HIP: A Method for Linguistic Hyperbole Identification in Discourse

This article introduces the Hyperbole Identification Procedure (HIP), a firstsystematic method for identifying linguistic hyperbole in discourse. We startby comparing existing definitions of linguistic hyperbole. Based on thecommonalities shared by these definitions, we provide our operationaldefinition of hyperbole as “an expression that is more extreme than justifiedgiven its ontological referent.” The next section argues why it is useful toidentify hyperbole, as with metaphor in Metaphor Identification ProcedureVrije Universiteit (MIPVU), at the level of lexical units, and subsequentlyintroduces the steps of HIP. We follow up with two sample analyses of HIPin practice. First, we show how to unitize and analyze one complete samplesentence. Second, we present sample analyses of a number of selectedcases. Then we present data showing that HIP can be reliably applied to asample corpus of Dutch news texts. We end with discussing applicationsand implications of using HIP in corpus research.