ABSTRACTIn recent years, studies on discourses of resistance in politics have become prevalent, focusing mainly on the language of radical movements and rebel groups, but not the discourses on colonialism, imperialism, and repression which can be considered as potential sites for discourses of resistance. To fill this gap, this paper critically explores how an independence leader utilized metaphor to construct a discourse of resistance against colonialism and imperialism. It analyzes a number of speeches delivered by Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneering (...) Pan-African and Ghana's independence leader, using a combination of models, including critical metaphor analysis and membership categorization analysis. The analysis illustrates that Nkrumah deployed war/conflict/military and religious metaphors in conjunction with other discursive strategies such as labeling or stereotyping, category work, sentimentalism, victim-playing, and negative other-presentation to formulate a resistance discourse against colonialism and imperialism. These metaphors were exploited through representations of vilification, enemification, demonization, freedom and justice, and attack and defense. This paper provides insight into the use of language in the service of resistance and activism, thereby demonstrating that the use of metaphor by political actors serves manipulative and/or ideological purposes and illustrating that metaphor is essential to a leader's persuasive force. (shrink)

This desk-based study explores, on the basis of a critical realist perspective, the possibility of integrating the concept of learning cultures within the scope of critical discourse analysis. It proposes a theoretical framework to support and guide the use of textual analysis in the study of learning cultures and highlights new opportunities to study technology-enhanced learning communities and communities of practice, leveraging on corpora analysis and metaphor individuation procedures.

This desk-based-study explores, on the basis of a Critical Realist perspective, the possibility to integrate the concept of Learning Cultures within the scope of Critical Discourse Analysis. It proposes a theoretical framework to support and guide the use of textual analysis in the study of Learning Cultures and highlights new opportunities to study technology enhanced learning communities and communities of practice, leveraging on Corpora Analysis and Metaphor Individuation Procedures.

Due to the increasing concern about gender equity in the U.S., song lyrics with political activism are receiving more attention. As reflected through lyrics and the artist’s tumultuous life events, ‘thank u, next,’ Ariana Grande’s fifth album, has been reviewed by media outlets, such as Billboard as mirroring Grande’s public persona of self-empowerment. iTunes (2019) describes the album as Grande’s embraced position of – ‘complex, independent, tenacious and flawed.’ This study investigates how these claims came about by adopting Fairclough’s (...) class='Hi'>Critical Discourse Analysis three-dimensional framework. It examines how the discourse of self-empowerment is portrayed in her lyrics, and what linguistic strategies are deployed to portray the discourse. This study hopes to add texture to existing literature by examining the production of young women’s empowerment ideology and the meanings of neoliberal feminism in relations to the use of language in song lyrics. Linguistic strategies such as the use of metaphors, overstatements and presupposition manipulation have been investigated through textual, and social analyses of the songs to demonstrate the ideological concepts of a ‘self-empowered woman’. The concepts found include independence, self-love/growth, owning of sexuality, and being needy. The concepts also revealed that Grande’s lyrics mostly support ideals of gender equity and female empowerment. (shrink)

Climate change, as a sociopolitical issue, is mostly investigated under CDA and ecolinguistics, with a focus on the discourse of media coverage (e.g. newspapers). Nevertheless, little attention has...

This paper explores how philosophical inquiry and Critical Discourse Analysis can mutually benefit from each other to produce new methodological and reflexive directions in neo-liberal policy research to examine the phenomenon of 'What is '. Through this we argue that augmenting linguistic analysis with philosophical perspectives develops and supports CDA scholarship more broadly by accommodating the shifting complexity of social problems of ideologically driven inequality that are inbuilt through, in our case, social policy texts. In discussing philosophical-methodological (...) issues, the paper argues for the need to continually adapt CDA to the particular data so as to remain sensitive to and avoid hegemonic tendencies in analysis. Through adopting the principles of a working methodology, we discuss a micro-meso-macro CDA framework that draws on the analytical concepts of movement, metaphorical superfluidity, thematic condensation, and surrealism to conceive of a research approach capable of examining and comprehending evolving discourses of political economies. The most immediate benefit of this framework is its capacity to illustrate how forms of valuations perpetuated by and through policy discourse are the motivational locus of meaning making insofar as they strongly inform the moral underpinning the ideology of economic growth. (shrink)

The article investigates the political cartoon construction of two major `players' on the contemporary political stage, and the semio-linguistic and visual rhetorical tools used to achieve this construction, through an analysis of semiotic-discursive aspects of a small corpus of political cartoons in English and Arabic, all about the two `players' — George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden — in the aftermath of 9/11 and within the ongoing `war on terror', followed by a more detailed analysis of two (...) political cartoon texts from the corpus — one in Arabic about Bush and the other in English about bin Laden. A rationale for the combination of semiotics and critical discourse analysis and a discussion of the nature and functions of political cartoon are provided. These are followed by a review of the relevant literature with a focus on political cartoons. The analysis, drawing upon the `dispositive' model and the incongruity theory of humor, addresses the verbal and visual aspects of the cartoons, instances of blending, incongruity and visual metaphors therein. Some major notions in CDA, for example Van Dijk's ideological square and Chilton's legitimation and proximization, are also utilized in examining the sample cartoons. The detailed analysis of the two cartoons elaborates on the salient features and generic aspects of the sample, specifically on incongruity, blending and visual metaphor, toward an understanding of the messages of the cartoons, the tools used to convey these messages and how they contribute to the ongoing war of ideological misrepresentation. (shrink)

