The concept of metaphor is studied across many disciplines, such as, cognitive linguistics, applied linguistics and philosophy.

The field of metaphor was dominated by assumptions, methodology and findings from cognitive linguistics in the recent past. In recent years, applied linguistics and corpus based techniques have been added to the study of metaphor. In applied and corpus linguistics metaphor is examined within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory. Conceptual metaphor theory was developed in reaction to an approach which saw metaphor in language as primarily decorative and confined its scope to literary studies. The proponents of Conceptual metaphor theory assert that conventional metaphors as opposed to poetic metaphors are frequent in language use and are worthy of study. It is illustrated in headlines of news stories from web sites on the internet that alcohol related hospital admissions rise and Sainsbury enjoys jump in profit. The term rise and jump are metaphorical because rise does not literary mean increase in size and jump does not refer to literal physical movement. The proponents of CMT argue that there are connections at the level of thought between semantic areas or domains. There is a mental connection between concrete domain of movement upwards and downwards and abstract domain increase and decrease. The concrete domain which provides metaphor is almost always called the source domain, and the abstract domain which is understood metaphorically is called target domain. The connection between domains is known as mappings or conceptual metaphors. The mapping of literal movement upward and downward and increase and decrease is expressed as conceptual metaphors MORE IS UP, and LESS IS DOWN.