1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Metaphor and the Social World
  4. Volume 16, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 16, Issue 1
  • ISSN 2210-4070
  • E-ISSN: 2210-4097
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Deliberate metaphors have been studied across various types of discourse, yet editorials have received relatively little attention. Drawing on the 4D model of Deliberate Metaphor Theory, this paper investigates deliberate metaphors that instantiate the conceptual metaphor in economic editorials released by Chinese government-sponsored media institution during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results indicate that journalists primarily draw from the and domains to make inferences about the economy. Eight predominant frame-level conceptual metaphors are identified, and the semantically linked frames evoke scenario of “health care & treatment” and “plant protection.” These deliberate metaphors function to clarify complex economic measures and policies, provide a framework for suggesting economic actions and forming coherent arguments, assess the state of the economy, and foster optimism and resilience among the public. The rhetorical analysis reveals that deliberate metaphors enhance the communication of logos and heighten pathos, collectively aimed at persuasion. These metaphorical usages are significantly influenced by the contextual elements of the discourse event, reflecting how metaphors are employed as strategic tools in economic communication during crises.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/msw.25007.xu
2025-09-19
2026-05-12

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/msw.25007.xu
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Ansary, H., & Babaii, E.
    (2005) The Generic Integrity of Newspaper Editorials:A Systemic Functional Perspective. RELC Journal, 36(3), 271–295. 10.1177/0033688205060051
     https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688205060051 [Google Scholar]
  2. Beger, A.
    (2011) Deliberate metaphors? An exploration of the choice and functions of metaphors in US-American college lectures. Metaphorik. de, 201, 39–60.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. (2016) Different functions of (deliberate) metaphor in teaching scientific concepts. Metaphorik. de, 261, 57–84.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. (2019a) The contested notion of ‘deliberate metaphor’: What can we learn from ‘unclear’cases in academic lectures?Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association, 7(1), 51–66. 10.1515/gcla‑2019‑0004
     https://doi.org/10.1515/gcla-2019-0004 [Google Scholar]
  5. (2019b) The Role of (Deliberate) Metaphor in Communicating Knowledge in Academic Discourse: An analysis of college lectures from different disciplines. Peter Lang. 10.3726/b16142
     https://doi.org/10.3726/b16142 [Google Scholar]
  6. Charteris-Black, J.
    (2018) Analysing Political Speeches: Rhetoric, discourse and metaphor (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Charteris-Black, J., & Ennis, T.
    (2001) A comparative study of metaphor in Spanish and English financial reporting. English for Specific Purposes, 20(3), 249–266. 10.1016/S0889‑4906(00)00009‑0
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(00)00009-0 [Google Scholar]
  8. Chilton, P., & Schäffner, C.
    (2002) Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic approaches to political discourse. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/dapsac.4
     https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.4 [Google Scholar]
  9. Deignan, A.
    (2005) Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/celcr.6
     https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.6 [Google Scholar]
  10. Domaradzki, M.
    (2016) Conceptualizing the economy as a living organism: vivification in Arab economic discourse. Text & Talk, 36(4), 417–443. 10.1515/text‑2016‑0019
     https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2016-0019 [Google Scholar]
  11. Fowler, R.
    (1991) Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the Press. London, UK: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Heyvaert, P.
    (2019) Fairies, Christmas miracles and sham marriages: A diachronic analysis of deliberate metaphors in Belgian political discourse. InJ. Perrez, M. Reuchamps, & P. H. Thibodeau (Eds.), Variation in Political Metaphor. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/dapsac.85.02hey
     https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.85.02hey [Google Scholar]
  13. Kennedy, G. A.
    (2007) [Aristotle] On Rhetoric: A theory of civic discourse (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Klamer, A., McCloskey, D. N., & Solow, R. M.
    (1988) The Consequence of Economic Rhetoric. Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Kövecses, Z.
    (2010) Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. (2020) Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781108859127
     https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108859127 [Google Scholar]
  17. Krennmayr, T.
    (2011) Metaphor in Newspapers. LOT.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M.
    (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Maddalena, A., & Belmonte, I. A.
    (2011) Unveiling the writer–reader interaction in Peninsular Spanish and American English newspaper editorials: A cross linguistic study. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(3), 891–903. 10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.026
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.026 [Google Scholar]
  20. McCloskey, D. N.
    (1995) Metaphor economists live by. Social Research, 21, 215–227.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Mirowski, P.
    (1991) More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics. Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Mujagić, M., & Berberović, S.
    (2019) The Immigrants are animals metaphor as a deliberate metaphor in British and Bosnian-Herzegovinian media. Explorations in English Language and Linguistics, 7(1), 22–51. 10.2478/exell‑2020‑0005
     https://doi.org/10.2478/exell-2020-0005 [Google Scholar]
  23. Musolff, A.
    (2016) Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and scenarios. Bloomsbury.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Nacey, S.