This study proposes an operational approach to a metaphorical framing analysis using large-scale data. We conducted a case analysis of how war metaphors are framed to address various societal issues in a corpus of public speeches by Hong Kong government officials. By investigating patterns of lexical choices under the source domain of WAR and the underlying reasons for the source-target domain mappings (i.e. Mapping Principles), we found that the target domain of social issues in Hong Kong is primarily (...) conceptualized in terms of a combat frame, and governmental issues are primarily talked about in terms of a protection frame, both of which are positively evaluated. Additionally, economic issues are primarily addressed in terms of a strategy frame, which is both positively and negatively evaluated. We show that analyzing the Mapping Principles of these conceptual metaphors captures the “selection” process of framing at the dimensions of frame frequency and frame sentiment, allowing for a principled way to propose a metaphorical framing analysis in corpora-based studies. The proposed approach enriches Critical Discourse Analysis studies of metaphorical framing and bridges the link between metaphor analysis at a conceptual level and framing analysis at a communication level. (shrink)

The study investigates the conceptualizations and ideologies concerning family destruction metaphors in same-sex marriage debates. With data from the official websites of two opposing camps in Taiwan, we explore the ways conceptual metaphors can be adopted along with other linguistic resources to shape, redefine and negotiate new meanings of family. Drawing concepts from critical metaphor analysis (CMA), this study shows that the same conceptual metaphor can be used in different contexts to construct and promote seemingly binary (...) ideologies. The adoption of family destruction metaphor suggests that family, ideally a complete, stable, and wholesome environment, is commonly accepted by campaigners as a destructible object worthy of protection. However, the different contextual use of this metaphor showed ideological differences in the ideal membership for marriage, the attackers and protectors of family, the victims of family destruction, and the causes and consequences of family destruction. By inviting the audience to make their own evaluation and interpretation of the metaphor, sensitive arguments can be made in a less direct but emotional manner to achieve the purpose of persuasion. Our results illustrate that conceptual metaphors can be used to reinforce conventional beliefs or introduce new values within a socially accepted frame. (shrink)

Satirical news is often characterized as a hybrid genre that consists of three important communicative functions: it is (1) humoristic, (2) informative, and (3) evaluative. The Humoristic Metaphors in Satirical News (HMSN) typology demonstrates that metaphors can be utilized by satirists to express this hybridity by consisting of a combination of one or more of satire’s core communicative functions. Nevertheless, the underlying principles through which metaphors are capable of humorously explaining and/or criticizing current affairs are less clear. To broaden our (...) understanding of how metaphorical humor is used in satirical news to fulfill these functions, we integrate the HMSN typology with the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). The GTVH assumes that all verbal humor must draw from six interdependent Knowledge Resources (KRs). Through a content analysis of metaphorical humor used across various American satirical news shows, we investigated how these KRs are used to fulfill satire’s core communicative functions across the various metaphorical sub-types of the HSMN typology. We found that: (1) some KRs can help fulfill the communicative function(s) of metaphorical jokes, while (2) some KRs constrain the options available for the expression of certain communicative function(s) or other KRs. (shrink)

The British Miners’ Strike of 1984–1985 represents one of the most pivotal periods in British industrial relations. The significance of media stance towards the miners remains a controversial issue today, as attested by recent publications looking back at the strike. Here, authors including miners, journalists and other commentators argue that media coverage of the strike followed a consistently anti-trade union agenda in which the media sought to destabilise the strike. An internal British Broadcasting Corporation report, only recently made public, shows (...) that the BBC themselves had concerns over possible imbalances in their coverage of the so-called ‘Battle of Orgreave’. Despite the weight attached to media coverage in this context, however, surprisingly little research has been conducted from a discourse-analytical perspective to show systematically and empirically how such an agenda may have been manifested across media texts. In this article, drawing on Cognitive Linguistic Critical Discourse Studies, I show how one particular metaphorical framing of the strike, which construed the strike as a war between the State and the National Union of Miners, persisted through the year-long period and consider the potential ideological functions of this framing in media strategies of legitimation. I show how this metaphor featured in linguistic, visual and multimodal forms of media representation. (shrink)

Metaphors for describing the introduction, impacts, and management of non-native species are numerous and often quite outspoken. Policy-makers have adopted increasingly disputed metaphorical terms from scientific discourse. We performed a critical analysis of the use of strong metaphors in reporting scientific findings to policy-makers. Our analysis shows that perceptions of harm, invasiveness or nativeness are dynamic and inevitably display multiple narratives in science, policy or management. Improving our awareness of multiple expert and stakeholder narratives that exist in (...) the context of non-native species management, as well as metaphorical alternatives, is critical. (shrink)

In this article, based on a critical metaphor analysis, we identify and describe multimodal metaphors involving the human body and its conceptualizations in five auteur films of the 2010s. Studies on the human body in cinema have documented how it changes according to underlying ideologies. Our research focuses on the role of image schemas and metaphors as they embody meanings and sociocultural paradigms. Metaphors also frame how the body is conceptualized according to dominating ideological practices such as (...) (a) commodification, (b) the integration between artificial and organic, (c) dissatisfaction, (d) dynamics of beautification and idealization, and (e) politicization of the human body. We show how metaphors are creative tools to reframe meanings and representations of the body and how the body is a construct refashioned within the cinematic discourses of these films. (shrink)

