The Construction of Metaphoric Text and Talk: A Discourse Analytic Approach is a tour de force that incorporates the rich history of research on metaphor into a data-driven treatment of the topic that opens new perspectives on how metaphorical strategies systematically provide discourse with “texture” and coherence.

Jef Verschueren, University of Antwerp

The treatment of metaphor in this book enlightens and liberates me from my age-old conception of metaphor as a word-based trope to a new horizon of viewing metaphor as a texture-weaving mechanism over discourse. This rewarding experience, I am sure, is to be shared by everyone who lives by metaphors.

GU Yueguo, Beijing Foreign Studies University

I just finished reading Meizhen Liao’s new book on metaphor and strongly recommend it to otherreaders, including students. Liao’s does an excellent job reviewing some of the history of metaphorresearch, but also offers clear critiques about its focus on discourse metaphors. His analysisof numerous examples leads Liao to better understand metaphorical discourse and text in terms ofcomplex adaptive systems theory. This approach, which has broad appeal in the naturalsciences, offers more comprehensive ideas about how metaphors come into being in different complex ways.I enjoyed reading these new ideas, and they made me think hard about several methodological and theoreticalissues. Liao’s book is clearly at the cutting-edge of metaphor research on Chinese language/texts and is well-worth the time to read and appreciate. It will make you think differently about metaphors!

Raymond W. Gibbs, Independent Cognitive Scientist