception and perception. Accordingly, this study is an investigation into the perception of adjectives and psychological activities associated with image schema. Data in this study come from adjectives in the novel The Great Gatsby, which were tagged and calculated with the help of software Python and the NLTK package. The results demonstrate that a significant amount of adjectives were used in the novel. Moreover, Nick’s psychological activities changed significantly from the SOURCE to the DESTINATION schematic stage, which is uncovered by his expression of adjectives. Finally, the results further suggest that transformations of image schema as BALANCE, CONTAINER, and PATH work together to motivate one’s linguistic expression of adjectives. The present findings have several implications for research on lexicons and literacy interpretation from cognitive linguistics.

The present study investigated the viewpoints of visitors and their experiences with al-Qarawiyyin as conveyed through Google Reviews. The study aimed to determine the primary aspects that underlie the visitors’ experiences at al-Qarawiyyin and to examine these experiences through sentiment. This research examined both quantitative ratings and qualitative comments. The reviews were obtained from Google by utilizing the Google Review Downloader tool. The reviews underwent content analysis in order to categorize them into distinct aspects or categories. Subsequently, a sentiment analysis was performed to ascertain positive, negative, and neutral viewpoints about the institution. The results unveiled seven key aspects pertaining to visitor experiences: access, education, facilities, general aspects, location, national and international heritage, and serenity. The categories of national and international heritage, as well as facilities, were given greater emphasis, while the category of location received comparatively less attention. Based on the examination of star ratings and sentiment, it can be inferred that the majority of visitors were satisfied with their experience at al-Qarawiyyin. Nevertheless, the aspect that garnered the bulk of one-two-star ratings and negative reviews was the access category. The results of this study carry significant implications for scholarly investigations in the fields of higher education and tourism.

The current paper expands on previous work done on the influence of learners’ language and preexisting knowledge on understanding physics terminology by exploring the concept of ACCELERATION in Arabic and English. The study attempts to answer two questions: (1) what are the similarities and differences between the polysemy of Arabic تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) (acceleration) and the polysemy of English acceleration, and (2) to what extent do prototypes and factors motivating the conceptualization of تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) and the conceptualization of acceleration converge or diverge? To this end, Arabic and English dictionaries and corpora, the ArabiCorpus (Arabic Corpus Search Tool) and the British National Corpus (BNC), were employed. The dictionaries were surveyed to explore the various meanings of تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) and acceleration, while the ArabiCorpus and the BNC were employed to investigate the senses and to identify the most frequent collocates and so the prototypes of these terms. The meaning extension of the terms is examined on the basis of the cognitive mechanisms which appear in the corpora. Theoretically, the paper is informed by the prototype theory (Rosch, 1973; 1975), image schemas (Johnson, 1987), and conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003). The results show that تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) (acceleration) and acceleration generally overlap in terms of polysemy, prototype, and images schemas as well as conceptual metaphor that organize the conceptualization of these terms. It was also found that both Arab and English speakers mix ACCELERATION up with SPEED and so misunderstand them in a scientific setting. The present findings have several implications for science curriculum design, education, and research on universal and culture-specific properties of language.

Studies on difficulties in understanding scientific terms have shown that the problem is more serious among non-Western learners. The main reasons for this are the learners' pre-existing knowledge of scientific terms, their native language incommensurability with Western languages, and the polysemy of the words used to denote scientific concepts. The current study is an analysis of the conceptualisation of scientific concepts in two culturally different languages, i.e. Arabic and French, which represent a non-Western language and a Western language respectively. Physics concepts which are considered as some of the most challenging concepts for non-Western languages (Loo 2005; Aranador 2005) were selected for analysis. To this end, the terms that refer to two physics concepts, "weight" and "mass" in Arabic وَزْن (wazn) and كُتْلَة (kutla) and in French poids and masse were semantically analysed. The analysis of the concepts in both languages is informed by the prototype theory by Rosch (1973; 1975), idealised cognitive models (ICMs) by Lakoff (1987), and conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy by Lakoff and Johnson (2003). The data for analysis were retrieved from two comparable Arabic and French corpora, namely the ArabiCorpus and the Concordancier-Corpus Français. The results suggest that there are both similarities and differences between the Arabic and French concepts in terms of meanings, prototypes, and metaphorical as well as metonymic semantic extensions. These findings support the argument that the human conceptual system is related to our environmental and cultural experiences and also importantly, validate previous claims on the need for educators to be cognizant of the culturally relevant meanings of scientific words found in everyday language that may impede learners' understanding of scientific concepts.

This book offers substantial insight into students’ conceptualization of scientific terminology. The current book explores the commonalities and distinctions between Arabic and French physics terms, and the impact of the language disparities on students’ understanding of physics terms. This book adopts a novel approach to the problem of scientific terminology by exploring physics terms’ polysemy, prototypical meanings, and conceptual metaphor and metonymy, which motivates their extension of meaning. The book also investigates how the linguistic discrepancies and other variables affect the learning of physics by Arab students (Moroccan students, in this book). Concepts in Physics: A Comparative Cognitive Analysis of Arabic and French Terminologies, whether you are a student of science, a science teacher or lecturer, a translator, or a linguist, is what you need. The book will help you comprehend the linguistic and cultural differences between western and non-western physics terminologies (in this book, French and Arabic physics terminologies) and the factors influencing the learning of physics concepts, and thus address the multiple challenges in learning scientific terms and concepts.

