View
3
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
Metaphors used in Television Debates on the EU
Referendum: A Corpus-Based Approach to Conceptual
Metaphor Theory
DIPLOMARBEIT
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie
eingereicht bei
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gabriella Mazzon
Institut für Anglistik
Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät
der Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck
von
Carina Rützler
01315809
Dorf 1g, 6210 Wiesing
Innsbruck, Dezember 2017
Danksagung
Weder diese Diplomarbeit noch mein gesamtes Studium wären ohne die Hilfe
meiner Eltern, Edith und Gebhard, möglich gewesen. Deshalb möchte ich mich zu
allererst für ihre unaufhörliche Unterstützung, sowohl in finanzieller als auch in
jeder anderen Hinsicht, bedanken!
Des Weiteren richtet sich mein Dank an alle Freunde und Kollegen, die ihre
Erfahrungen, ihre Mitschriften und Materialien mit mir geteilt haben. Allen voran
hat meine Freundin Carolin mir von der ersten Woche des Studiums an geholfen,
wofür ich ihr sehr dankbar bin!
Zu guter Letzt gebührt Frau Professor Gabriella Mazzon, die mein Interesse an
Linguistik geweckt und meine Diplomarbeit betreut hat, besonderer Dank. Ihre
Ratschläge in der Anfangsphase des Schreibens und ihr konstruktives Feedback
zu meinem ersten Entwurf waren von unschätzbarem Wert.
Abstract
Title of Thesis: Metaphors used in Television Debates on the EU
Referendum: A Corpus-Based Approach to
Conceptual Metaphor Theory
Thesis Directed by: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gabriella Mazzon
Department of English
University of Innsbruck
This thesis is based on conceptual metaphor theory as first introduced by Lakoff
and Johnson (1980), which considers metaphor to play an essential role in
language and human cognition. After offering an overview of the framework of
the theory in the first part of the thesis, a study on the metaphors used in the UK
referendum on the EU membership on 23 June 2016 is conducted. For this
purpose, nine television debates broadcasted before the final election were
transcribed and systematically searched. The findings and implications of this
study are discussed in the second part of the thesis.
The didactic part of the thesis explores the uses of conceptual metaphor for the
second language classroom. In order to put the theory into practice, useful
teaching materials are offered. An exemplary lesson plan that can help students
develop their metaphorical competence is presented. In addition, the possibility of
using conceptual metaphor as an organizing tool to expand vocabulary is
explored. Some exercises that can be integrated continuously into second
language teaching are included.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 1
2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory ................................................................... 3
2.1. Traditional View of Metaphor .................................................................... 3
2.2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory ..................................................................... 6
2.3. Mappings ................................................................................................... 12
2.4. Neural Theory of Language ...................................................................... 16
2.5. Kinds of Metaphor .................................................................................... 20
2.6. Metonymy ................................................................................................. 22
2.7. Identification of Linguistic and Conceptual Metaphor ............................. 23
3. Metaphors Used in Television Debates on the Brexit ........................... 30
3.1. Methodology ............................................................................................. 30
3.2. Remain and Leave Campaign: Project Fears vs. Gambling ...................... 42
3.3. Dysfunctional Family Ties with the European Union............................... 48
3.4. Immigration ............................................................................................... 50
3.5. The European Union as a Container ......................................................... 55
3.6.Taking back Control ................................................................................... 60
3.7. The European Union as a Destructive Force............................................. 67
3.8. Metonymies ............................................................................................... 72
4. Metaphors Used in Second Language Learning ................................... 74
4.1. Metaphorical Competence ........................................................................ 74
4.1.1. Lesson Plan .......................................................................................... 76
4.1.2. Differentiating between Literal and Metaphorical Use ....................... 81
4.1.3. Newspaper Articles .............................................................................. 82
4.1.4. Graphical Organizer ............................................................................ 83
4.1.5. Possible Solution .................................................................................. 84
4.2. Organizing Lexis ....................................................................................... 85
4.2.1. Idioms ................................................................................................... 88
4.2.2. Phrasal Verbs ....................................................................................... 95
4.2.3. Evaluation Sheet................................................................................... 97
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 98
Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 100
Primary Sources ................................................................................................ 101
Secondary Sources ............................................................................................ 102
Eidesstattliche Erklärung .................................................................................. 119
.
1
1. Introduction
Ever since the publication of their seminal study Metaphors we Live By in 1980,
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have revolutionised the study of metaphor. By
challenging centuries-old Western assumptions about human cognition and
language, the authors have proven that metaphor is not a rare poetic
embellishment, but rather a basic cognitive tool to understand the world around
us. In the past four decades, evidence from different fields of research with
different methodologies has confirmed the view that metaphor plays an essential
role in abstract thought and symbolic expression. The metaphorical language that
we use effortlessly and frequently in our everyday discourse is merely a linguistic
manifestations of conceptual metaphors shaping the human mind. Metaphor,
therefore, not only impacts our language use, but many cultural institutions such
as politics, science, art and sports. This is the reason why conceptual metaphor
theory has found such a wide range of application from literary analysis, to
psychology, mathematics, cognitive linguistics, and, most prominently, law,
politics and social issues. George Lakoff played a pioneering role in employing
metaphor theory in order to uncover the means by which the Bush administration
justified the Gulf war (1991), analyse the differences between the Conservative
and the Progressive party in American politics (1996, 2002) and, in his most
recent work, to explain the logic behind the election of US president Donald
Trump.
The following Diploma thesis applies conceptual metaphor theory to the
political discourse in the lead-up to the so-called Brexit referendum on 23 June
2016, which resulted in the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European
Union. Firstly, the research on and the evidence for conceptual metaphor theory,
as well as the way metaphors function will be discussed. In order to illustrate the
theory, examples from the television programme “BBC EU Brexit Referendum:
The Great Debate”, which aired on the 21 June 2016 from eight to ten p.m., will
be included. Since the debate was broadcasted on the night before the vote, it is
assumed that many of the metaphors used in the preceding campaign were
collected and employed in this final appeal to voters. Therefore, it is accepted as a
suitable starting point for further analysis. In addition, an appropriate method for
2
identifying metaphorically used words in real discourse and identifying the
underlying conceptual metaphors is introduced.
For the second part of the thesis, a corpus of transcripts from nine
television debates on the EU referendum was compiled. All of them where
broadcasted by leading television channels in the month of June preceding the
election. The “BBC Great Debate” also served as a pilot study for the second part
of the thesis. Five relevant target domains were identified in this initial analysis
and later searched in the entire corpus: LEAVE and REMAIN CAMPAIGN, THE
EUROPEAN UNION, IMMIGRATION and CONTROL. Consequently, the results of the
study and possible implications of the metaphors used are discussed. The
metaphorical expressions belonging to these target domains are viewed as
indicative of a larger principle that structures our understanding of the political
argument in question.
Last but not least, research in the past decades suggests that conceptual
metaphor can contribute in important ways to second language learning. Since
metaphor plays such a fundamental role in human thought, the scope of possible
uses for the language classroom is extremely wide. In this thesis, the focus is set
on metaphorical competence and conceptual metaphor as an organizing principle
for vocabulary learning. Although no precise definition has been agreed on so far,
metaphorical competence broadly refers to a language user’s ability to recognize,
interpret and actively produce metaphors. In order to develop this competence, a
detailed lesson plan is included in the thesis. Secondly, two exercises that make
use of metaphor as an organizing tool are presented.
3
2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory
2.1. Traditional View of Metaphor
Traditionally, metaphor was regarded as a mere linguistic trope used to embellish
poetic texts and achieve the greatest possible effect on the reader. These
assumptions can already be found in Aristotle: “The greatest thing by far is to
have command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the
mark of genius” (Poetics, III, 12). Such a view explains why metaphor analysis
formerly centred only on highly poetic instances of language use, such as
Shakespeare’s acclaimed balcony scene where Juliet is compared to the sun
(Romeo and Juliet, 2.2. 2-7):
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious.
The audience of this scene is lead to transfer the elements of radiant beauty and
centrality from one domain, namely the sun, to another, namely Juliet. The
metaphor is further elaborated by including the moon as the second celestial body,
which is assigned human qualities when she compares her own beauty to the sun.
Romeo’s metaphor, however, involves a relatively high degree of cognitive
involvement from the audience since it is more elaborate than everyday speech.
The exclusive focus on such instances of metaphorical use already
presupposed that everyday conventional language is far removed from metaphor
and only literal. In addition, only literal language can be contingently true or false
since its meaning fits the world directly (Lakoff, 1993: 204). These assumptions
give rise to the distrust some philosophers and empiricists of the Enlightenment
bore towards figurative language in general. Thomas Hobbs, for instance, terms
metaphors “ignes fatui” (Leviathan, pt. 1, chap. 5) and Samuel Parker believes
they “impregnate the mind with nothing but Ayerie and Subventaneous
Phantasmes” (Free and impartial Censure of the Platonick Philosophy).
4
In more recent work, Searle (1993) still treats metaphor as a challenge to
communication and a deviation from ordinary literality when he attempts to
paraphrase every instance of metaphor in order to approximate what the speakers
mean. Comprehension of metaphorical expressions, therefore, requires the
interlocutor to reject the initial, literal interpretation that occurs by default. Searle
(1993: 103) suggests an algorithmic strategy that communication partners apply to
process metaphorical language: “Where the utterance is defective if taken literally,
look for an utterance meaning that differs from sentence meaning”. In his view,
metaphors make it possible for speakers who utter a sentence of the form “S is P”
to mean “S is R” (1993: 88). However, a theory of metaphor has to account for the
relationship between P and R that constrains metaphorical usage overall. Searle
offers a list of eight principles according to which P may often be said or believed
to be R (as in, “Richard is a gorilla” for “Richard is mean, nasty and prone to
violence)” or P may be R by definition (as in, “Sam is a giant” for “Sam is big”)
and the like. Searle admits, however, that this list is not conclusive and that he can
only offer “several [such principles] for a start” (1993: 104). As this “algorithmic
process” (Lakoff, 1993: 205) seems to require much more effort than literal
language, it is not at all clear why we resort to metaphor so frequently in our day
to day discourse. Although Searle (1993: 88) is aware that metaphors “satisfy
some semantic need” and the literal paraphrases are somehow inadequate or
impossible to formulate in the first place, he still deems them necessary for
metaphorical understanding. In addition, Searle’s theory predicts that processing
of metaphorical language will take much longer than processing of literal
language, which has turned out not to be the case (Lakoff, 2008: 17).
