Research can be ordered in various ways. The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (Gibbs, 2008) has five sections that can be seen as pointing to different research areas or topics. The Routledge Handbook of Metaphor and Language (Semino and Demjen, 2017) goes from theory through method to research areas and application. The review of DMT research in Slowing Metaphor Down (Steen, 2023) goes from exploratory analytical research through descriptive analytical research via corpus work to explanatory behavioural research via experiments. The bibliography on this website is based on Steen (2023), with research published since included.

Each ordering of the research emphasizes different aspects. For DMT it is important to make a methodological distinction between structural-functional analytical research and process-product behavioural research. Since DMT is focused on describing and explaining the variation and interaction between metaphor as structure and metaphor as process, it is essential to be clear about the nature of the evidence regarding both big phenomena and their relation. Metaphor as structure requires structural data and analysis, metaphor as process requires behavioural data and observation or manipulation.

The validity of empirical research is increased if its conclusions are based on the right kind of evidence for the right kind of phenomenon: evidence for claims about processing should be based on processing data and research, whereas evidence for claims about structures and function should be based on structural-functional data and their analysis. This is why it is the main priority for DMT as a theory about metaphor comprehension to increase its support by behavioural evidence (see future challenges).

Corpus-linguistic research often observes the use (frequency and distribution) of metaphor and then draws posthoc conclusions about people’s selections and combinations of metaphor related expressions. This may be seen as a matter of structures and functions well as of psychological and social processes, the latter concerning the obvious results of production processes.