The current paper investigates two productive morphological processes, namely compounds and portmanteau words (or blends). While compounds, a productive, regular and predicable morphological process, have received much attention in the literature, little attention was paid to portmanteau words, a creative, irregular and unpredictable word formation process. The present paper aims to find the commonalities and differences between these morphological devices, using Rosch et al.’s (1975; 1976) theory of prototypes and basic-level categories to achieve this goal. This theory will also be employed to discuss the literature on the word formation mechanisms under investigation and propose a new categorization approach to these neologisms. The analysis suggests that compounds and blends compare and contrast and that the distinctions between them are blurry. The analysis confirms that a prototypical approach is well suited to compounds and blends in English. This has implications for future research into English word-formation processes in general and compounds and blends precisely.

Despite the large number of studies conducted on polysemy, they mostly compare the different methods and techniques to learn a language and establish the extent to which particular sense relations facilitate the learning of second language vocabulary. To our best knowledge, no research has been conducted to determine whether or not polysemy is emphasized in non-native English textbooks. The objective of the present research was to determine the degree to which polysemy is incorporated in English textbooks. Thus, the research question guiding the current study is: To what extent is polysemy incorporated in non-native English textbooks? The study is corpus-based research that used a data set of 500 words, i.e., 250 words from each of the two books, utilizing the Sketch Engine word list tool and concordance. The polysemy of the resulting words in the concordance lines generated was semantically annotated manually using WordNet and English dictionaries. The results indicated that polysemy is barely stressed in the textbooks under investigation. The study’s results have substantial implications for polysemy in particular and second or foreign language teaching in general.

The present article focuses on the conceptual structures of two Arabic words which are used in both everyday life and science: كَهْرَبَاء (kahrabāʾ) (electricity) and ضَوْء (ḍawʾ) (light). Under a cognitive linguistics approach, the polysemy of these terms, revealed in the citations extracted from ArabiCorpus, is studied. More specifically, the analysis of the terms involves the polysemy or ‘radial category’ along with its prototypical and peripheral meanings, and the main factors in projecting the idealised cognitive models (ICMs) where the radial categories are formed: conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy. The results indicate that power and knowledge motivate the conceptualisations that underpin the categories كَهْرَبَاء (kahrabāʾ) (electricity) and ضَوْء (ḍawʾ) (light) respectively. Using such non-scientific conception in understanding the scientific senses of these terms leads to students’ confusion and failure to understand them. To ensure that students construe the scientific concepts correctly, they must be mindful of the inconsistency between their non-scientific and scientific meanings.

The current paper expands on previous work done on the influence of learners’ language and preexisting knowledge on understanding physics terminology by exploring the concept of ACCELERATION in Arabic and English. The study attempts to answer two questions: (1) what are the similarities and differences between the polysemy of Arabic تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) (acceleration) and the polysemy of English acceleration, and (2) to what extent do prototypes and factors motivating the conceptualization of تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) and the conceptualization of acceleration converge or diverge? To this end, Arabic and English dictionaries and corpora, the ArabiCorpus (Arabic Corpus Search Tool) and the British National Corpus (BNC), were employed. The dictionaries were surveyed to explore the various meanings of تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) and acceleration, while the ArabiCorpus and the BNC were employed to investigate the senses and to identify the most frequent collocates and so the prototypes of these terms. The meaning extension of the terms is examined on the basis of the cognitive mechanisms which appear in the corpora. Theoretically, the paper is informed by the prototype theory (Rosch, 1973; 1975), image schemas (Johnson, 1987), and conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003). The results show that تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) (acceleration) and acceleration generally overlap in terms of polysemy, prototype, and images schemas as well as conceptual metaphor that organize the conceptualization of these terms. It was also found that both Arab and English speakers mix ACCELERATION up with SPEED and so misunderstand them in a scientific setting. The present findings have several implications for science curriculum design, education, and research on universal and culture-specific properties of language.

For various historical, political as well as economic reasons, the English language is favoured as the universal language of science over other languages including French and German (Tardy, 2004). This naturally entails that students who are conversant in English have an advantage over those who are not in the acquisition of scientific knowledge. In relation to this, research on the misunderstanding of scientific terms in different languages shows that students who are speakers of non-western languages in particular face difficulties in conceptualising scientific concepts. There is evidence to suggest that these students’ pre-existing knowledge about scientific terms and the polysemous nature of such terms are factors that influence their conceptualisation of the terms. This finding is the motivation behind the present cognitive linguistic study of the term temperature and its equivalent in Arabic, the compound دَرَجَةُ الحَرَارَة (darajatu al-ḥarara). Using a cognitive framework, namely Lakoff’s Idealised Cognitive Models (ICMs), the study analyses the conceptual similarities as well as differences between the terms. The study also analyses the English term heat as the second free morpheme of the compound دَرَجَةُ الحَرَارَة is الحَرَارَة which is the Arabic rendering of heat. The meanings and different uses of the terms are examined to analyse the ICMs that are evoked in each language. The results of the analysis reveal that the ICMs of English and Arabic terms under study overlap, and interestingly, also differ.