Overall, the traditional theory of metaphor represented here by means of
reference to some select linguists and philosophers assumes that metaphor is a
purely linguistic and rare poetic phenomenon, which can be replaced with
everyday literal language. The most comprehensive rejection of this view is
Lakoff and Johnson’s study Metaphors we live by (1980). However, some
important contributions were made to conceptual metaphor before its publication,
as Jäkel (1999) convincingly presents. German philosophers and linguists, in
particular, anticipated some of the most important claims that conceptual
5
metaphor theory has become famous for. Richards (1936), too, already contested
the view that metaphors can only be invented by poets endowed with special
genius to find similarities and are therefore truly exceptional. Instead, he deems
metaphor to be pervasive in everyday discourse so that “we cannot get through
three sentences of ordinary fluid discourse without it” (Richards, 1936: 92).
Metaphor, according to Richard, creates new meaning through the interaction of
two constituents. Black (1962: 46) termed these constituents tenor and vehicle. In
a given metaphorical utterance, such as “Man is a wolf”, the speaker uses their
knowledge about the tenor, “wolf” and then selects the appropriate information
and projects it onto the vehicle, “man”. Thus, the speaker can derive at the
conclusion that the wolfish attributes “malicious” and “aggressive” apply to
humans, while inacceptable aspects like “having four legs”, “animal” and “living
in packs” are ruled out. This view became known as the interaction view of
metaphor (Black, 1955: 285), according to which metaphor is also a mechanism
which significantly determines human thought overall. Black (1977: 454) regards
metaphors as “cognitive instruments”. Therefore, the interaction view of metaphor
foresees some essential aspects of conceptual metaphor theory, although Lakoff
and Turner (1989: 131-133) are hesitant to admit this. The terminology of
Richards is particularly fitting in respect of the etymology of the word metaphor.
It derives from the Greek suffix μετα- and the verb φέρω which literally means
“to transfer” or “to carry beyond” (Luke, 2004), hence the suitability of the term
“vehicle”. Metaphor, thus, allows for a transfer of a word outside its usual
context and an understanding of one concept in terms of another. This definition
has remained the same since antiquity. All in all, it cannot be denied that at least
the ubiquity and unidirectionality of metaphors, two important tenets of
conceptual metaphor theory, were already noted by important predecessors (Jäkel
1997: 9).
However, Lakoff and Johnson’s study (1980) has secured thought as the
locus of metaphor, creating a new cognitive linguistic theory of metaphor, and has
undeniably had the largest impact on the growing body of research. Their theory
has found application in various fields of scholarship, science and, last but not
least, in foreign language teaching, which will be discussed in the last section of
6
this thesis. The conceptual theory of metaphor will be explained in some detail in
the following chapter.
2.2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory
As was shown in the previous chapter, some researchers anticipated the ideas that
constitute conceptual metaphor theory. George Lakoff (1993: 203-4) himself,
however, attributes the idea that metaphor should be part of everyday human
thought to Michael J. Reddy’s essay The Conduit Metaphor, which first appeared
in the first edition of Metaphor and Thought (Reddy, 1979: 284-310). This
collection is particularly interesting in regard to the change metaphor theory has
undergone since 1980 as the single essays contradict each other in how they view
metaphor. Reddy argues that human language is understood to function like a
conduit that transfers thoughts from one individual to another. Words are
conceptualized as containers that speakers and writers of a language fill with
meaning, which is extracted by listeners or readers after the transferring process.
This understanding of communication is realized in metaphorical expressions,
such as “getting one’s thoughts across”, “feelings coming through to someone” or
“giving someone an idea of what you mean” (Reddy, 1979: 286). Reddy estimates
that the conduit metaphor accounts for at least 70% of the expressions we use in
our language about language. The analysis of this single example where an
abstract concept, namely language, is understood in terms of more concrete
concepts, namely as containers and a conduit led to the discovery of an enormous
system of conceptual metaphors by Lakoff and Johnson (1980).
Lakoff and Johnson’s cognitive linguistic view of metaphor differs from
the traditional perspective, firstly, in that metaphor is seen as integral part of
conventional thought and language. As can be derived from the common-place
examples given by Reddy (1979), metaphor is not just constrained to poetic
language. Instead, metaphor is utilized without conscious effort to talk about
everyday concepts such as time, life, death, or, as mentioned above, about
language. In addition, we are only able to comprehend and appreciate elaborate
forms of metaphor of the Shakespearean kind on the basis of these omnipresent
metaphors each and every one of us uses. In More than Cool Reason Lakoff and
7
Turner (1989) trace an abundance of poetic metaphors back to these commonplace
metaphors that are integral part of human thought and understanding.
In an early study (Pollio, Barlow, Fine & Pollio, 1977), transcripts of
psychotherapeutic interviews, various essays, and the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon
presidential debates were analysed and searched for metaphors. Novel metaphors,
which are created by speakers spontaneously, were distinguished from frozen
ones. The latter kind is hardly perceived as non-literal language use due to their
high level of conventionality. The study counted 1.80 novel and 4.08 frozen
metaphors per minute of discourse. Such numbers clearly indicate that
metaphorical expressions figure prominently in everyday language use. Moreover,
conceptual metaphor theory has found a metaphorical motivation behind
everyday, conventional expressions and, thus, once and for all determined that
literality is a fuzzy-edged category. There is no simple way to draw a boundary
between literal and figurative language. None of the principles proposed in the
classical approach, such as truth conditionality or compositionality, have proven
to be adequate indicators of literality (Handl, 2011: 16-19).
Secondly and perhaps more importantly, metaphor is no longer regarded
“as a figure of speech, but a mode of thought” (Lakoff, 1993: 210). Hence, it is
called conceptual metaphor. It accounts for a multitude of single metaphorical
expressions through one general cognitive principle. The systematicity that Lakoff
and Johnson were able to detect behind all these expressions is one of the most
pervasive arguments for conceptual metaphor theory. Eve Sweetser (1990)
pointed out that conceptual metaphor lies at the heart of historical semantic
change, polysemy and pragmatic ambiguity. By factoring our perceptual system
and the way we conceptualize our experience into semantic theory, she was able
to demonstrate that different senses of one and the same morpheme are related.
Change in meaning is therefore “natural and readily motivated” (Sweetser, 1990:
1-2). Thus, phrases like “Your claims are indefensible”, “He attacked every weak
point in my argument” and “He demolished her argument” etc. acquire an
additional, non-literal sense since they are all linguistic realizations of the
conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR (Lakoff & Johson, 1980: 4). Unlike
theories of abstraction and homonymy which fail to explain the systematic
8
relationship between two senses of the same word, the metaphorical motivation
observed in these examples can account for changes in meaning (Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980:106-7).
Another example is the preposition “over”, which has more than 100
senses (Brugman & Lakoff, 1988). In addition to the senses that refer to specific
physical schemata (e.g. “The bird flew over the house”), all of the senses that
cover figurative schemas are motivated by two conceptual metaphors. The first
one, CONTROL IS UP, is frequently used in the arguments of the Leave side. Like
all the examples given in this first part of the thesis, Andrea Leadsom’s statement
is taken from the transcript of the television programme “BBC EU Brexit
Referendum: The Great Debate”. Metaphorically used words or phrases in these
quotes are indicated in italics.
(1) “We can take back control over our laws. We can take back control
over our taxes. We can take back control over our borders,
immigration policy and security.” (Andrea Leadsom, 00:04:04-
00:04:17)
These instances of use in Andrea Leadsom’s opening statement exhibit the
metaphorical projection of knowledge from the physical domain to the more
abstract, non-physical domain (Gibbs, 1994: 157). The second conceptual
metaphor, CHOOSING IS TOUCHING, is manifested in Boris Johnson’s affirmation
that Britain will be able to keep its economy stable without the European Union
through new trade deals:
(2) “Let me give you an example: Because of the EU system, our entire
trade negotiating policy is handed over to the EU Commission, where
only 3.6 % of the officials actually come from our country”. (Boris
Johnson, 00:32:36-00:32:57)
This metaphorical use of “over” entails that there is no physical contact with the
object that Britain would like to control as long as they remain a member of the
9
European Union, namely their trade deals. Both conceptual metaphors explain
why we can extend the meaning of a preposition to cover such a tremendous
variety of senses.
The cognitive linguistic view of metaphor holds that language is an
indication of more general cognitive principles. Through an analysis of linguistic
expressions, we can arrive at a deeper understanding of how humans create
meaning and understand the world. “The essence of metaphor is understanding
and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”, Lakoff and Johnson
(1980: 5, emphasis added) summarize their understanding of conceptual
metaphor. Reddy’s appendix can also be seen as an example of the form in which
conceptual metaphors were standardized by Lakoff and Johnson (1980): TARGET
DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN or, alternatively, TARGET DOMAIN AS SOURCE
DOMAIN. As Kövecses (2010: 7) emphasizes, it is important to distinguish
between the linguistic manifestation, i.e. ways of speaking, i.e. metaphorical
expressions, and the organizational principles that they are based on, i.e.
conceptual metaphors. In this thesis, conceptual metaphors, accordingly, will be
spelled in small capitals while linguistic expressions will be written in quotation
marks.
The terms that are used in order to label the domains can sometimes be
viewed as arbitrary or dependent on the context of the specific linguistic
expressions that represent the metaphor. The metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR, for
instance, was sometimes been criticized as too harsh since ”war” heavily
emphasizes the physical harm inflicted in a violent conflict. For this reason, some
scholars find it more appropriate to label the metaphor ARGUMENT IS COMBAT.