This study aims to establish ideological effects of the pre-pandemic metaphor use in the mainstream media on users’ perceptions of their relationship with technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve that, 120 media articles from global mainstream media sources during the pre-pandemic period were collected and analysed at three levels: (1) metaphor identification; (2) deconstruction of conceptual source domains; (3) the coding of metaphorical expressions into psychological types of interpersonal relationships that are projected on technologies. The established metaphorical (...) patterns were tested in an online survey with 100 young adults and adults from Lithuania during the COVID-19 pandemic period of 2019-2020. The research findings resulted in the ideological perceptions of Reversed Agentivity and Mechanised Action characterising our relationship with technology and pointing out to the loss of individual autonomy, a lack of personal growth and more fragmented personal identity during the pandemic. (shrink)

There are two widespread beliefs about the use of metaphors in clinical medicine. The first is that military metaphors are harmful to patients and should be discouraged in medical practice. The second is that the metaphors of clinical practice can be judged by and standardized in reference to neutral criteria. In this article, I evaluate both these beliefs, exposing their shared flawed logic. This logic underwrites the false empiricist assumptions that metaphorical language and literal language are fundamentally distinct, play separate (...) roles in communication, and therefore can be independently analyzed, systematized, and prescribed. Next, using the resources of ordinary language philosophy, I lay out a theoretical view of medical metaphors that is grounded in metaphor use within clinician‐patient relationships. Finally, drawing on the work of philosopher Max Black, I diagram a practical conceptual framework for clinicians to use when they consider whether a metaphor is appropriate for a specific patient encounter. (shrink)

The book takes as its point of departure the notion that similarity and contiguity are fundamental to meaning. It shows how they manifest in oral, literate, print and internet cultures, in language acquisition, pragmatics, dialogism, classification, the semantics of grammar, literature and, most centrally, metaphor and metonymy. The book situates these reflections on similarity and contiguity in the interplay of language, cognition, culture, and ideology, and within broader debates around such issues as capitalism, biodiversity, and human control over nature. (...) Positing that while similarity-focused systems can be reductive, and have therefore been contested in social science, philosophy and poetry, and contiguity-based ones might disregard useful statistical and scientific evidence, Andrew Goatly argues for the need for humans to entertain diverse metaphors, models, and languages as ways of understanding and acting on our world. The volume also considers the cognitive connections between the similarity-contiguity duality and the noun-verb distinction. This innovative volume will appeal to scholars involved in wider debates on meaning, within the fields of cognitive semantics, pragmatics, metaphor and metonymy theory, critical discourse analysis, and the philosophy of language. Equally, the motivated and intelligent general reader, interested in language, philosophy, culture and ecology, should find the later chapters of the book fascinating, and the earlier technical chapters accessible. (shrink)

:In this paper, the author argues that Joseph Fins’ mosaic decisionmaking model for brain-injured patients is untenable. He supports this claim by identifying three problems with mosaic decisionmaking. First, that it is unclear whether a mosaic is a conceptually adequate metaphor for a decisionmaking process that is intended to promote patient autonomy. Second, that the proposed legal framework for mosaic decisionmaking is inappropriate. Third, that it is unclear how we ought to select patients for participation in mosaic decisionmaking.

Conceptual metaphor theory is among the challenging theories that the cognitive linguistics has presented to the field of metaphor in recent years. By leaving aside the relationship of species-genus, transmission and similarity, a new metaphor mechanism is introduced by this theory. Moreover, this theory reveals that metaphors belong to concepts based on experience, not to words. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which made a remarkable contribution to metaphor studies, has also attracted the attention of those who (...) are interested in the Qur'an studies. As a result, literature dealing with the metaphors in the Qur'an through the lens of this theory has emerged. This theory is implemented to analyse metaphors existing in everyday language and does not aim to offer an approach to the analysis of metaphors in sacred texts. Despite this, the number of studies examining the Qur'an through the lens of theory is increasing day by day. By focusing on this paticular literature, this study discusses the method followed by researchers, how they apply the theory, its contribution to the Qur'anic studies, and the existing deficiencies in the literature. This study questions the extent to which the theory contributes to the field of Qur’anic studies, the problems it has created in the field and whether it could be resolved. (shrink)

This study analyzes the cognitive and discursive process through which the issue of learning from the West is addressed in four of People's Republic of China founder Mao Zedong's political speeches – On New Democracy (1940), On Coalition Government (1945), On the Ten Major Relationships (1956), and Conversation with Musicians (1956). The study adopts a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective and utilizes blending theory to investigate the metaphorical conceptualizations Mao uses to cope with the cultural dilemma of learning (...) from the West. The study finds that the focus in Mao's conceptualizations is not on a ‘positive Us’ vs. ‘negative Them’ dichotomy between Chinese and Western cultures, but on a good vs. bad dichotomy inside Western culture, implying that only certain parts of Western culture should be (selectively) emulated. While the natural compatibility between Western culture and Chinese society is constructed as out of the question, the possibility of compatibility after human effort is not rejected: the selected part of Western culture should be transformed to serve a new socialist culture in China. In this process, the agency and rational thinking of the Chinese are emphasized. (shrink)

