| This study presents the results of an investigation into the use of metaphorical language in the summary and business description sections of Initial Public Offering (IPO) prospectuses of both Internet and non-Internet companies. This research examined fifteen Internet companies and nine non-Internet companies, which were chosen at random, that completed IPOs between January 1, 1999 and August 6, 1999 for metaphorical use that was either common to both sets of companies or specific to the Internet companies.;The research attempted to demonstrate that there is strong evidence for the theory that descriptive language used in the IPO prospectuses is metaphorical and not literal. The research also supported the hypotheses that there were metaphors common to all IPOs and that there were metaphors primarily used by Internet companies.;Further the research indicated that the common metaphors could be grouped and arranged into hierarchically organized categories from ontological experiences to experiential conceptualizations. The specific categories that were reflected in these prospectuses, starting from the ontological, were sense of awareness and place, spatial orientation, perception, boundaries/containers, perception, physical manipulation, animation/objectification, and paradigmatic experiences. The two primary paradigmatic metaphors were BUSINESS IS WAR and INFORMATION IS A SOLID/LIQUID. Numerous instances from the prospectuses were used to support these findings.;The metaphorical use that differentiated Internet companies from non-Internet companies was the use by Internet companies of metaphors of place and performance. Of the two, the metaphors of place were the most prevalent and were grouped into the following types of places: local, distant, the frontier, and transition places. It was theorized that a sense of place is one of the most basic experiential senses, and that the tension between this need for a sense of place and the placelessness of the Internet explained the use of place metaphors.;The sense of performance metaphor was primarily centered on the metaphor of audiences being used to describe active Internet users. Conceptual theories to explain this include both an attempt to apply the most enduring concept of knowledge transfer, a narrator and his or her audiences, and a need to frame this as a controlled knowledge transfer as is done by a stage performance. |
