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- Volume 2, Issue, 2012
Metaphor and the Social World - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2012
Volume 2, Issue 1, 2012
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Forensic deliberations on ‘purposeful metaphor’
Author(s): Jonathan Charteris-Blackpp.: 1–21 (21)More LessThe concept of ‘purposeful metaphor’ is proposed as an alternative to ‘deliberate metaphor’ (Steen, 2008) in providing a theory of metaphor in discourse and communication. The case for ‘purposeful metaphor’ is framed within a discussion of intentionality in a murder trial. It is argued that ‘deliberateness’ originates in epistemologies based in language use, but is not valid for epistemologies that distinguish between conscious and unconscious thought process; in literary studies it is known as the ‘intentional fallacy’. However, considerations of intention are relevant in critical metaphor analysis that seeks insight into the social and political motivation of metaphor. Insights from Speech Act Theory and rhetorical theory suggest that ‘deliberate metaphor’ could be modified to ‘purposeful metaphor’ because we conceptualise ‘purpose’ in terms of a SOURCE (or idea), a PATH (or rhetorical plan) to realise a GOAL (or rhetorical outcome). ‘Purposeful metaphor’ therefore integrates the source (or idea behind) path, (or rhetorical plan), and goal, (or rhetorical outcome) of metaphor, while ‘deliberate metaphor’ only profiles its inception. Illustrations are given of how ‘purposeful metaphor’ contributes to an explanation of metaphor use in political and legal discourse, and other persuasive genres. Linguistic evidence for purposefulness is in the interaction between textually complex use of metaphor and contextual features such as political purpose or describing medical conditions.
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The life of the green shoots metaphor in the Spanish media
Author(s): Maria Dolores Porto Requejopp.: 22–40 (19)More LessThe green shoots metaphor is quite recent, but not completely new in financial language. It has been used by economists for more than a decade to refer to the first signs of economic recovery after a recession and it can easily be analysed as a specification of the more general, abstract metaphors the economy is a living organism or the economy is a plant. However, in 2009 the worldwide financial crisis made this metaphor spread fast and reach non-specialist language. This has been especially noticeable in the Spanish media (mostly television and general newspapers), where the expression was extensively used during the whole year 2009 to the point that, in only six months, the metaphor underwent important semantic and pragmatic changes and became a common referential phrase outside economic discourse. Using a corpus of occurrences of the expression in the Spanish non-specialist press throughout 2009, this paper analyses the short life of the metaphor in the Spanish media during 2009, from its ‘birth’ and first occurrences, to its ‘growth’ and evolution towards less comparative, more discursive, pragmatic functions, such as those of categorizing and of summarizing other people’s discourse. Finally, the arguable ‘death’ of the metaphor is considered, as findings indicate that context plays a crucial role in the actual survival of the expression, which has undergone some significant changes in its meaning
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A journey towards employment: Metaphorical representations of social welfare in New Zealand
Author(s): Jay Michael Woodhamspp.: 41–60 (20)More LessMetaphor plays a prominent role in political rhetoric, often used to simplify complex issues and encourage familiarity with various topics (Mio, 1997). Its persuasive and manipulative uses in political discourse are also well documented (Charteris-Black, 2005). Studies of political discourse based on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory are numerous; however, little metaphor research has been completed in the New Zealand political context. Theexploratory study outlined in this paper addresses this need through an investigation of the metaphorical representation of social welfare and its beneficiaries in New Zealand political discourse. A corpus of texts is collected and analysed using the Metaphor Identification Procedure(MIP) (Pragglejaz Group, 2007), and corpus-wide patterns are refined into a systematic metaphor framework (Cameron, 2008). Journeymetaphors, being the most frequent example of figurative language identified, are held to be central to the language of reform in New Zealand, supported primarily by metaphorsof mobility and health. The goal of the Government’s reform journey is identified as a state of employment, and barriers to arrival at this destination are framed as mobility and health issues. Such metaphorsare considered discriminatory, portraying beneficiaries and the social welfare system in a particularly negative light.
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The Greek state and the plaster cast: From the Greek military junta of 21 April 1967 to the IMF and EU’s rescue mechanism
Author(s): Villy Tsakonapp.: 61–86 (26)More LessThe study investigates the main aspects and the ideological function of the state is a sick person metaphor which was frequently used in the public speeches of the Greek dictator George Papadopoulos and which became emblematic of his regime. A specific variation of the metaphorical imagery, namely the state is a sick person in a plaster cast, has contributed to the creation ofan idiom in Greek, signifying state or other repression and deprivation of civil rights. The idiom seems to be employed nowadays to refer to the current political situation in Greece, after the loan agreement between the Greek state, the IMF, the ECB, and the European Commission. The data examined consists of the public speeches by the leaders of the regime, as well as the Corpus of Greek Texts and recent media texts.
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The wolf — an evil and ever-hungry beast or a nasty thief?: Conventional Inari Saami metaphors and widespread idioms in contrast
Author(s): Anna Idström and Elisabeth Piirainenpp.: 87–113 (27)More LessThis article aims to shed light on the impact of an extended social context on the motivation for the figurative content of conventional metaphors. The article therefore compares conventional linguistic metaphors found in Inari Saami with conventional linguistic metaphors that are widespread among European languages, in order to reveal differences and similarities between what is deeply local and shared only by a restricted speech community, i.e. an indigenous culture without a literary tradition, and what is unquestionably spread across a large number of languages. The comparison first presents three animal concepts prominent in both Inari Saami and widespread idioms, wolf, hare and raven, followed by an investigation of animal concepts found only in one of these two data sets: reindeer in Inari Saami and crocodile, ostrich and lynx among the widespread idioms. It is demonstrated that Inari Saami metaphors typically draw their motivation from the concrete life-experience of the people, while the widespread idioms are to a large extent based on literary traditions. In both contexts we find metaphors drawn from or supported by folklore: fairy tales, mythology and superstition. Comparing these two data sets offers great possibilities to the study of metaphors: how we understand metaphors, and how they come into being, and what is the nature of vehicle development over extended time and space.
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