The study that George Lakoff and Rafael Núñez call "idea analysis" and begin in their recent book Where mathematics comes from is intended to dissect mathematical concepts into their metaphorical parts, where metaphor is used in the cognitive-science sense promoted by Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Metaphors we live by and subsequent works by each of them and together. Lakoff and Núñez's analysis of the (modern) algebraic concept of group is based on the attribution to contemporary mathematics (...) of what will be widely recognizable by their name for it, the folk theory of essences. I argue that this philosophical basis for their analysis is spurious and supply an alternative analysis of the same concept within their "metaphorical" paradigm but without essences. This analysis, which I hope is more viable than theirs, is intended to support the general applicability of the paradigm by freeing it from outmoded philosophical baggage. (shrink)

Biological systems exhibit complexity at all levels of organization. It has recently been argued by Michael Behe that at the biochemical level a type of complexity exists--irreducible complexity--that cannot possibly have arisen as the result of natural, evolutionary processes and must instead be the product of (supernatural) intelligent design. Recent work on self-organizing chemical reactions calls into question Behe's analysis of the origins of biochemical complexity. His central interpretative metaphor for biochemical complexity, that of the well-designed mousetrap that (...) ceases to function if critical parts are absent, is undermined by the observation that typical biochemical systems exhibit considerable redundancy and overlap of function. Real biochemical systems, we argue, manifest redundant complexity--a characteristic result of evolutionary processes. (shrink)

In Metaphorical Metaphysics in Chinese Philosophy: Illustrated with Feng Youlan's New Metaphysics, Derong Chen examines Chinese philosophy through a critical analysis of Feng Youlan's nnew metaphysics. He views metaphysics in Chinese philosophy as a metaphorical metaphysics separate from Western metaphysics. In examining the historical influences and contemporary reaction to Feng's work, he identify's Feng's system as the continuation of the Chinese philosophical tradition. This approach is most applicable to scholars of comparative philosophy and Chinese philosophy.

ABSTRACTPolitical actors use metaphor in their speeches in order to frame political issues [Charteris-Black, J.. Politicians and rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan]. If they succeed in imposing a particular frame, especially when there is no agreement on the definition of certain political issues, this can become the prevailing way for referring to that issue [Semino, E.. Metaphor in discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]. In this research, we argue that this was the case for (...) the metaphor of the JOURNEY in the Catalan political conflict during electoral periods. To that end we use Critical Metaphor Analysis [Charteris-Black, J.. Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan] to analyse televised campaign ads from the last three elections for the Parliament of Catalonia – from 2010, 2012, and 2015 – in order to identify how political actors’ use metaphors to talk about the Catalan political situation during these years and to verify if JOURNEY metaphor resulted into the dominant narrative. The results show that the political situation has been conceptualized in terms of a ‘process en route,’ although the narratives generated by the political actors that shaped that discourse differ. (shrink)

A "good" arguer is like an architect with a penchant for civil and civic engineering. Such an arguer can design and present their reasons artfully about a variety of topics, as good architects do with a plenitude of structures and in various environments. Failures in this are rarely hidden for long, as poor constructions reveal themselves, often spectacularly, so collaboration among civical engineers can be seen as a virtue. Our logical virtues should be analogous. When our arguments fail due to (...) being uncivil and demagogic, since we inhabit the arguments we build, we are all crushed beneath our flawed reasoning. This mixed metaphor takes us to a self-referential analysis of argumentation, analogy, and humor. I argue that good argumentation strives to collaboratively convince rather than belligerently persuade. A convincing means toward this end is through humorous analogical arguments, whether the matter at hand is ethical, logical, theological, phenomenological, epistemological, metaphysical, political, or about baseball. (shrink)

Focusing on media discourse and adopting a Critical Discourse Analysis—linguistic and rhetorical—perspective, this paper explores the role of the media in influencing citizens’ behaviour towards the COVID-19 crisis. The paper evaluates the set of potentially persuasive lexical items and emotional implicatures used by two quality newspapers, i.e. The Guardian and El País, to report on the pandemic during the three waves—the periods between the onset and trough of virus contamination—that occurred until March 2021. A representative, ad-hoc, comparable corpus (...) was compiled in English and Spanish comprising the news on the pandemic that appeared in the aforementioned newspapers during the three established time periods. The corpora were uploaded to Sketch Engine, which was used to first detect and analyse different categories of word frequency, and then assign negative or positive polarity. Lexical keyness was secondly analysed to categorize emotional implicatures of control, metaphors, signals of epistemic asymmetry and positive implicatures in order to discern how they become weapons of negative or positive persuasion. The ultimate end of the study was to critically analyse and contrast the lexicon and rhetoric used by these two newspapers during this time period so as to unveil the stance taken by governments and health institutions—voices of authority—to disseminate words of control and persuasion with the aim of exerting influence on the behaviour of citizens in UK and Spain. (shrink)