Similarly, Turner (1991) attempted to capture the meaning of the metaphor with
his label RATIONAL ARGUMENT IS COMBAT BETWEEN INTENTIONAL AGENTS.
Clausner and Croft (1997) remarked that this wording does not take irrational
forms of debate into account, which, nevertheless, occur in our daily lives.
Considering this discussion, it is important to note that the domain label chosen
represents “an abstraction from specific instances of experience” (Dancygier &
Sweetser 2014: 23). Thus, it is neither necessary nor possible to pinpoint the most
precise lexical items to describe the source and target domains. As is the case for
10
categories, domains have no clear-cut boundaries. Instead, they are fuzzy, with a
prototype at their core and a periphery further outside (Rosch 1977, Lakoff 1987).
Moreover, some scholars have replaced the term “domain” with “frame”, as first
introduced by Fillmore (1982). This exchange offers the advantage that evoking
one aspect of the frame through the use of one expression also accesses the entire
frame structure. As many types of physical combat and the actions typically
associated with them are part of the same conceptual frame, the distinction
between the labels “war” and “combat”, thus, loses much of its importance.
As a basic tool of human cognition, metaphor allows us to use our most
basic physical and social experience in order to comprehend other, more complex
subjects. “Metaphors allow us to understand a relatively abstract or inherently
unstructured subject matter in terms of a more concrete, or at least more highly
structured subject matter”, as Lakoff states (1993: 145). Therefore we find that the
most common source domains include the human body and its condition (health
and illness), animals, plants, buildings and constructions, warmth and cold, light
and darkness etc. These basic concepts of our understanding are the building
blocks of how we metaphorically make sense of experiences such as emotions,
psychological states and events in general, social groups, personal development
and events (Kövecses, 2010: 27). We can see this general direction of conceptual
metaphor to conceptualize something abstract via something more concrete in the
MP’s, Sarah Wollaston’s, claim:
(3) “I've listened to the evidence. It's clear that our NHS, health research
will be hit if we leave. There will be less money for those services and
it [Brexit] will hit the workforce. It will hit our leadership role in
research and development and cooperation with our European partners.
There will be a very serious Brexit penalty for the NHS. Make no
mistake”. (Sarah Wollaston, 37:29-17:37)
Sarah Wollaston conceptualizes the impact that the Brexit would have on the
economy in terms of a physical force and, consequently, repeatedly uses the word
“hit” to express her ideas. Justin King, former Sainsbury’s Chief Executive,
11
likewise, uses the words “damage”, “hurt” and “harm” in order to represent the
effect of the predicted economic recession on British society as a physical force
(00:36:41-00:37:07). Since our experience with physical forces is delineated in a
much clearer way, we metaphorically understand the more abstract factors
influencing the economy in these terms.
Another important difference from a traditional perspective of metaphor
derives from the question how metaphor production is constrained. After all, no
theory of metaphor can argue that any target domain can aptly be talked about in
terms of any source domain. In the traditional view of metaphor, the possibility
whether we can speak about something in metaphorical terms is constrained by
the similarity between two concepts. If there is no apparent similarity we cannot
form a corresponding metaphorical expression. It is important to note that these
similarities are thought of as inherent properties of the entities in question. While
Lakoff and Johnson (1980) agree with this proposal in so far as the real world
entities constrain our conceptual system, they challenge comparison theory,
arguing that these similarities are not objective, but experiential. In addition to the
entities in the real world, our experience of them determines which properties and
similarities we perceive in them. For this reason, they focus their attention not on
inherent properties but on “correlations” within our experience and “perceived
structural similarity” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 154-155).
We can find such a correlation in Boris Johnson’s statement in response
to the question how the United Kingdom’s economy would be affected if it were
to leave the European Union: “It would be a fine thing if, as Lord Rose said,
people on low incomes got a pay rise as a result of us taking back control of our
country and our system” (00:19:54-00:20:01). Here, Boris Johnson makes use of
the conceptual metaphor MORE IS UP and its counterpart LESS IS DOWN since he
predicts that the currently “low” wages will be “higher” as a result of the country
leaving the European Union. The metaphors are grounded in the co-occurrence of
adding more of a substance to a container and the level of the substance rising, but
this does not mean that there is a similarity between the two domains. In other
words, there is a correlation in our everyday experience of quantity and verticality
(Kövecses, 2010: 80).
12
We can find a perceived structural similarity, on the other hand, between life and
gambling in the following utterances:
(4) “Even those who want us to leave admit it’s a big gamble”. (Sadiq
Khan, 00:05:47-00:05:49)
(5) “We cannot afford this gamble with our jobs, our wages, our
livelihoods and our rights”. (Frances O’Grady, 00:14:36 – 00:14:47)
(6) “That’s a big hit and we cannot afford it. Don’t take the risk”. (Frances
O’Grady, 00:16:53-00:17:01)
As Lakoff and Johnson argue, there is no experiential correspondence whatsoever
between human life and gambling games (1980: 155). We simply experience one
conceptual domain, i.e. life, as resembling another one, i.e. a gambling game. The
more or less positive choices we make in life are seen as equivalents of winning
and losing. The perceived similarity leads to the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A
GAMBLING GAME, which is in turn realized linguistically in the statements by the
politicians on the Remain side.
2.3. Mappings
In order to explain how conceptual metaphors work exactly, Lakoff and Johnson
(1980: 246) introduce the term mappings. Mappings are the conceptual
correspondences that allow us to talk about a concept from a domain A in terms of
a concept from a domain B. Knowing a metaphor means knowing the systematic
mappings between the source and the target although this knowledge is largely
unconscious. When we take the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, we can
understand it as a set of metaphorical mappings between elements associated with
journeys and elements associated with life that are seen to correspond to the
former. Accordingly, the individuals in life are conceptualized as travellers, our
goals in life as destinations in the journey and the surface of the road as the degree
of hardship. The direction of these mappings always goes from the more concrete
to the more abstract and is typically not reversible. Unidirectionality is a natural
13
feature of conceptual metaphor since we cannot attempt to comprehend the more
abstract in terms of the more concrete:
Source: JOURNEY Target: LIFE
journey → events in life
travellers → individuals
destinations → achievements in life
different roads → different choices in life
surface of the road → degree of hardship
weather conditions → also: degree of hardship
end of the road → death
These are the metaphorical mappings that allow us to interpret utterances, such as
“Michael Gove says it will mean inevitably bumps in the road” in an appropriate
way (Ruth Davidson, 00:17:58-00:18:01). The unevenness of the road is mapped
onto the target domain and metaphorically understood as referring to the future of
Great Britain. Thus, “bumps in the road” refer to the loss of jobs, lower wages and
economic difficulty in general. The same mappings are at work when we
understand the question “When it comes to economy, which is the best path for
Britain?” (BBC presenter, 00:08:18-00:08:22) and the declaration “The EU has
embarked on a relentless journey to create a European superstate” (David
Dimbleby, 01:12:20-01:12:29). Again, there is no inherent similarity between the
elements in the source and the target domain. Rather, the source domain, i.e.
JOURNEY, played a vital role in structuring the concept of LIFE we have by
extracting these elements listed above. This explains why we find it difficult to
think or speak of the abstract target concept without using any references to the
source concept (Kövecses, 2010: 9).
The nature of metaphorical mappings also implies that the standard
formula TARGET DOMAIN IS SOURCE DOMAIN is a simplification: Not all of the
aspects of the source domain are or can be mapped onto the target domain since
the two are never identical. This selective mapping inevitably results in
highlighting and hiding certain aspects of the target domain. As can be gleamed
14
from the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor, life is often regarded as a purposeful
activity that leads the traveller to a definitive goal through their dedication and
hard work. At the same time, this very metaphor hides the external influences that
can impact us regardless of our decisions and best efforts. Moreover, different
metaphors can highlight other aspects of the life domain, such as feelings of
meaninglessness and futility in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Life is a tale, told by an
idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (5.5.27). An argument can be
understood metaphorically as a journey, a container, a building, or war, all of
which lead to different perceptions concerning the function and rules of
arguments (Kövecses, 2010: 135). The conduit metaphor, which we use extremely
frequently to talk about communication as established above, entails that words
and utterances have meaning of their own, independent of the speakers and the
context. Neither the Remain nor the Leave side in the Brexit campaign want to
lose control over Great Britain’s economic stability and its position in the global
market. But while the Leave side’s slogan “Take back control” connotes Britain’s
ability to make independent political decision on a national level in the future, the
Remain side also warn of the loss of control that this very step brings in its train.
As Sadiq Khan asks:
(7) “How is it having more control if you have less money in your pocket
as Martin Lewis, the money expert, says? How is it more control if we
have a recession as the Bank of England says. How is it more control if
we are not investing in the schools and hospitals and GP practices, if
Karim [member of the audience] can't get a job because local
employers are suffering, or how is it control if it is double the
immigration, […] more control if there are businesses from China,
India and America choosing Germany and France over London. How
is it more control if young people don't have the opportunities that we
have? “ (Sadiq Khan, 00:59:35 – 01:00:17)
This exemplifies that loss of control is caused by completely different outcomes
of the Brexit election depending on which speakers use it in which context. The
15
conduit metaphor, however, hides this important feature of language. As Lakoff
and Johnson (1980: 12) point out, metaphorical concepts “provide us with a
partial understanding of what communication, argument, and time and, in doing
this, they hide other aspects of these concepts”. For this reason, it is possible to
have a number of source domains for the same target, which are selected
according to their appropriateness in a given context.
In addition, the partial nature of metaphorical mappings also confronts us
with a tricky problem. How are illegitimate mappings from the source to the target
domain ruled out? One possibility which journeys offer, for instance, is going
back and revisiting places we have travelled to at an earlier point in time via the
same route. In life, however, it is simply not possible to return to the events once
they have passed. This is one element that cannot be mapped from the source
domain onto the domain of life. Another example frequently discussed in the
literature, involves the CAUSATION IS TRANSFER metaphor (e.g. Kövecses 2010:
131). This conceptual metaphor is manifested linguistically in expressions such as
“She gave him a headache”, where the headache is treated like a physical object.
