Annotating Metaphorical Mappings: An Implementation of Steen’s Five Step Method

This paper presents an implementation of the Five Step Method first proposed by Gerard J. Steen. It shows the utility of the method for annotating metaphorical language and the underlying conceptual mappings in religious texts from different cultural and linguistic contexts. A number of adjustments to the original method are introduced to make the method more accessible and guide annotators from various disciplinary backgrounds. After introducing the general procedure, a number of edge cases are discussed and possible ways of dealing with more complex metaphors are presented.