Finding structure in figurative language: Metaphor detection with topic-based frames

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel and highly effective method for induction and application of metaphor frame templates as a step toward detecting metaphor in extended discourse. We infer implicit facets of a given metaphor frame using a semi-supervised bootstrapping approach on an unlabeled corpus. Our model applies this frame facet information to metaphor detection, and achieves the state-of-the-art performance on a social media dataset when building upon other proven features in a nonlinear machine learning model. In addition, we illustrate the mechanism through which the frame and topic information enable the more accurate metaphor detection.