As a result, “She gave him a headache and he still has it” is a legitimate utterance
in English. By contrast, this principle does not hold true for sentences where a kiss
is conceptualized as a physical object: * ”She gave him a kiss and he still has it”.
In order to solve this dilemma Lakoff (1993) first established the Invariance
Principle which reads:
“Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive typology (that is the
image-schema structure) of the source domain, in a way that is consistent
with the inherent structure of the target domain”. (Lakoff, 1993: 215)
The nature of the target domain, then, overrides the initial assumptions that the
metaphor leads us to make, namely that you still have an object after it has been
given to you. In the first example, the state of the headache is compatible with the
object transfer metaphor, whereas in the second example, the event of a kiss
cannot endure and, therefore, chancels all the mappings that suggest a permanent
possession after the action has been carried out.
16
Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 254) later called this principle of target domain
overrides “unfortunate” and abandoned it in favour of a neural theory of language.
According to this theory, metaphorical mappings are physically realized in the
human brain through neural maps. The research that led to this viewpoint and the
implications it has for metaphor theory overall will be discussed in the next
section of the thesis.
2.4. Neural Theory of Language
In his 1997 dissertation, Joseph Grady introduced primary metaphors to the field.
Focusing on less elaborate metaphors, he discovered that in the course of so-
called primary scenes we learn early and far-reaching correlations in our day to
day experience from the age of babyhood. A prime example of such a correlation
is the physical warmth a baby experiences when it is being held by its mother,
resulting in the conceptual metaphor AFFECTION IS WARMTH. Another basic
example is the CONTROL IS UP metaphor, which emerges from the child’s early
experience of being less powerful than its caregivers due to their increased height
in relation to the child’s. In this way, primary metaphors connect our sensory-
motor experience with our subjective judgement or assessment.
Christopher Johnson (1999) similarly observed that children below the age
of three seem to use the word “see” in its literal sense exclusively, that is in
reference to vision, before they start to form metaphorical utterances, such as “I
see what you mean”, where knowing is conceptualized as seeing (KNOWING IS
SEEING metaphor). Johnson remarks that children are unlikely to distinguish
between the domains of SEEING and KNOWING. As a result, conflation of the two
domains presumably occurs at an early stage of a child’s development. By default,
these correlations in experience are frequently repeated from a very early age and,
thus, given special importance in the neural theory of language: primary metaphor
and what Johnson has termed conflation make the Invariance principle obsolete
since metaphors are learned when an experience from the target domain co-occurs
with an experience from the source domain. If there were a contradiction, then the
metaphor would never be learned in the first place (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003:
258).
17
Since all human beings are considered to share these primal experiences to
some extent and, thus, activate the same set of domains repeatedly, it makes sense
to consider some metaphors as universal. Through our natural, everyday
experience in the world, these kinds of metaphors will be learned by anyone
automatically. In fact, no language has been found so far, that negates the MORE IS
UP metaphor. It seems that we simply do not conceptualize any form of increase
with a downward motion, which is explained trough the primary scene of pouring
a liquid into a container resulting in an increased level of the liquid. Yu (1998,
2009) demonstrates that conceptual metaphors for emotions in Chinese, such as
HAPPY IS UP and SAD IS DOWN, seem to be the same as in English. Another
instance of metaphorical usage that is relatively consistent across languages seems
to be the distinction of LIGHT and DARK. On the other hand, it is clear that many
metaphors, particularly those that structure the target concept in a more detailed
way than MORE IS UP, can vary from culture to culture.
Simultaneously, Srinivas Narayanan (1997) used computational techniques
to represent metaphors as neuronal mappings. He then selected certain
metaphorical statements from economic discourse such as “France fell into a
recession and Germany pulled it out”. The inferences that come from the source
domain of physical action (i.e. falling into a ditch and pulling someone out) were
mapped onto the target domain of international economics. Both the enacted
inferences that arise from the source domain about physical action and the
structural inferences about international economics interact with the target domain
and contribute to how it is understood.
The neural theory of language argues that these conflations or
correspondent experiences have a physical realization in the brain. During the
primary scene discussed above when the mother holds her baby, two neuronal
groups, such as the one responsible for the perception of temperature and the one
for emotional concepts, fire together. Consequently, activation spreads along the
synapses that connect them. When the two neural groups repeatedly fire at the
same time and the activation reaches from one to the other, neural mapping
circuits may be formed (Lakoff, 2008: 19). These are viewed as the neural basis
18
for metaphors that account for our conceptualization of AFFECTION AS PHYSICAL
WARMTH.
These primary metaphors are a normal result of associative learning in the
brain. The Hebbian principle “Neurons that fire together wire together” (Hebb,
1949) predicts that repeated correlation in experience where two domains in the
brain are co-active will lead to a connection of these areas. Since all primary
metaphors arise from our physical experience, they are embodied. The
combination of primary metaphors, in turn, provides the basis for complex
metaphors. When more than one neural metaphor connection is active at the same
time, they allow for us to understand much more abstract concepts. This is the
mechanism used “for conceptualizing and discussing the full range of cultural and
abstract concepts needed in human society” (Feldman, 2006: 203).
Lera Boroditsky (2000) experimentally investigated whether we structure
abstract domains in terms of metaphorical mappings from target domains that are
ground in physical experience by reference to the event structure metaphor. In this
case, the more concrete domain of SPACE gives structure to the more abstract
domain of TIME. In English there are two spatial schemas according to which we
conceptualize time. The first schema is ego-centric and visualizes the speaker as
moving through time, as in “We are coming up on Christmas”. Other temporal
statements, such as “Christmas is coming up”, presuppose that the speaker is
stagnant while the events in time are visualized as moving towards the speaker
(Gentner et al., 1999; McGlone & Harding, 1998). In Boroditsky’s experiment,
participants were asked four true or false priming questions in line with the ego-
moving schema or the time-moving schema respectively in a questionnaire. In the
consequent target task they had to disambiguate the statement “Next Wednesday’s
meeting has been moved forward two days” and establish on which day of the
week the meeting would consequently take place. Like Boroditsky had predicted,
those participants who had accessed the ego-moving metaphor in answering the
priming questions were more likely to see themselves as moving forward in time
and decided that the meeting would take place on Friday. Participants who had
accessed the time-moving metaphor in answering the priming questions on the
other hand, were more likely to interpret “forward” as the motion of time and,
19
thus, name Monday as the meeting date. In total, almost 72% of the participants
reacted in a prime-consistent manner. The control group that had not been given
any prime questions was divided roughly equally between Friday and Monday
which shows that neither of the spatial schemas for time is dominant in Western
culture. Boroditsky’s results suggest that TIME and SPACE do, in fact, share a
conceptual structure. Furthermore, the priming effect shown reinforces the
assumption that source and target domain are connected. Cross-linguistic studies
(Boroditsky, 2001) additionally confirm that our mental representations of
abstract concepts are not independent of the linguistic metaphors we use for them.
In another experiment (Boroditsky, 2000), participants were shown to be
influenced by spatial primes when thinking about time, but to be unaffected by
temporal primes when thinking about space. This finding suggests that spatial
schemas are not necessary for us to think about the target domain of time.
Gradually, continuous usage enables us to access the domain of time
independently of spatial schemas. The metaphorical mappings that were set up
between two domains are stored in the target domain when they are activated
frequently enough. Highly conventional metaphors tend to acquire such stored
meaning, that is, they are processed off-line in contrast to novel metaphors
(Boroditsky, 2000: 4).
Further evidence for the brain as locus of metaphor comes from brain
imaging studies. In a recent overview, Benjamin Bergen (2012) gives some proof
that metaphorical language may be processed through embodied simulation, just
like literal language is simulated in the brain. This means that the same parts of
the brain are active when we read about a concrete action as when we actually
perform the action. One study (Wilson & Gibbs, 2007) showed, for instance, that
participants were faster to grasp a metaphorical expression when it matched the
action they had been performing beforehand. In other words, activation in the
matching parts of the motor cortex may facilitate understanding metaphors
precisely because they require embodied simulation. Not all studies replicated
these results, but this may be due to the fact that embodied simulation is less
detailed and requires less activity in the motor cortex of the brain than literal
language (Bergen, 2012: 208).
20
All these experiments verify the predictions that the neural theory of
metaphor makes. The physical reality of metaphor is of great relevance to our
everyday thought in all aspects of life:
“You don’t have a choice as to whether to think metaphorically. Because
metaphorical maps are part of our brains, we will think and speak
metaphorically whether we want to or not. Since the mechanism of metaphor
is largely unconscious, we will think and speak metaphorically whether we
know it or not”. (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003: 257)
2.5. Kinds of Metaphor
Conceptual metaphors can vary in the degree to which they structure a given
target. The division into ontological, orientational and structural metaphors was
first introduced in Lakoff and Johnson’s classical work (1980) and although the
authors call it “artificial” in the second edition (2003: 264), it has been kept up in
the literature (e.g. Kövecses 2010, 37). The type that provides the richest
knowledge structure for the target concept is the structural metaphor. One such
instance is the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MOTION. We talk about physical
objects, their motion and location when we want to refer to time. Expressions, like
“the following week”, “time is flying by”, “the time has arrived”, “the time has
gone” etc. are results of the spatialization of time in our conceptual system. Other
examples for structural metaphors have been given above.
The second type, ontological metaphor, allows us to reason about our
experiences in terms of discreet entities, substances and containers. Experiences
that have a very unclear structure or none receive a more sharply delineated status
in this manner. The mind is commonly understood in terms of a brittle object
when we say “her ego is very fragile or “you have to handle him with care since
his wife’s death” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 28). In Kövecses’ words (2010: 39),
“a ‘nonthing’ experience has received the status of a thing through an ontological
metaphor”. The same process can be observed in personification which ascribes
human nature to non-human entities.
