Dr Kari Sullivan
Linguistics Major
Senior Lecturer
School of Languages and Cultures
Researcher biography
Human beings can communicate complex ideas using only a few words. We all share cognitive tools, such as metaphor, that allow us to activate complex meanings in other people's minds using language. My research focuses on how these cognitive tools are tied to linguistic forms, such as specific words and grammar. One of the ways I examine the relation between cognition and language is to compare language and non-linguistic communication, particularly the visual arts, as in my award-winning paper The Languages of Art and other publications. My 2013 book Frames and Constructions in Metaphoric Language examines how grammar helps us to communicate metaphor. I’m also interested in connections between (central) non-metaphoric senses and (extended) metaphoric senses in different languages.
| Featured projects | Duration |
|---|---|
|
Metaphor in image and word: correspondences in the conceptual metaphors underlying artworks and their linguistic descriptions The University of Queensland |
2014–2015 |
Books
Sullivan, Karen and Harward-Nalder, Glenda (2024). Yagara Dictionary and Salvage Grammar. ANU Press. doi: 10.22459/ydsg.2024
Wachowski, Wojciech and Sullivan, Karen (2022). Metonymies and metaphors for death around the world. New York, NY United States: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003183761
Sullivan, Karen (2019). Mixed metaphors: their use and abuse. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic. doi: 10.5040/9781350066076
Sullivan, Karen (2013). Frames and constructions in metaphoric language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. doi: 10.1075/cal.14
Book Chapters
Wachowski, Wojciech and Sullivan, Karen (2020). Why would we rather peg out than simply die?—How do GAME metaphors help us deal with death across languages and cultures?. Cultural conceptualizations in language and communication. (pp. 25-41) edited by Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-42734-4_2
Sullivan, Karen (2017). Conceptual metaphor. The Cambridge handbook of cognitive linguistics. (pp. 385-406) edited by Barbara Dancygier. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781316339732.025
Sullivan, Karen and Valenzuela, Javier (2017). Comparing word sense distinctions with bilingual comparable corpora: a pilot study of adjectives in English and Spanish. Usage-based approaches to language acquisition and language teaching. (pp. 287-303) edited by Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul and Elena Tribushinina. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton. doi: 10.1515/9781501505492-013
Sullivan, Karen (2016). Silent abstractions versus "Look at me" drawings: Corpus evidence that artworks' subject matter affects their fictive speech. The conversation frame: forms and functions of fictive interactions. (pp. 87-109) edited by Esther Pascual and Sergeiy Sandler. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Co. doi: 10.1075/hcp.55.05sul
Sullivan, Karen and Jiang, Wenying (2013). When my eyes are on you, do you touch my eyes? A reclassification of metaphors mapping from physical contact to perception. Compendium of Cognitive Linguistics Research. (pp. 189-200) edited by Thomas Fuyin Li. New York, NY, United States: Nova Publishers.
Sullivan, K. (2009). Grammatical constructions in metaphoric language. Studies in cognitive corpus linguistics. (pp. 57-80) edited by Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and Katarzyna Dziwirek. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang Publishers.
Sullivan, Karen and Sweetser, Eve (2009). Is 'Generic is Specific' a metaphor?. Meaning, Form, and Body. (pp. 309-327) edited by Fey Parrill, Mark Turner and Vera Tobin. Stanford, CA, U.S.A.: CSLI Publications.
Sullivan, Karen (2006). How does art ‘Speak’ and what does it ‘Say’: Conceptual metaphor theory as a tool for understanding the artistic process. Thought tools for a new generation : Essays on thought, ideas and the power of expression. (pp. 81-89) edited by David E Boyes and Frances B Cogan. Eugene, Oregon, USA: Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon.