This article critically examines one of the most prevalent metaphors in modern biology, namely the machine conception of the organism (MCO). Although the fundamental differences between organisms and machines make the MCO an inadequate metaphor for conceptualizing living systems, many biologists and philosophers continue to draw upon the MCO or tacitly accept it as the standard model of the organism. This paper analyses the specific difficulties that arise when the MCO is invoked in the study of development and evolution. (...) In developmental biology the MCO underlies a logically incoherent model of ontogeny, the genetic program, which serves to legitimate three problematic theses about development: genetic animism, neo-preformationism, and developmental computability. In evolutionary biology the MCO is responsible for grounding unwarranted theoretical appeals to the concept of design as well as to the interpretation of natural selection as an engineer, which promote a distorted understanding of the process and products of evolutionary change. Overall, it is argued that, despite its heuristic value, the MCO today is impeding rather than enabling further progress in our comprehension of living systems. (shrink)

The authoranalyzes the types of metaphors that are used to describe the Internetin issues of Wired magazine from before and after the dot-com collapse to understand the perceptions and expectations of some of the actors involved in the shaping of the Internet. In addition, the metaphors deployed in economics and geophysiology are used to demonstrate how metaphors can influence public debate, policy, and theory. The author argues that metaphors do not simply have a descriptive function but that they also carry (...) normative connotations. Language, alongside social practices and material objects, is an important tool in attempts to construct the future. Six overlapping metaphorical themes are identified: revolution, evolution, salvation, progress, universalism, and the “American dream.” A critical analysis of these metaphors, informed by a critique of the metaphors used in economics and geophysiology, leads the author to challenge the universalist claims made by some Internet enthusiasts for the inclusive potential of the Internet. (shrink)

This essay discusses critically the ways in which different metaphors employed to illustrate the practices of knowledge production and knowledge acquisition as well as scientific and scholarly research shape our understanding of the academic form of life. The essay examines the metaphors of knowledge and their role in academia by means of philosophical analysis and a rhetorical analysis of language, thereby defending the core values of academic freedom. It focuses on two pairs of metaphors highly relevant to the (...) tensions characteristic of contemporary academic work: verticality and horizontality, on the one hand, and change and stability, on the other. The entanglement of perspectives from philosophy and historical rhetoric serves a metaphilosophical goal here: to show that our philosophical understanding of the nature of inquiry will be considerably enhanced if we seriously, and with both historical and literary sensibilities, study the metaphors we use in characterizing our epistemic and cognitive projects. (shrink)

How do our embodied experiences of music shape our analysis, theorizing, and interpretation of musical texts, and our engagement with practices including composing, improvising, listening, and performing? 'Music, Analysis, and the Body: Experiments, Explorations, and Embodiments' is a pioneering essay collection uniting major and emerging scholars to consider how theory and analysis address music's literal and figurative bodies. The essayists offer critical overviews of different theoretical approaches to music analysis and embodiment, then test and demonstrate (...) their ideas in specific repertoires. The range of musics analysed is diverse: Western art music sits alongside non-Western repertoires, folk songs, jazz, sound art, audio-visual improvisations, soundtracks, sing-alongs, live events, popular songs, and the musical analysis of non-musical experiences. Topics examined include affect, agency, energetics, feel, gesture, metaphor, mimesis, rehearsal, subjectivity, and the objects of music analysis--as well as acoustic ecology, alterity, class, distraction, excess, political authority, sensoriality, technology, and transcendence. (shrink)

This paper presents a critical analysis of the central argument of Derrida's paper 'White Mythology'. The crucial claims are that the concept of metaphor presupposes philosophy, that philosophy presupposes the concept of metaphor, and that philosophy cannot accommodate the concept of metaphor. I offer support for the first two claims, explaining the general kind of view of philosophy and of metaphor which they require, but I argue that even if we grant the first two (...) claims, the concept of metaphor only presents a difficulty for a particular conception of philosophy, rather that philosophy as such. (shrink)

Volume 17, Issue 5, November 2020, Page 510-526.

ABSTRACT In July 2018 the Twitter hashtag #secondcivilwarletters began trending as part of a collective response to conservative media personality Alex Jones’ warning that Democratic supporters were planning to launch a Second Civil War on Independence Day. The response consisted of tweets in the form of parodic letters written as though they were from the American Civil War period, and engaged in a collective form of political commentary and discussion, mostly displaying an anti-Republican and anti-Trump sentiment. This article analyses the (...) different ways the tweeters used Twitter and the #secondcivilwarletters hashtag to engage in the humorous discursive delegitimisation of President Trump and Republicans. It was found that the strategies of authorisation, moral evaluation, rationalisation, and mythopoeisis featured prominently in the tweets and, combined with the humorous edge, nourished the political participation and discourse of this online community. (shrink)

This article delves into the significance and role of metaphors in shaping knowledge, perceptions, and decisions within the healthcare domain. Through a critical analysis of their impact, particularly in the dynamics between healthcare professionals and patients, three dimensions are proposed for unraveling their significance: the political dimension views metaphors as agents of power and tools for legitimizing inequalities; the cultural dimension sees them as cultural residues challenging prevailing biomedical knowledge; and the ethical dimension raises questions about the moral (...) implications of the constructed narratives. This holistic approach aims to enhance our understanding of the intricate interplay between language, cognition, and the experience of illness, ultimately advocating for more comprehensive approaches in healthcare. (shrink)