Despite the wide range of studies on how students’ past knowledge influences their understanding of scientific terminology, few studies were conducted to compare non-scientific language with scientific language, or rather everyday language with scientific language, from a cognitive linguistic perspective. The present paper aims to determine the cognitive mechanisms, i.e., image schemas, conceptual metaphor, and conceptual metonymy, which underpin the conceptualisation of the Arabic term سرعة (speed), using a conceptual metaphor theory framework. Thus, the research question guiding this study is: What cognitive mechanisms underlie the concept of سرعة (speed) in Arabic? The findings of this study will shed light on how Arab speakers conceptualise this term, demonstrating their background knowledge of the term compared to its scientific meaning. The article adds to the growing body of cognitive linguistics research on the conceptual processes behind physics terms. The data was collected from the Arabic Web Corpus (arTenTen) using the Sketch Engine. The findings demonstrated that VERTICATLITY and SCALE schemas are the most dominant image schemas that anchor the conceptual meaning in Arab speakers’ perceptions of the term under investigation and the discourse in which it is employed, as well as offer the concrete basis for conceptual metaphors. The conceptual metaphor CHANGE IS MOTION (LOCATION) was also shown to be active in motivating the conception of SPEED in Arabic.

Exocentric compounding is a creative morphological process that contributes to the English lexicon. However, because it lacks a syntactic or semantic head, it was deemed an exceptional case in most word-formation literature and hence neglected. Previous work has only been limited to syntax-based grammar and the notion of headedness and thus failed to address the other linguistic rules that constrain exocentric compounds. The current paper aims to identify the frequency of exocentric compounds and thus to determine their viability. The research will also look into how conceptual metaphor and/or conceptual metonymy motivate exocentric compound formation. The results demonstrate that exocentric compounds are viable lexical units, generating content words (e.g., adjectives and adverbs) through productive word-formation processes, and extending word senses. The results also suggest that conceptual metonymy is more active than conceptual metaphor in the formation of exocentric compounds. The present findings have several implications for research on exocentric compounds, conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor.

The present paper aims to broaden the current understanding of students’ misconception of scientific terminology by identifying the gaps between Arabic and English scientific terminologies and between everyday language and scientific language. The paper compares the polysemy, prototypes, and motivating factors of English energy with those of Arabic طَاقَة (ṭāqa), with more focus on students’ prior knowledge. The study employs Lakoff’s (1987) idealized cognitive models and Rosch’s (1975) prototype theory to reveal the radial members of both categories, i.e., energy and طَاقَة (ṭāqa), and to explain the kinds of cognitive mechanisms that motivate the extension as well as understanding of the meanings of these terms. To this end, the study uses several English and Arabic dictionaries, lexical databases and corpora. This is to explore all the meanings, prototypes and motivating factors of the terms under investigation. The results show that the terms energy and طَاقَة (ṭāqa) overlap in prototypical meanings and motivating factors but differ in less prototypical and peripheral meanings. English and Arabic learners may then face similar issues in learning scientific concepts due to the difference between their pre-existing knowledge and scientific language.

Most research on word formation processes focuses on regular morphological and grammatical patterns. Such a focus overlooks several creative and productive word formation processes, such as portmanteau words, leaving several linguistic phenomena unexplained or regarded as exceptions. The present book systematically compares compounding and blending. In the literature, compounding is seen as a regular grammatical and morphological process, while blending is considered non-morphological and grammatically irregular. To address these gaps, the current book proposes an alternative theoretical framework that can explain all morphological processes that assist in expanding the English vocabulary. It is believed that the book has significant implications for categorising word formation processes in general, and compounds and blends in particular.

Conceptual metaphors have received much attention in research on discourse about infectious diseases in recent years. Most studies found that conceptual metaphors of war dominate media discourse about disease. Similarly, a great deal of research has been undertaken on the new coronavirus, i.e., COVID-19, especially in the English news discourse as opposed to other languages. The present study, in contrast, analyses the conceptual metaphors used in COVID-19 discourse in French-language newspapers. The study explored the linguistic metaphors used in COVID-19 discourse in these newspapers and conceptual metaphors that underlie and motivate them, using a conceptual metaphor theory framework (CMT). Therefore, two North African French-language newspapers, namely Libération, published in Morocco, and La Presse de Tunisie, published in Tunisia, formed the corpus of the current study. The results showed that the most frequent framing of COVID-19 was in terms of WAR, followed by DISASTER and KILLER, respectively.