21
The final type, orientational metaphor, provides the least amount of
cognitive structuring by working with spatial orientations like up-down, front-
back, on-off, centre-periphery and near-far. Our most fundamental concepts tend
to be organized in these terms. In Western culture, the future is most frequently
seen as being ahead of us. Upward orientation tends to be associated with positive
evaluation while downward orientation tends to be associated with negative
evaluation: HAPPINESS, HEALTH and LIFE are UP and HAVING CONTROL or FORCE
is UP while their opposites are conceptualized as DOWN (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:
15).
The artificiality mentioned above arises since these types of metaphor
overlap in important regards: all metaphors are structural in that they structure the
target domain through conceptual mappings, all are ontological in that they create
entities in the target domain and many are orientation in that they map image-
schemas (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003: 264).
Mappings are sometimes organized into hierarchical structures where the
higher mappings inherit the structure of lower mappings. Primary metaphors are
located at the first level in the hierarchy since they are grounded in “basic (…)
metaphorical correspondences” (Grady, 1999: 81). The following is such a
hierarchy of metaphors with three levels adopted from the Master Metaphor List
(Lakoff et al., 1991: 36-38).
Level 1: The event structure metaphor
Level 2: LONG-TERM PURPOSEFUL CHANGE IS A JOURNEY
Level 3: LIFE IS JOURNEY; LOVE IS A JOURNEY; A CAREER IS A JOURNEY
The event structure metaphor on the first level directs mappings from the domain
of SPACE onto the domain of TIME. Thus, states are conceptualized as locations,
change as motion, causes as forces, actions as self-propelled movements, purposes
as destinations etc. These entailments are very general in nature and can be
mapped onto subtypes of events. All kinds of long-term purposeful change
therefore inherit all the mappings from the event structure metaphor. In turn, the
third level metaphors are subtypes of the second level: life, love and careers are all
assumed to have a purpose. As a result, we conceive of our goals as destinations,
22
the time that passes before we achieve these goals as our path and the difficulties
we encounter as impediments to our motion. Ungerer and Schmid (2006: 125-
127) refer to the increasing specificity of the metaphors from the first to the third
level as lean and rich mappings. The metaphors that are higher in the hierarchy
tend to be more widespread. The event structure metaphor is even suspected to be
universal. Lower level metaphors might depend on the cultural background to a
larger extent (Gibbs, 1994: 152-153).
Another distinction refers to the conventionality of the mappings between
the source and target domain. The metaphorical use of “gorilla”, for instance,
seems to be frequent enough for Macmillan’s Advanced Learners’ Dictionary
(Rundell & Fox, 2002) to include it as a separate entry (“a big man who seems
stupid or violent”). This may not be the case for other, less commonly used
metaphorical expressions. As Handl highlights (2011: 30), many linguists put
forward different sets of mappings that might hypothetically be used by speakers.
However, for an understanding of human cognition, knowledge about the actual
conventionality of these mappings is of vital importance. Searle (1979) already
noted that the most conventional metaphors, which are perhaps misleadingly
referred to as “dead”, must play the most central role in our thoughts:
“Dead metaphors are especially interesting for our study, because, to speak
oxymoronically, dead metaphors have lived on. They have become dead
through continual use, but their continual use is a clue that they satisfy some
semantic need”. (Searle, 1979: 83)
2.6. Metonymy
Metonymy has been a peripheral subject of interest in comparison to metaphor.
As Handl (2011: 32) stresses, however, it is a phenomenon well worth studying.
Metonymies “provide understanding” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 36) and affect
“our thought and action” (ibid.: 39). Just like metaphors, they can be seen as a set
of mappings and are systematic in the relations they provide. The difference
between the two phenomena lies in the number of domains involved: In
metonymy, an entity is used to refer to another entity from the same knowledge
domain: “The university needs more clever heads”. Unlike metaphor, there is a
23
within-domain mapping at work. The relationship here is PART FOR THE WHOLE
since one body part (i.e. “head”) stands in for the entire person. The selection of
the body part is not arbitrary and has a clear communicative function. Human
properties commonly associated with the head, such as intelligence, are
emphasized. The same PART FOR THE WHOLE relationship is at work in the
idiomatic expression “All hands on deck”, but it places greater importance on
physical strength than intelligence (Ungerer & Schmidt, 2006).
Barcelona (2003a) notes, that the difference between metaphor and
metonymy lies in where we draw the line between domains and, in this way, can
be a matter of interpretation. An utterance such as “John is a lion” is intuitively
understood as a metaphorical mapping between PEOPLE and ANIMALS. If we are
to form a wider category of LIVING BEINGS or MAMMALS, however, the utterance
could also be understood to be a metonymy (Barcelona, 2003a: 231). As shown in
the example, there are ambiguous cases where the distinction is not as clear as
Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 265) initially claimed. This leaves us with an
understanding of metaphor and metonymy on a continuum with more and less
clear cases of these phenomena (Handl, 2011: 34). While metaphor and
metonymy serve an equally important cognitive function, Handl’s study (2011:
251) indicates that metaphors may have been the centre of attention in cognitive
linguistics because they occur much more frequently.
2.7. Identification of Linguistic and Conceptual Metaphor
In order to conclusively identify metaphorically used words or phrases in real
discourse, some criteria need to be agreed on. As the Pragglejaz Group (2007: 2),
a team of metaphor scholars from various academic disciplines, pointed out,
researchers may often rely on their own intuitions when they decide what counts
as a metaphor and what does not, which makes it difficult to compare the results
of their studies. Words can be used metaphorically regardless of whether their
metaphorical meaning is frequent enough to appear in a dictionary. The decision
if a word is metaphorical is dependent on the context and may vary from analyst
to analyst. After six years of collaboration, the Pragglejaz Group (2007: 13)
therefore presented the metaphor identification procedure (MIP) that allows
24
researchers to pinpoint exactly why they believe a word is used metaphorically in
a specific context. MIP is comprised of the following four steps (2007: 3):
1. Read the entire text–discourse to establish a general understanding
of the meaning.
2. Determine the lexical units in the text–discourse
3. (a) For each lexical unit in the text, establish its meaning in
context, that is, how it applies to an entity, relation, or attribute in
the situation evoked by the text (contextual meaning). Take into
account what comes before and after the lexical unit.
(b) For each lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic
contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one in the given
context. For our purposes, basic meanings tend to be
More concrete; what they evoke is easier to imagine, see, hear,
feel, smell, and taste.
Related to bodily action.
More precise (as opposed to vague)
Historically older.
Basic meanings are not necessarily the most frequent meanings of
the lexical unit.
(c) If the lexical unit has a more basic current–contemporary
meaning in other contexts than the given context, decide whether
the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be
understood in comparison with it.
4. If yes, mark the lexical unit as metaphorical.
Statistical tests indicated that their method of metaphor identification in real
discourse is reliable. The six analysts in the Pragglejaz Group applied the method
to two texts of discourse of about 675 words each, one news text and one
conversation from the British National Corpus. Their judgement as to whether
words were used metaphorically or not only diverged concerning 4% of the words
in the conversation and 7% of the words in the news text. Conversely, 89% and
25
82% of the words in the chosen discourses were unanimously agreed on by six
independently working analysts (Steen, 2007: 13).
By way of illustration, one sentence from the “BBC’s Great Debate” on
the referendum will be analysed according to the metaphor identification
procedure. Ruth Davidson started her final appeal to the voters after she had been
invited to do so by presenter David Dimbleby:
(8) “And you have to be 100% sure because there's no going back on
Friday morning, and your decision could cost someone else their job”.
(Ruth Davidson, 01:40:32-01:40:40)
A first reading of the debate’s entire transcript reveals that presenters David
Dimbleby, Mishal Husain and Emily Maitlis are hosting a debate on whether the
United Kingdom should remain part of the European Union or not. Members of
Parliament, Boris Johnson, Gisela Stuart and Andrea Leadsom support the Vote
Leave campaign, while the Leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist
Party, Ruth Davidson, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Frances O’Grady, General
Secretary of the TUC, represent Remain. In addition to the opening and closing
statements, the key issues discussed were divided into economy, immigration and
Britain’s place in the world. Two questions from members of the audience, one
from a supporter of the Leave campaign and one from a supporter of the Remain
campaign, were addressed to the main speakers, who were nominated by their
designated campaigns respectively. Moreover, opinions and comments were given
from the second stage by ten further guests split evenly between the two parties.
SNP’s Humza Yousaf, Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, Liberal Democrat
leader Tim Farron, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, and Justin King, former CEO
of Sainsbury’s spoke for Remain. On the other side of the argument, Conservative
Minister Priti Patel, UKIP’s Diane James, Harsimrat Kaur from Women for
Britain, Tim Martin, founder and chairman of Wetherspoons, and journalist and
author Tony Parsons represented Leave. Finally, immediate reactions to the
debate from social media were assessed and facts checked with the help of the
26
BBC’s Reality Check team led by Economics Editor, Kamal Ahmad and Europe
Editor, Katya Adler.
In a second step, the selected example sentence from Ruth Davidson’s closing
statement is parsed into lexical units:
And / you / have to / be / 100% sure / because / there's (there / is) / no / going
back / on / Friday morning, / and / your / decision / could / cost / someone else
/ their / job.
Since the meaning of some expressions cannot be arrived at through the
composition of the meaning of its parts (i.e. have to, 100% sure, going back,
someone else), two morphemes have been subsumed under one lexical unit.
Following this, the Pragglejaz Group analyses every single lexical unit,
contrasting its basic and its contextual meaning. Hereby, they arrive at a clear
decision as to whether the unit is used metaphorically or not. One issue that arises
from their distinction of basic and contextual meanings of a lexical unit is the
definition of “basic”, as noted by Steen (2007: 15): The Pragglejaz Group name
historically older and more concrete human-oriented meanings in the same breath.
