Metaphorical Expressions in E-Commerce: A Study of Arabic Language Websites

ABSTRACT This study examines the use of metaphors in Arabic language e-commerce websites and shows that metaphorical language plays an important role in enhancing the effectiveness of websites and e-commerce businesses in general. Arabic text was extracted from 3,065 websites across 22 Arab countries and 10 types of e-commerce domains. More than 14,000 metaphors were annotated in a sample of 1,208 rhetorical clusters (cohesive text units). Metaphor usage was highest in fashion, restaurant, and retail websites, and lowest in e-banking, airline, and tourism websites. Colloquial figurative language was rare—suggesting e-commerce businesses could do more linguistically to localize their websites.

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