The metaphor of the heart or mind as a mirror appears not only in the work of Zhuangzi and Xunzi but also in the work of Western philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Rorty. This essay shows how a properly contextualized comparison of the mirror metaphor in the work of these four philosophers highlights the different ways in which they use it, helping us to understand more clearly critical differences between their views. The significance of the mirror (...) class='Hi'>metaphor in the work of each thinker is studied in detail. Distinctively Chinese and Western understandings of mirrors, hearts, and minds are explored, and the importance of studying different cultural and philosophical understandings of metaphors is defended. The essay ends by assessing Edward Slingerland's claim that shared metaphors point toward deeper similarities between different views, in light of the foregoing analysis. (shrink)

Breaking new ground in Sarraute studies, John Phillips reads the novels and plays of Nathalie Sarraute in a hitherto largely neglected critical perspective. Through a detailed analysis of textual metaphors, he demonstrates that Sarraute's writing is informed and inspired by an intensely personal set of desires. Unlike previous criticism, which has stressed the formal aspects of the writing to the exclusion of the psychological, this study exploits contemporary psychoanalytic and feminist theory to expose an unconscious feminine dimension which (...) the author herself has never recognized. (shrink)

Background:Metaphors are often used within the context of ethics and healthcare but have hardly been explored in relation to moral reasoning.Objective:To describe a central set of metaphors in one case and to explore their contribution to moral reasoning.Method:Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 parents of a child suffering from the neurodegenerative disease CLN3. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and metaphors were analyzed. The researchers wrote memos and discussed about their analyses until they reached consensus.Ethical considerations:Participants gave oral and written consent (...) and their confidentiality and anonymity were respected.Findings:A central set of metaphors referred to the semantic field of the hands and arms and consisted of two central metaphors that existed in a dialectical relationship: grasping versus letting go. Participants used these metaphors to describe their child’s experiences, who had to “let go” of abilities, while “clinging” to structures and the relationship with their parent(s). They also used it to describe their own experiences: participants tried to “grab” the good moments with their child and had to “let go” of their child when (s)he approached death. Participants, in addition, “held” onto caring for their child while being confronted with the necessity to “let go” of this care, leaving it to professional caregivers.Discussion:The ethical analysis of the findings shows that thinking in terms of the dialectical relationship between “grasping” and “letting go” helps professional caregivers to critically think about images of good care for children with CLN3. It also helps them to bear witness to the vulnerable, dependent, and embodied nature of the moral self of children with CLN3 and their parents.Conclusion:Metaphorical reasoning may support the inclusion of marginalized perspectives in moral reasoning. Future studies should further explore the contribution of metaphorical reasoning to moral reasoning in other cases. (shrink)

A narrative pattern in which confrontational passages are followed by parables metaphorically clarifying the power of faith, and by miracles which show faith's power in act, enables Mark to show Jesus meeting opponents' objections by requiring a yet greater degree both of love and of faith than they.

Recent encounters with structuralist and poststructuralist critical theory, linguistics, and cognitive sciences have brought the theory and analysis of music into the orbit of important developments in present-day intellectual history. Without seeking to impose an explicit redefinition of either theory or analysis, this book explores the limits of both. Essays on decidability, ambiguity, metaphor, music as text, and music analysis as cognitive theory are complemented by studies of works by Debussy, Schoenberg, Birtwistle and Boulez.

Abstract:Contemporary painting is a complex practice, and artists regularly incorporate elements from different media such as photography, textile, and performance. Despite its status being diminished by different conceptual art movements, painting still has a critically important place in the artworld. This importance is largely due to painting’s ability to stretch across media and make a direct appeal to the senses. In this article, an attempt is made to theorize the facility of painting to incorporate different media and its resulting reflexivity. (...) Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of embodiment and phenomenological theory of metaphor provide the theoretical means to articulate reflexivity in painting. Curatorial writing about contemporary painting and case studies of young painters from India form a backdrop for the analysis of examples from the painting practice of one of the authors to demonstrate the material dynamism of painting. It is shown that this reflexivity is intimately related to the sensuous texture of materials used in the creation of the paintings under discussion. The first-person narrative of artistic process and production provides insight into the embodied process of making and manipulating media and evidence that painters can create new insights about the ontology of painting. (shrink)

This article focuses on the methodological basis for the criticism of the computationalism and “computer metaphor” in the philosophy of cognitive sciences. We suppose that the computational paradigm is the direct consequence of the theoretical confusion of phenomenal and cognitive kinds of experience. Cognitive processes, considered as the forms of computational description, are available for computer modelling. That implies the strong position of the computer metaphor in the neuroscience. In our opinion the key problem is the vague ontological (...) nature of the symbols which form the computational operations in the cognitive procedures. Despite the successful development of neuroscience, it is still impossible to explain the meaning of the content of mental states. The article provides the detailed analysis of the critical approaches to the computational models of consciousness. The special attention is given to the comparison of data integration in the artificial intellectual systems with semantic aspects of the phenomenal consciousness. In the first case the foundations of output are the hierarchy of classes, the rules protocols and applying heuristics and strategies. In the second case the knowledge is formed by qualia, metaphorical conceptualization and pragmatic level of communication. Natural principles of knowledge forming are unachievable for machine intellectual procedures. (shrink)