But historically older meanings do not always have to be more concrete. It turns
out, for example, that the verb “reinforce” was used in its sense “to make a group
of soldiers, police etc. stronger by adding more people or equipment” almost a
century before the more concrete meaning “to make a building, structure, or
object stronger“. The solution to this dilemma is the adoption of a synchronic
approach, which gives priority to more concrete human-oriented meaning.
For the purposes of this thesis, only those two out of the twenty lexical
units in the sentence where a metaphorical usage has been found will be
presented. The first instance concerns the expression “going back”, which has a
more basic meaning that refers to physically tracing one’s steps back. As opposed
to this, Ruth Davidson is unmistakably talking about the irreversible future voters
will be faced with after they have made a final decision in the referendum. Hence,
the lexical unit connects the domain of journey with the domain of life and is used
metaphorically in this context. The second instance concerns the lexical unit
27
“cost” which also has a more basic meaning that refers to the monetary value of
goods. Here, however, it is neither used in reference to a physical object, nor is
any monetary payment involved. Instead, Ruth Davidson portrays the Brexit as a
purchase that comes with a cost, that is, someone else’s job, disproportional to its
value, that is, what is gained from leaving the European Union. It follows that this
use, too, is metaphorical in the given context. Both times, the metaphorical
meaning becomes evident from a comparison between the more basic and the
contextual meaning (Pragglejaz Group, 2007: 10). These uses stand in contrast to
lexical units with a grammatical function in the sentence (e.g. and, to, because, on
etc.) and those with a literal meaning in the context (e.g. Friday morning,
decision, job).
But even after the metaphorically used words have been identified in a -
for the majority of cases - conclusive way, there is still a gap between these single
linguistic instances and the underlying conceptual metaphors. Although there are
many examples where the name of the particular conceptual metaphor is also used
in the linguistic expression, this is not necessarily the case at all times. As Steen ”
(1999: 57) emphasises, it cannot remain “an act of faith that particular metaphors
in language reflect particular metaphors in thought”. He therefore suggests that
the identification of conceptual metaphor in real discourse involves five steps
summarized below (2007: 16):
1. Find the metaphorical focus.
2. Find the metaphorical proposition.
3. Find the metaphorical comparison.
4. Find the metaphorical analogy.
5. Find the metaphorical mapping.
Although the expressions “there is no going back on Friday morning” and “your
decision could cost someone else their job” can be regarded as wholly
metaphorical, only two linguistic units are used metaphorically. They are the
metaphorical focus in Steen’s terms and have already been identified above. In a
second step, the statement is broken down into a set of propositions in small
capitals since metaphor is not just a tool of language but of thought. This step is
28
complicated, however, by the “bewildering” number of approaches to
propositionalization, as Steen admits (2007: 19). There is an agreement, however,
that a proposition should consist of a predicate, positioned in front, and then one
or more arguments (Steen, 1999: 62):
P1 (BE, 100% SURE)
P2 (THERE IS, NO GOING BACK, ON FRIDAY MORNING)
P3 (COST, YOUR DECISION, THEIR JOB, SOMEONE ELSE)
Proposition one and two are connected through a causal conjunction “because”
and proposition two and three by the conjunction “and”. The non-literally used
concepts are found in the subject “going back” of proposition two and the
predicate of proposition three, “cost”. They are related to the literally used
concepts included in the respective proposition (Steen, 1999: 66).
Step three requires the identification of a nonliteral comparison since
metaphors are assumed to be correspondences between two conceptual domains in
which perceived similarity plays an essential role. “Reconstruction of the implied
comparison is a critical step in understanding a metaphor”, Miller observes (1993:
381). When source and target domain are determined, the direction of the
conceptual mapping is set at the same time. For the first metaphorical expression
from proposition two, “going back”, the domains TIME and SPACE are compared.
The second metaphorical expression, “cost”, in proposition three is likened to the
consequences of the vote. In this way the domain ELECTION is likened to the
domain of FINANCE. Although the overall comparison structure is known after this
step, the precise mappings between the two domains are only identified in the next
step. This involves some degree of interpretation on the part of the analyst (Steen,
2007: 18).
In step four the open values of the source and target domain are defined. In
the case of the first conceptual metaphor, this can be done without much difficulty
since the spatialization of time is one of the best known conceptual metaphors. A
consecutive series of events, summarized as CHANGE in the Master Metaphor List,
is conceptualized in terms of moving forward along a path, summarized as
29
MOTION (Lakoff et al., 1991: 2). The similarity perceived between the outcome of
the referendum and a commercial transaction lies in the effect both can have on
the voters’ welfare. As an advocate of remaining in the European Union, Ruth
Davidson wants to persuade the voters that the decision to leave will have a
detrimental effect on their future. Commercial transactions, likewise, can either
benefit the buyer, or decrease his wealth, that is his well-being. The outcome of
the election that is linked to finance is an instance of the CAUSATION IS
COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION metaphor and its subtype HAVING DETRIMENTAL
THINGS HAPPEN TO ONE IS LOSING MONEY, which is less conventional than the
former (Lakoff et al., 1991: 25).
Finally, the analogy found in step four is transformed into a conceptual
mapping. Step five also reveals implicit knowledge we have about the source
domain that can be carried over to the target domain. The linguistic metaphor
“cost” links the voters’ professions to the realm of commercial transaction and
implies that the voters have a limited amount of resources they can decrease or
increase through their choice in the upcoming election (Steen, 2007: 19).
30
3. Metaphors Used in Television Debates on “Brexit”
3.1. Methodology
Perhaps the main point of criticism put forwards against conceptual metaphor
theory is the intuitiveness with which researchers provided linguistic examples for
the underlying metaphorical mappings they claimed to have found. In Moral
Politics, Lakoff (1996, 2002) offers only a handful of metaphorical expressions
that manifest the STRICT FATHER and NURTURANT PARENT model in American
politics: “founding fathers”, “father of his country”, “Uncle Sam”, “Big Brother”,
“fatherland” and “sons going to war” (1996: 153-154). His prediction that
Conservatives and Liberals use language in order to construct a completely
different world view was only born out in presidential speeches by Reagan and
Clinton in a study by Ahrens (2011). The proposed dichotomy could not be
confirmed in the other speeches analysed. Corpus linguistics therefore offers a
solution to remove the element of intuitiveness in metaphor analysis since it
allows researchers to identify the precise frequency that a given conceptual
metaphor occurs with. Arguments on whether certain conceptual metaphors are
central to a discourse or not can be answered conclusively on the basis of an
authentic set of linguistic data.
For the purpose of the present thesis, nine television debates from the
month of June 2016 were selected. All of them were broadcasted by leading
television channels in Great Britain before the EU referendum took place on 23
June of the same year (Statista 2016). The debates were transcribed and saved in a
word document with the support of Youtube’s Voice Recognition Tool, but
mistakes were edited manually to ensure good quality of the transcription. In the
analysis, introductions and closings by the hosts were omitted in order to
exclusively count the utterances by politicians, interviewers and members of the
audience, who asked questions and responded to politicians. In the case of the
“BBC Great Debate” on the EU referendum, the informative input on the three
main issues discussed, namely economy, immigration and Great Britain’s place in
the world, which was transmitted via a screen in the SSE arena in Wembley,
London, was also omitted from the word count. The debates differ in regard to the
31
number of speakers and the style of the discussion. In some debates up to six
politicians took turns in taking their stance on particular issues while in others
only one politician was questioned by an interviewer. In seven of the nine debates
members of the audience were able to ask the politicians a question and received
an answer.
In all of the debates, one component of the conceptual metaphor
ARGUMENT IS WAR, namely non-linguistic realization, can be observed especially
well (Kövecses, 2009: 14). If more than one speaker is featured in the debate, they
are positioned on opposite sides of the panel and confront each other with the
most powerful arguments possible. Their manoeuvres are supported or criticized
by the audience with applause and cheering. In some instances, members of the
audience also comment explicitly on how content they were with the answer they
received on their question.
Although the data analysed is definitely part of spoken discourse, there is
also an element of preparation on the part of the politicians involved. In addition,
many of the arguments put forward in the debates were developed and used
continuously throughout the period of time preceding the referendum. This is
visible by the use of repeated slogans, such as “Take back control”, and evasive
answers by politicians, which indicate that they may not have been prepared for
certain questions and escaped to familiar terrain in the discussion instead.
As previous analysis has shown (Krasnoboka & De Landtsheer, 2007;
Vertessen & De Landtsheer, 2007), politicians and media use metaphorical
language more frequently and more vehemently during election periods. A study
by De Landtsheer & Koch (2005) found that the media coverage on the
introduction of the single currency was more metaphorical in the EU member
states concerned than those that were not planning on changing their currency.
Politicians and media obviously know about the emotive effects metaphorical
language has, but are perhaps not always entirely aware of their knowledge.
Empirical experiments by Gibbs et al. (2002) demonstrated that metaphorical
language is more emotive than literal language. “Political leaders and journalists
can use the potential of metaphor in one or more directions, to enhance the
perceived greatness of the speaker, to reassure the audience, or in contrast, to
32
increase anxiety or raise anger”, De Landtsheer explains (2009: 63). For these
reasons, it can be assumed that politicians in the debates make use of strong
metaphoric language to convince the audience.
