Specifying viewpoint and information need with affective metaphors a system demonstration of the metaphor magnet web app/service

Abstract

Metaphors pervade our language because they are elastic enough to allow a speaker to express an affective viewpoint on a topic without committing to a specific meaning. This balance of expressiveness and indeterminism means that metaphors are just as useful for eliciting information as they are for conveying information. We explore here, via a demonstration of a system for metaphor interpretation and generation called Metaphor Magnet, the practical uses of metaphor as a basis for formulating affective information queries. We also consider the kinds of deep and shallow stereotypical knowledge that are needed for such a system, and demonstrate how they can be acquired from corpora and the web.