The method of approach to detailed criticism of prose-writers and poets adopted by Dionysius is in a large measure comparative. The procedure of comparison is threefold: firstly, the bringing together of passages from authors to elicit points of resemblance or of difference between their styles secondly, the assumption of the existence of common critical standards for all works of art, whether literature, painting, or sculpture thirdly, the use of metaphor and simile to illustrate matters of criticism which need (...) the assistance of some visual or mental image to make clear the exact meaning of the point of criticism. The metaphorical vocabulary is the richer for the greater preoccupation of Dionysius with aesthetic appreciation than with philosophical analysis; and any seeming differences in technical vocabulary are compensated by the freedom with which his vocabulary in general draws on the Greek of his own and earlier times. The following list gives some of the more interesting metaphorical expressions used in the rhetorical works, with notes on their meaning and, in some cases, with illustrations of the use of the same or similar terms in other Greek critics and in the volumes of scholia. (shrink)

Military metaphors are pervasive in biomedicine, including HIV research. Rooted in the mind set that regards pathogens as enemies to be defeated, terms such as “shock and kill” have become widely accepted idioms within HIV cure research. Such language and symbolism must be critically examined as they may be especially problematic when used to express scientific ideas within emerging health-related fields. In this article, philosophical analysis and an interdisciplinary literature review utilizing key texts from sociology, anthropology, history, and Chinese (...) and African studies were conducted to investigate the current proliferation of military metaphors. We found the use of these metaphors to be ironic, unfortunate, and unnecessary. To overcome military metaphors we propose to give them less aggressive meanings, and/or replace them with more peaceful metaphors. Building on previous authors' work, we argue for the increased use of “journey” metaphors as meaningful, cross-culturally app... (shrink)

Starting from the notion of a structural relation between war and rape in patriarchal systems, this article aims at pointing out how this relation is reflected in the co-occurrence of war and marriage metaphors in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) discourse. Critical Discourse Analysis is combined with cognitive metaphor theory to show how metaphors of marriage and romance ("MERGERS ARE MARRIAGES") tend to co-occur with war and various derived metaphors ("M&As ARE BATTLES FOR TERRITORY"). The significance of these (...) co-occurrences is illustrated through corpus data from genres such as newspaper reports and journal articles. Results of additional qualitative analysis are drawn upon to investigate whether the well-established marriage metaphor functions as an ideologically invested euphemism for rape metaphors. Because the latter are more often than not conspicuously absent, the notion of metaphor gaps is introduced and discussed briefly. (shrink)

Research on COVID-19 has drawn the attention of scholars around the world since the outbreak of the pandemic. Several literature reviews of research topics and themes based on scientometric indicators or bibliometric analyses have already been conducted. However, topics and themes in linguistic-specific research on COVID-19 remain under-studied. With the help of the CiteSpace software, the present study reviewed linguistic research published in SSCI and A&HCI journals to address the identified gap in the literature. The overall performance of the documents (...) was described and document co-citations, keyword co-occurrence, and keyword clusters were visualized via CiteSpace. The main topic areas identified in the reviewed studies ranged from the influences of COVID-19 on language education, and speech-language pathology to crisis communication. The results of the study indicate not only that COVID-19-related linguistic research is topically limited but also that insufficient attention has been accorded by linguistic researchers to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, and Corpus-based discourse analysis in exploring pandemic discourses and texts. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with the ways in which meaning is generically mediated in the novel. In particular it addresses the productive diversity of meanings generated by critical interpretation and asks how, given this diversity, comprehension and consensus might be possible. I argue that the construction of subject, object, space and time is achieved in the novel through different manifestations of four key metaphors: voice, view, setting and event. These metaphors supply meanings that rely on a common experience of (...) embodiment. Embodiment supplies the basis for an intersubjectively established consensus which identifies subjects and objects in terms that correspond to the semiotic, syntagmatic and semantic uses of metaphor. I begin by surveying and reviewing certain constructionist accounts of language and meaning in order to establish the importance of metaphor in conveying meaning in rhetorical, rather than linguistic, terms. I then discuss two examples of continental philosophy on speech: Derrida on voice and Foucault on discourse. I demonstrate how meaning is rhetorically constructed according to the use to which metaphors are put—whether they denote formal, semantic, or functional aspects of meaning—through an explication of Foucault’s theory, reserving Derrida’s grammatology for my analysis of the stabilisation of meaning in the theory of certain narratologists (Gérard Genette and Marie-Laure Ryan). Voice and view are key terms in literary theory, and I examine refinements to these metaphors in Genette and Ryan. The insistence of these narratologists on restricting the rhetorical dimension of meaning undermines the value of the literary work, prompting me to argue for a relaxing of such constraints. I read Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang for its uses of voice and point of view, many of which expose the limitations of the narratological approach. This is a theoretical thesis, which engages a wide range of perspectives—constructionist, deconstructionist, sociological and structuralist—together with their various accounts of language, metaphor, speech and meaning. In terms of sociological approaches to genre and discourse, I employ the chronotope as a critical tool, examining it in the context of the theme of the country house to demonstrate the role of two of my key metaphors, setting and event, which are important for the construction of space and time in abstract terms. Focusing on novels by Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Kazuo Ishiguro, in which the country house defines the space and the temporality through which thematic and “material” elements are mediated, I reveal how the chronotope supplies an overarching coherence that unites thought and event in narrative. My readings of these novels describe a theory that is concerned with the rhetorical capacities of genre rather than with taxonomic constructions of form. To this end I argue that the metaphorical dimensions of narrative—voice, view, setting and event—be loosely drawn, according to the acknowledged mutability of genre. I also emphasise the constructive effect of metaphor whilst according it a rhetorical versatility consistent with the mutability and instability of genre as a semiotic tool, concluding that consensus is achieved in our readings of novels through the form’s reliance on these four key metaphors of embodiment. These metaphors have ordinary, everyday, widespread usage beyond narrative theory; in appreciating their rhetorical value, it must be noted nonetheless that any confusion that ensues is productive, for it results in the diversities of meaning and form celebrated in the literary work. (shrink)