The date of broadcasting, title of the debates, and their respective word count are
summarized in the following table:
Table 1: Television Debates in June 2016
date TV
channel Title and speaker(s) Word count
(1) June 2 Sky News “EU: In or Out? with David
Cameron” 11.699
(2) June 3 Sky News “EU: In or Out? with Michael
Gove” 9.710
(3) June 6 BBC “Andrew Neill and Hilary Benn
Interview” 6.213
(4) June 7 ITV “ITV Brexit Debate” with Nigel
Farage and David Cameron 10.893
(5) June 9 ITV
“ITV Referendum Debate” with,
Andrea Leadsom, Gisela Stuart,
Boris Johnson, Angela Eagle,
Amber Rudd and Nicola
Sturgeon
21.891
(6) June 10 BBC “Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil
Interview" 5.778
(7) June 15 BBC “Question Time Special” with
Michael Gove 8.816
(8) June 17 BBC “Question Time Special” with
David Cameron 9.652
(9) June 21 BBC
“BBC EU Brexit Referendum:
The Great Debate” with Sadiq
Khan, Ruth Davidson, Frances
O’Grady, Boris Johnson, Andrea
Leadsom, Gisela Stuart
24.262
Total: 108.914
33
This kind of corpus-based approach to metaphor, however, raises some
methodological questions. Since metaphors are not necessarily based on lexical
items, they are more difficult to find in an extensive set of data that cannot be
searched manually. As Musolff (2004: 64) describes, the database itself is
“meaning-blind”. A manual search is the earliest metaphor identification method
and most time consuming (Stefanowitch, 2008: 2). Jäkel (1997), however,
justifies its advantages over other methods. Another option is to search the corpus
for source domains that are extracted via a field of suitable lexical items. But it is
difficult to decide how many lexical items have to be selected to exhaustively
identify all the metaphorical expressions belonging to a given conceptual
metaphor. Cameron and Deignan (2003: 151) warn that “if the researcher has not
comprehensively pre-identified all forms worthy of study”, some of them “may
not emerge from the data during analysis, and an important metaphorical use may
be missed”. The selection of these lexical items is facilitated if it can be based on
a preceding study with an exhaustive list (Partington, 2006; Koller, 2006). A third
possibility is to access the conceptual metaphors via their target domains. Lexical
items that are associated with the target domains are selected and, in a second
step, searched for in the whole corpus. For every occurrence of the lexical items, it
will then have to be decided whether they are used metaphorically or not.
Stefanowitsch (2006b) calls metaphorical expressions that explicitly mention the
vocabulary of the target domain “metaphorical patterns”. He has successfully used
his method of metaphorical pattern analysis (MPA) to identify the conceptual
methods common in expressing basic human feelings, namely ANGER, FEAR,
DISGUST, HAPPINESS and SADNESS. Tested against an earlier study by Kövecses
(1998), which had extracted the metaphors manually, his method proved to yield
equal results while being more efficient and less time-consuming. This approach
has also been adopted by Koivisto-Alanko (2000), Tissari (2003), Stefanowitch
(2004), Koivisto-Alanko & Tissari (2006). In addition, combinations of these
methods (Stefanowitsch, 2006a: 4-6) or, so-called “metaphor markers” (Cameron
& Deignan, 2003) can be used to extract metaphors from a corpus.
34
For this thesis, it was decided to look for all the metaphors and
metonymies manually in a pilot study. A small sized sample from the whole
corpus, the transcript of the television programme “BBC EU Brexit Referendum:
The Great Debate”, was searched. This programme will be referred to as “BBC
Great Debate” in the remainder of the thesis. The metaphorical or metonymic
expression in this transcript where collected in a table according to MIP
(Pragglejaz, 2007) and classified according to the conceptual metaphors they arise
from by using Steen’s method (2007) as described above. The metonymies
identified in the pilot study were restricted to few linguistic items that were then
searched in the whole corpus and will be discussed in a separate chapter. In a
second step, target domains of interest for the present discussion were selected.
The analysis of the metaphors yielded five target domains which are of interest for
the Brexit debate and were conceptualized through different metaphors which will
be discussed in detail below: LEAVE and REMAIN CAMPAIGN, THE EUROPEAN
UNION, IMMIGRATION and CONTROL.
The identification of target domains has several advantages for further
analysis of metaphor in discourse: Firstly, it saves time and makes identification
of metaphors in a large-scale corpus possible. As Charteris-Black (2014) explains,
“conceptual metaphor should be identified when there is evidence of the repeated
systematic use of the same source domain for the same target in a particular
discourse” (2014: 193). Furthermore, the preliminary selection of source domains
made it possible to exclude metaphorical expressions that were not of particular
interest for this study. Sadiq Khan’s promise at the onset of the Great Debate that
“wages will be higher” if Britain were to remain in the European Union, for
example, was classified as a clear instance of the conceptual metaphor MORE IS UP
in the pilot study. However, this is not a metaphorical expression that is
distinctive for the genre and topic that I want to investigate in this thesis. It is just
as likely to occur in different contexts. For this reason, it was decided to focus
exclusively on the target domains mentioned above.
In reference to some of the chosen target concepts a variety of conceptual
metaphors were used. On the other hand, some conceptual metaphors that would
be expected to occur in a discussion about the European Union in respect of
35
previous data were not or hardly mentioned in the corpus compiled. This is the
case for the FAMILY metaphor, commonly used in discourse about social
organizations. The reason for its absence in the television debates will also be
addressed in a separate section below. The following table summarizes the target
domains in small capitals and the lexical items used in reference to them in
quotation marks. The conceptual metaphors identified for the respective target
domains can be found in the second column. In addition, characteristics of the
respective source domains that are mapped onto the target are pointed out in the
third column. This is by no means an exhaustive list of mappings, but only a
summary of the most relevant ones that will be discussed in the remainder of the
thesis.
36
Table 2: Conceptual metaphors identified for target domains
number Target domain Conceptual metaphors identified Relevant mappings
(1)
EU (“European
Union”, “EU”)
THE EU AS A CONTAINER
Membership is clearly delineated
Leaving the European Union is spatial
movement.
THE EU AS A SUPPRESSOR The European Union prevents Great Britain
from realizing its full potential.
THE EU AS A DESTRUCTIVE FORCE The European Union harms Great Britain’s
body politic physically.
THE EU AS A PHYSICAL AILMENT The European Union harms Great Britain’s
body politic physically.
(2) LEAVE
CAMPAIGN
(“Leave campaign”,
“leave”)
THE LEAVE CAMPAIGN AS A GAMBLER
The Leave campaign is irresponsible and
takes unnecessary risks.
(3) REMAIN
CAMPAIGN
(“Remain
campaign”,
“remain”)
THE REMAIN CAMPAIGN IS PROJECT FEAR
The Remain campaign tries to scare voters
and talk Great Britain down.
37
(4) IMMIGRATION
(“immigration”,
“immigrants”,
“migrants”,
“movement”)
GREAT BRITAIN IS A CONTAINER Great Britain only has limited resources
and limited space to offer.
IMMIGRANTS ARE A NATURAL DISASTER
Immigration is uncontrollable.
Immigration worsens the living situation of
the native population.
(5)
CONTROL
(“control”)
CONTROL AS A PHYSICAL OBJECT
Control can be retrieved by physical
movement.
Control is clearly delineated.
CONTRONL IS UP On a vertical line, the EU is on top.
(6)
METONYMIES
(“table”,
“number(s)”,
“Brussels”)
NUMBER IMMIGRANTS Characteristic (countability) stands for the
entire person.
BRUSSELS FOR THE EU
Part stands for whole.
Centre of administration stands for the
entire organization.
A TABLE FOR THE EU
Part stands for whole.
Common decision making takes place
around a table.
38
Like in the pilot study, the lexical items associated with the target domains
selected from the corpus were then checked for their metaphorical usage
according to the Metaphor Identification Procedure developed by the Pragglejaz
Group (2007). Ideally, the reliability of the identification process could be
increased if two analysts worked on the transcripts separately (Charteris-Black,
2014: 179), but this was not possibly within the scope of this thesis. As far as the
counting of metaphor is concerned, I follow Charteris-Black (2014: 176) in
arguing that “the unit of measurement should be the phrase rather than the word”
since this is how metaphors typically appear in discourse. His view diverges from
the Pragglejaz Group (2007), who count the number of metaphorically used words
and, thus, identify two metaphors for the expression “wear the mantle” in their
example: “Sonia Ghandi has struggled to convince Indians that she is fit to wear
the mantle of the political dynasty into which she married” (2007: 3). Here, the
metaphoricity only arises from the combination of lexical items in the sentence,
which yields only one, instead of two metaphors.
One of the issues that occurred when analysing the “BBC Great Debate” in
the pilot study was that the majority of the most frequently identified metaphors
were highly conventional and did not represent a distinct feature of the language
used in television debates on the EU referendum. Metaphors which provided
particularly salient visual images in their novelty, on the other hand, were
identified a far smaller number of times or only once. It is undoubted, for
instance, that the metaphorical expression “so that we can plan ahead properly”
(Gisella Stuart on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:44:45-00:44:48) as a part of the
event structure metaphor shapes human cognition in general and, thus, the
expression is just as likely to occur in any other context. When a speaker in a
public debate uses the expression “this rotting carbuncle of the European Union”
(Tony Parsons on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:08:30 - 01:08:33), on the other
hand, this is a metaphor distinct to this context that will, arguably, have a much
higher impact on listeners than the by far more frequently repeated event structure
metaphor. For this reason, Stefanwitsch’s claim that frequency is the only
criterion that shows how central certain conceptual metaphors are for certain
issues is not entirely accurate (2006: 65). Instead, novelty and salience are
39
additional criteria that need to be taken into account as well. De Landtsheer
(2009) has developed a method to calculate the metaphor power of a given
expression. In metaphor power analysis (MPA) not only frequency, but also
metaphor intensity and metaphor content are taken into account. Metaphor
intensity is related to novelty and states that original metaphors have a higher
impact than dormant or dead metaphors (Tsoukas, 1991). Last but not least,
metaphor content determines metaphor power through the source domain
employed. De Landtsheer (2009: 66-68) divides sources into six categories, such
as family, nature and illness, and assigns them different amounts of emotive
power. Her analysis shows frequency cannot be the only factor taken into account
when measuring the strength of a metaphorical expression.
Another question that was raised by the analysis of the sample was how
concrete the source domains of the metaphors identified needed to be. In the
traditional theory of conceptual metaphor, source domains are typically grounded
in basic physical experience. The pilot study showed, however, that there are a
number of metaphors which make use of source domains that are arguably just as
abstract as the target domain they conceptualize. Still, these metaphors enable us
to understand one thing in terms of something else. The Leave campaign in the
“BBC Great Debate” and, as will be shown, in the whole corpus referred to their
political opponents as “project fear”. FEAR in itself is an abstract concept that is
understood in terms of a number of conceptual metaphors (e.g. Kövecses 1998).