Journal Articles
Sullivan, Karen (2023). Three levels of framing. WIREs Cognitive Science, 14 (5) e1651, 1-13. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1651
Sullivan, Karen (2022). Anti-Muslim semantic framing by politicians, Facebook groups, and violent extremists. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 20 (2), 476-503. doi: 10.1075/rcl.00119.sul
Sullivan, Karen and Wachowski, Wojciech (2020). Everyone "leaves" the world eventually: culture-based homogeneity and variation in Death Is Departure. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 18 (1), 75-93. doi: 10.1075/rcl.00051.sul
Liang, Haiyan and Sullivan, Karen (2019). Chinese L2 acquisition of sense relatedness for shàng “to go up”. Chinese as a Second Language Research, 8 (1), 1-28. doi: 10.1515/caslar-2019-0001
Sullivan, Karen (2018). Being-clauses in Historical Corpora and the US Second Amendment. English Studies, 99 (3), 300-318. doi: 10.1080/0013838X.2018.1436285
Sullivan, Karen and Butler, Sally (2017). Are dead artists' paintings more lively? - Agency in description of artworks before and after an artist's death. Word, 63 (3), 198-206. doi: 10.1080/00437956.2017.1347312
Sullivan, Karen (2017). Integrating constructional semantics and conceptual metaphor. Constructions and Frames, 8 (2), 141-165. doi: 10.1075/cf.8.2.02sul
Sullivan, Karen and Bui, Linh Thuy (2016). With the future coming up behind them: evidence that time approaches from behind in Vietnamese. Cognitive Linguistics, 27 (2), 1-29. doi: 10.1515/cog-2015-0066
Sullivan, Karen (2016). Why suave movimiento isn't 'smooth movement': a corpus comparison of polysemous adjectives in English and Spanish. Languages in Contrast, 16 (1), 118-132. doi: 10.1075/lic.16.1.05sul
Sullivan, Karen (2015). If you study a word do you use it more often? Lexical repetition priming in a corpus of Natural Semantic Metalanguage publications. Corpora, 10 (3), 277-290. doi: 10.3366/cor.2015.0078
Sullivan, Karen (2015). Esther Pascual: Fictive interaction: the conversation frame in thought, language and discourse. Cognitive Semiotics, 8 (1), 93-96. doi: 10.1515/cogsem-2015-0003
Sullivan, Karen (2015). Judging a book by its cover (and its background): effects of the metaphor intelligence is brightness on ratings of book images. Visual Communication, 14 (1), 3-14. doi: 10.1177/1470357214554348
Sullivan, Karen (2014). Visibility and economy as dimensions of metaphoric language. Language and Literature, 23 (4), 347-368. doi: 10.1177/0963947014543608
Sullivan, Karen and Bandín, Elena (2014). Censoring metaphors in translation: Shakespeare's Hamlet under Franco. Cognitive Linguistics, 25 (2), 177-202. doi: 10.1515/cog-2014-0016
Sullivan, Karen (2013). One metaphor to rule them all? 'Objects' as tests of character in The Lord of the Rings. Language and Literature, 22 (1), 77-94. doi: 10.1177/0963947012462949
Sullivan, Karen (2013). A tangled knot of target domains: Assessing INTELLIGENCE IS BRIGHTNESS and GOODNESS IS BRIGHTNESS in an image rating task. metaphorik.de, 23, 7-18.
Sullivan, Karen (2013). It's only a model: discussion note on 'Small Model Languages as Tools for Reflection'. Language Under Discussion, 1 (1), 27-29. doi: 10.31885/lud.1.1.250
Sullivan, Karen (2012). It’s hard being soft: Antonymous senses versus antonymous words. The Mental Lexicon, 7 (3), 307-326. doi: 10.1075/ml.7.3.03sul
Sweetser, Eve and Sullivan, Karen (2012). Minimalist metaphors. English Text Construction, 5 (2), 153-173. doi: 10.1075/etc.5.2.01swe
Sullivan, Karen (2011). If and when it's a construction .... Constructions and Frames, 3 (2), 236-260. doi: 10.1075/cf.3.2.04sul
Sullivan, Karen and Jiang, Wenying (2011). When my eyes are on you, do you touch my eyes? A reclassificaiton of metaphors mapping from physical contact to perception. International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics, 2 (2), 185-196.
Sullivan, Karen (2009). The languages of art: How representational and abstract painters conceptualize their work in terms of language. Poetics Today, 30 (3), 517-560. doi: 10.1215/03335372-2009-004
Sullivan, Karen (2008). Genre-dependent metonymy in Norse skaldic poetry. Language and Literature, 17 (1), 21-36. doi: 10.1177/0963947007085051
Sullivan, Karen (2007). Metaphoric extension and invited inferencing in semantic change. Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación, 5, 255-271.
Conference Papers
Sullivan, Karen (2007). Lexical filledness and metaphor in idioms. First Nordic Conference on Syntactic Freezes, Joensuu, Finland, 19-20 May 2006. Joensuu, Finland: Joensuu University Press.
Sullivan, Karen (2006). Frame-based constraints on lexical choice in metaphor. 32nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A., 10-12 February 2006. Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.: Berkeley Linguistics Society.