Introduction

[Rene Dirven]

DEAR BALJIT,

Below I attach ahopefully useful reference, taken from our electronic
project METBIB, which now contains some 4,000 titles on metaphor and
metonymy and which will be made available online by Benjamins, Amsterdam in
early 2005.
As you can see, the online database will also offer keywords, and for many
titles, abstracts.
I hope that this reference may help you find many more ways to your research
target.
Kind regards and good luck,
Rene Dirven

Maasen, Sabine; Weingart, Peter. 2001. Metaphors and the Dynamics of
Knowledge. (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought 27). London:
Routledge, 208 pp., ISBN: 0415208025
Keywords:
sociology of science; sociology of knowledge; knowledge society;
evolutionary theory; heuristics; cognition and metaphor; dynamics of
knowledge; "struggle for existence" metaphor; Darwin; Kuhn; paradigm
metaphor; chaos metaphor; everyday discourse; scientific discourse
Abstract
A striking characteristic of modern knowledge society is the rapid spread of
certain ideas and concepts back and forth from everyday to scientific
discourses, and across many different contexts of meaning. This work
attempts to open up a new road to the study of these "dynamics of
knowledge". Sociologists of knowledge and recently evolutionary theorists
have offered explanations that either attribute social attention to
particular ideas or shifts of meaning to the predominance of certain groups.
Maasen and Weingart, however, offer a radical new explanation that explores
knowledge dynamics by reference to the interaction between metaphors and
discourses. The study focuses on three major case studies: the spread of
Darwin's phrase "struggle for existence" in the popularizing literature in
turn of the century Germany; the reception of Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of
Scientific Revolution" and its identification with the term "paradigm" in
the sciences and humanities; and the diffusion of the concept of "chaos"
from scientific to everyday discourses.
This work studies knowledge dynamics and the sociology of knowledge. The
focus is on the role of metaphors as powerful catalysts and the text
dissects their role in the construction of theories of knowledge.
(Publisher Book Description)
Notes:
Professor of Science Studies, University of Basel, Switzerland


----- Original Message -----
From: "Baljit Grewal" <balgre86 at AUT.AC.NZ>
To: <DISCOURS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 23:51
Subject: Re: Introduction


> Hi Rebecca,
>
> Hi I am from Auckland New Zealand and just started on my PhD at AUT. My
> background is also in sociology and am looking at policy discourse on
knowledge
> society using Critical Discourse Analysis.
>
> Regards,
>
> Baljit