Most analysis of the metaphors of AIDS has considered lay rather than scientific discourse. In general, that analysis has uncovered linguistic strategies that tend to distance the disease from people who are healthy. Moreover, it has criticized those strategies insofar as they categorize and dehumanize the AIDS patient. My own analysis, however, focuses on the writing of Robert Gallo, one of the virologists who claimed credit for isolating the HIV as the cause of AIDS. By examining Gallo's (...) popular and scientific writing, I uncover the metaphor system that underlies his work — and perhaps the work of other virologists studying the HIV. I find in Gallo's writing a system of metaphor that personifies and humanizes the HIV (or the HTLV-III as he originally named it). This system differs significantly from lay systems that tend to objectify AIDS. I argue that the metaphor system that underlies Gallo's work is in fact productive, but that it might preclude other ways of conceptualizing the disease and its causes. The co-factor theory, for instance, entails a different metaphoric system entirely. I suggest that AIDS researchers might examine their own language in an effort to critique the metaphors they use and explore the possibility of using new metaphors. (shrink)

This article examines how Italian commercial broadcast news on Mediaset’s three terrestrial channels has covered the transition to digital terrestrial television. Mediaset is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country and is owned by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. By drawing on critical discourse analysis of broadcast news, it is argued that linguistic elements such as pronouns, choice of words, and metaphors, together with tendentious editing and framing of interviews, were part of a strategy of positive representation of (...) the broadcaster’s interests in the transition and negative representation of media policies opposing such interests. In particular, the analysis brings to the surface the ideological usage of interviews. Interviews in this case did not function as an act of control over the powerful, but as a way to illuminate the broadcaster’s strategic interests while obfuscating the reasons behind attempts to regulate the transition to digital television and open the market to competition. The data attest that the way in which news programs covered the digital transition exposes the connections between media content, media ownership, and governmental institutions. Indeed, all three news programs, TG5, TG4, and Studio Aperto, despite their different target audience and the reputation of one of them as the most objective and authoritative newscast on Italian commercial television, echoed each other in unified support of the sort of interests and media legislation that best fitted the corporation, especially at times when those interests were threatened. The corpus consists of 13 newscasts grouped in two clusters aired in 2006 and 2009. The main participants in the story were Mediaset’s president, often interviewed as the ‘expert’ on the TV industry, the communications minister for the center-left Prodi government, and the communications undersecretary for the center-right Berlusconi government. Citizens and consumer groups were never given the opportunity to voice their positions or be an active part of the narration. (shrink)

Being diagnosed with cancer can be one of those critical incidents that negatively affect the self. Identity is threatened when physical, psychological, and social consequences of chronic illness begin to erode one’s sense of self and challenge an individual’s ability to continue to present the self he or she prefers to present to others. Based on the notion of illness trajectory and adopting a Ricoeurian narrative perspective, this theoretical paper shall explore the impact of cancer disease on identity and (...) establish the crucial importance of metaphor in the narratives of life with cancer. Findings indicate that in cancer narratives the illness experience supplies the narrative structure with temporal and spatial meeting points that make the narrative comprehensible and meaningful. Cancer forces identity changes not only from having to endure the long-term physical and psychosocial effects of the disease, but also from inevitable existential questions about life’s meaning. Improved medical knowledge today means improved ethnomedical practices. Metaphor can bridge the gap between the cancer experience and the world of technology and treatment, helping patients to symbolically control their illness. (shrink)

The recent trend in institutional communication research seems to foster the image of the University as a private organization significantly oriented towards a policy of customer satisfaction. Following the concept of organizational culture, institutional settings too are conceived as organizational contexts, where discourse is a privileged vehicle to convey and spread values, traditions and artifacts, both through internal and external communication practices. Thus, within academic discourse organizational culture is shaped and perpetuated by specific devices of rhetorical argumentation. The corpus of (...) data consists of two different examples of academic discourse: the self promotional endorsement letters of the academic candidates to the chancellor’s position on occasion of the elections and the inaugural speeches proclaimed by the chancellors in charge during the opening celebration of the academic year. The first kind of academic discourse could be meant as an example of political discourse since the candidates use communication strategically and manipulate their academic membership as a rhetorical device to support their aims. On the other hand, the second example is a mere celebration of academic culture which through linguistic rituals recalls and perpetuates the basic values of this microcosm. The data have been analysed with the critical discourse analysis and diatextual analysis which pay particular attention to the context of speech. Moreover, attention has been focused on the metaphors and on the meta-discursive cues. The results show that although with different purposes academic discourse use similar discursive and rhetorical strategies as both belong to the same organization. (shrink)