Cultural Metaphor and Intercultural Identities

“Cultural Metaphors” are a central element of Farzad Sharifian’s “Cultural Linguistics” theory framework. At various levels they express culture-specific conceptualization traditions. This chapter looks at the special case of metaphor interpretations expressing inter-cultural identities. Its data come from a corpus of 2000+ nation as body written metaphor interpretations produced by informants in 30 countries, of whom 216 self-identified as migrants and 71 highlighted experiences of migration, “mixed” identity, or minority status. These data allow insights into how, as migrants, students deal with identity-conflicts and experience solidarity as well as fears of discrimination through (re-)interpreting the nation as body metaphor and exploiting its pragmatic potential, e.g., irony and sarcasm. In conclusion, we discuss the relevance of the migrants’ figurative discourse for intercultural communication.