This article investigates linguistic metaphors in four English newspapers from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, focusing on their variations at the macro-contextual level. Analyzed in their respective macro contexts were lexicalized and non-lexicalized metaphors in 1,105 full-length news stories. The exploration reveals that: (i) the distributions of non-lexicalized metaphors are far more variable than those of lexicalized metaphors across the four newspapers, (ii) lexicalized metaphors are much more common than non-lexicalized metaphors in all the four newspapers, (iii) non-lexicalized metaphors occur more in the news stories for native speakers than in those for international or global readers, with a decreasing tendency toward those for EOL and EFL readers, and (iv) the lexicalized and non-lexicalized metaphors both have cognitive functions, while the latter serve additional stylistic purposes. The study sheds some light on the affordance between linguistic metaphors and the macro contexts of the news stories.

中文翻译：

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宏观语境层面隐喻使用的变化

本文从概念隐喻理论的角度对四家英文报纸的语言隐喻进行研究，重点考察它们在宏观语境层面的变化。在它们各自的宏观上下文中分析了 1,105 篇完整新闻故事中的词汇化和非词汇化隐喻。探索表明：（i）非词汇化隐喻在四份报纸中的分布远比词汇化隐喻的分布变化大，（ii）词汇化隐喻在所有四份报纸中比非词汇化隐喻更常见，（ iii) 非词汇化隐喻在母语人士的新闻故事中比国际或全球读者的新闻故事中出现的更多，并且趋向于 EOL 和 EFL 读者的趋势下降，(iv) 词汇化和非词汇化的隐喻都具有认知功能，而后者则服务于额外的文体目的。该研究揭示了语言隐喻与新闻故事的宏观背景之间的可供性。