    (2013) Metaphors in Learner English. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/milcc.2
     https://doi.org/10.1075/milcc.2 [Google Scholar]
  25. Ng, C. J. W., & Koller, V.
    (2013) Deliberate conventional metaphor in images: The case of corporate branding discourse. Metaphor & Symbol, 28(3), 131–147. 10.1080/10926488.2013.797807
     https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2013.797807 [Google Scholar]
  26. Perrez, J., & Reuchamps, M.
    (2014) Deliberate metaphors in political discourse: the case of citizen discourse. Metaphorik.de, 7–41.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Reijnierse, W. G., & Burger, C.
    (2023) MSDIP: A Method for Coding Source Domains in Metaphor Analysis. Metaphor and symbol, 38(4), 295–310. 10.1080/10926488.2023.2170753
     https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2023.2170753 [Google Scholar]
  28. Reijnierse, W. G., Burgers, C., Krennmayr, T., & Steen, G. J.
    (2018) DMIP: A method for identifying potentially deliberate metaphor in language use. Corpus Pragmatics, 2(2), 129–147. 10.1007/s41701‑017‑0026‑7
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s41701-017-0026-7 [Google Scholar]
  29. Resche, C.
    (2012) Towards a better understanding of metaphorical networks in the language of economics: The importance of theory constitutive metaphors. InH. Herrera-Soler & M. White (Eds.), Metaphor and Mills (pp.77–102). De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110274585.77
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110274585.77 [Google Scholar]
  30. Semino, E.
    (2008) Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Semino, E., Deignan, A., & Littlemore, J.
    (2013) Metaphor, genre, and recontextualization. Metaphor & Symbol, 281, 41–59. 10.1080/10926488.2013.742842
     https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2013.742842 [Google Scholar]
  32. Shiller, R. J.
    (2019) Narrative Economics. Princeton University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Steen, G. J.
    (2008) The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-dimensional model of metaphor. Metaphor & Symbol, 23(4), 213–241. 10.1080/10926480802426753
     https://doi.org/10.1080/10926480802426753 [Google Scholar]
  34. (2011a) The contemporary theory of metaphor-now new and improved!Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 9(1), 26–64. 10.1075/rcl.9.1.03ste
     https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.9.1.03ste [Google Scholar]
  35. (2011b) What does ‘deliberate’ really mean?: More thoughts on metaphor and consciousness. Metaphor and the Social World, 1(1), 53–56. 10.1075/msw.1.1.04ste
     https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.1.1.04ste [Google Scholar]
  36. (2013) Deliberate metaphor affords conscious metaphorical cognition. Cognitive Semiotics, 5(1–2), 179–197. 10.1515/cogsem.2013.5.12.179
     https://doi.org/10.1515/cogsem.2013.5.12.179 [Google Scholar]
  37. (2017a) Attention to Metaphor: Where Embodied Cognition and Social Interaction Can Meet, But May Not Often Do So. InB. Hampe (Ed.), Metaphor: Embodied cognition and discourse (pp.279–296). Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781108182324.016
     https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108182324.016 [Google Scholar]
  38. (2017b) Deliberate Metaphor Theory: Basic assumptions, main tenets, urgent issues. Intercultural Pragmatics, 14(1), 1–24. 10.1515/ip‑2017‑0001
     https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2017-0001 [Google Scholar]
  39. (2023a) Slowing metaphor down: elaborating Deliberate Metaphor Theory. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/celcr.26
     https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.26 [Google Scholar]
  40. (2023b) Thinking by metaphor, fast and slow: Deliberate Metaphor Theory offers a new model for metaphor and its comprehension. Frontiers in Psychology, 141. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1242888
     https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1242888 [Google Scholar]
  41. Tay, D.
    (2016) A variational approach to deliberate metaphors. Cognitive Linguistic Studies, 3(2), 277–298. 10.1075/cogls.3.2.05tay
     https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.3.2.05tay [Google Scholar]
  42. Van Dijk, T. A., & Kintsch, W.
    (1983) Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. Academic Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Wang, H., Runtsova, T., & Chen, H.
    (2013) Economy is an organism — a comparative study of metaphor in English and Russian economic discourse. Text & Talk, 33(2), 259–288. 10.1515/text‑2013‑0012
     https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2013-0012 [Google Scholar]
  44. Xu, Y. T., Royce, T., & Hu, C. Y.
    (2023) A corpus-based comparative study in English and Chinese economic media discourse. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 21(2), 411–443. 10.1075/rcl.00140.xu
     https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00140.xu [Google Scholar]
  45. Zhang, C., Lin, Z. J., & Jin, S. X.
    (2022) What else besides war: Deliberate metaphors framing COVID-19 in Chinese online newspaper editorials. Metaphor & Symbol, 37(2), 114–126. 10.1080/10926488.2021.1948333
     https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2021.1948333 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/msw.25007.xu
Loading
Economy is living organism
Metaphor and the Social World 16, 126 (2026); https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.25007.xu
/content/journals/10.1075/msw.25007.xu
/content/journals/10.1075/msw.25007.xu
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): communicative function; deliberate metaphor; frame-level conceptual metaphor; persuasion; rhetorical analysis

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error