Nevertheless, it serves as the source domain that is mapped onto the target of the
Remain side in the argument. This thesis is not the only one confronted with this
methodological issue. Musolff (2016: 91) recently argued that a less rigid
definition of metaphors is needed to account for the data in linguistic corpora: “a
discursive, dynamic tool of assimilating any target topic to a more familiar set of
concepts, in order to redirect and reshape its understanding by the respective
communication partners”. The degree of familiarity of a particular source domain
is judged by the language users according to the sociocultural context. Since it
explains the use of metaphorical language found in the corpus, Musolff’s view
(2016) will be adopted for the present thesis.
40
For this study, it does not make sense to take a purely quantitative
approach due to the small size of the given corpus. Therefore, the frequency of
metaphors that occurred repeatedly will be included, but single instances will,
nevertheless, be incorporated in the discussion.
Finally, this thesis does not argue that metaphor and metonymy in political
discourse need to be identified because they have such a manipulative impact on
the audience, who is rendered defenceless. This “therapeutic” stance towards
conceptual metaphor analysis earned Lakoff (1996, 2002) much criticism (e.g.
Hutton, 2001; Twardzisz 2013: 37-62). His aim to expose conceptual structures
which users themselves may not be aware of is seen as patronizing towards the
public. In defence of Lakoff, it must be said that, according to his earlier
publication, metaphors “can be self-fulling prophecies” (Lakoff and Johnson,
1980: 156; emphasis added), not that they invariably have to be. Crucial in this
disagreement is the point that language users must be granted some agency in
whether they fully accept entailments of conceptual metaphors or not. The
consequences of metaphorical language can only be hypothesised about in
hindsight because the reception by the audience needs to be taken into account. As
Musolff (2016: 30) argues, conceptual metaphors are “contestable and depend for
their success on their discursive plausibility”. Overall, conceptual metaphor can
be seen to have persuasive, but not manipulative power. Van Dijk (2006) makes
the following distinction between persuasion and manipulation:
“(. . .) in persuasion the interlocutors are free to believe or act as they
please, depending on whether or not they accept the arguments of the
persuader, whereas in manipulation recipients are typically assigned a
more passive role: they are victims of manipulation. This negative
consequence of manipulative discourse typically occurs when the
recipients are unable to understand the real intentions or to see the full
consequences of the beliefs or actions advocated by the manipulator. This
may be the case especially when the recipients lack the specific knowledge
that might be used to resist manipulation”. (Van Dijk, 2006: 361)
41
In the television debates analysed for the following study, the politicians of the
Leave campaign, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage, characterized
the European Union as “a job destroying machine”, quoting the high
unemployment rates in Southern European countries as proof for their claim. This
metaphor will be discussed in greater detail below. However, it can be observed
that their conceptualization of the European Union was not indiscriminately
accepted by other language users. Host David Dimbleby confronted Michael
Gove on the “BBC Question Time Special”, refuting his claim of the European
Union as “a job destroying machine”:
(9) “Just to pick up on the job destroying machine that you called the EU
the other day: At the Tory Party conference you were boasting that
you’d created more than twenty million jobs, more than any other
government in history. That doesn’t sound like a job destroying
machine or are we out of the EU in terms of all the many jobs we
actually created?” (David Dimbleby on “BBC Question Time Special”,
00:23:17-00:23:35)
Michael Gove countered that many of the jobs created had been filled by
immigrants who had come to Great Britain because they “suffered” from the
European Union and the introduction of the single currency. Nevertheless, it is
clear that David Dimbleby criticized Michael Gove for his use of metaphor and
compared it to other, contradictory statements he had made in a different context.
Voters and language users in general, thus, are not necessarily victims of
politicians’ persuasive metaphors.
In the following discussion, I will explain the conceptual metaphors
identified in the corpus in greater detail. Exemplary utterances (10-69) by
speakers in the television debates will be used in order to illustrate them. The
examples can sometimes contain more than one conceptual metaphor, but the ones
focused on will be highlighted by using italics. The choice of particular source
domains for the target domains selected above will yield certain entailments for
the issues treated. Last but not least, the findings of this study will be compared to
42
those in existing studies, such as the EUROMETA corpus (Musolff, 2004 and
2016), whenever possible.
3.2. Remain and Leave Campaign: Project Fear vs. Gambling
with Britain’s Future
The Remain Campaign was frequently labelled as “project fear” by politicians of
the Leave side in the argument. There are 13 instances of “project fear” explicitly
mentioned in the corpus. This, however, does not take related terms like
“scaremongering” and “pessimism” into account, which were also frequently used
to paint a negative picture of the Remain campaign.
One example is Boris Johnson’s response to the question what would
happen to the British economy in reaction to their leaving the European Union. He
argues that there would be no economic shock and predicts that Great Britain will
still have access to the single market which MP Angela Eagle, supporter of the
Remain side, vehemently opposes. Boris Johnson, subsequently, dismisses her
argument as “project fea”r. He also argues that their own supporters are deterring
voters from deciding to leave the European Union:
(10) “I think we are just starting to degenerate into project fear again,
don’t you think? I’m very struck by the way they do this because
there’s one, there’s a member of this panel [pointing at the supporters
of the Remain side] who complained about the Remain campaign and
said that their miserable and fear-based campaign starts to insult
people’s intelligence.” (Boris Johnson on the “ITV Referendum
Debate”, 00:26:06-00:26:22)
Andrea Leadsom, similarly, accuses the Remain campaign of scaremongering in
the same debate when the benefits of leaving the European Union for the NHS are
discussed. While the Leave side argues that money presently invested into the
European Union could instead be used to fund the NHS, the Remain campaign
contests this view saying that there would be no more money available for the
NHS and was, consequently, confronted with the following accusation:
43
(11) “It’s absolute nonsense. It’s scaremongering – and it’s miserable
scaremongering – and people in this country will see through it”.
(Andrea Leadsom on the “ITV Referendum Debate”, 00:54:21-
00:54:29)
This depiction of the Remain campaign clearly has an impact on British voters.
On the “EU: In or Out?” debate with David Cameron, the prime minister was
blamed by a member of the audience for scaring people:
(12) “I do want to point out that I’ve been strongly wanting to vote into
the EU, but to be honest the entire campaign has been a shamble for it.
I’ve seen nothing but scaremongering. I see no valid facts at all”.
(member of the audience on “EU: In or Out?” with David Cameron,
00:30:19-00:30:30)
In line with this general metaphor is Conservative MP Priti Patel’s statement that
the Remain campaign is pessimistic. Asked how her support of the Leave
campaign squares with her own position in a government that won the election on
the basis of not taking a risk with the economy, she countered:
(13) “We’ve heard very clearly tonight that we’re the optimists. We
have a brighter, more prosperous future outside the European Union, a
complete contrast to the Remain side that want to constantly talk
Britain down. (…) We can negotiate new trade deals. It’s pessimistic to
hear from the Remain side that they’re not even interested in doing
that”. (Priti Patel on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:34:41-00:35:00)
The closing words by the Secretary of State of Justice at the time, Michael Gove,
once more contrasted the alleged pessimism of the Remain campaign with the
hopefulness of the Leave side and are eerily reminiscent of the Donald Trump’s
slogan, “Make America great again”, in the US election campaign:
44
(14) “Can I just say thank you to all of the audience: This debate is so
important. It really matters to all of us what you decide and I think
instead of the pessimism of the Remain campaign we have an
opportunity to think of the next generation if we have faith in their
talent, in their generosity, in their hard work, we can, if we leave the
European Union, ensure the next generation make this country once
more truly great” (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:55:37-
00:56:04)
Similarly, Tony Parson, writer and supporter of the Leave campaign, argued: “I
personally believe we live in the greatest country in the world” (“BBC Great
Debate”, 01:36:45-01:36:53) and, hence, mimics American rhetoric. Charteris-
Black (2014: 155-159) also detects an influence of American rhetoric on British
politicians in the borrowing of the beacon metaphor. Orators like Martin Luther
Kind, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have frequently compared
the United States of America to a beacon for the rest of the world since the
metaphor evokes positive emotions and adds positive evaluations to their own
policies. In 1997, shortly after the victory of his party, Tony Blair adopted the
image of Great Britain as a beacon to the world throughout his speech. Here,
Michael Gove builds on this tradition:
(15) “[…] our democratic traditions in Scotland, Wales, England and
Northern Ireland are what have enabled us, globally, to be a beacon,
setting an example, being a force for good and making sure that we are
a great place for everyone to live” (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”,
00:43:45-00:44:00)
Boris Johnson is similarly influenced by American rhetoric in his closing
statement at the “BBC Great Debate”. Undoubtedly, the US celebrates the world’s
most famous Independence Day, a celebration which Boris Johnson predicts for
Great Britain:
45
(16) “If we vote Leave and take back control, I believe that this
Thursday could be our countries Independence Day”. (Boris Johnson
on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:42:54-01:43:00)
Framed in this way, leaving the European Union becomes a provocative matter of
pride for Great Britain. The usage of metaphor shifts the question from whether
Britain is better off inside the European Union to whether they are strong enough
to make it on their own without the aid of the 27 other member states. The Leave
campaign is almost representing the referendum as a test of courage for the
country. This entails that voting to remain is an act of fear and distrust of one’s
own country. Charteris-Black (2014: 201) describes how metaphor can arouse
feelings that are favourable to the speakers, which is one of its seven main
purposes. The politicians on the Leave side achieve this effect by emphasizing the
economic strength and independence of Britain and referring back to its historical
success. In addition, they manage to conceal that they, too, try to scare voters
about the future of Great Britain, should they stay in the European Union.
Naturally, both campaigns attempted to bring to light the negative consequences
of what they believed to be the wrong decision, but only the Leave campaign was
successful in establishing the PROJECT FEAR metaphor and portraying their
political opponents in a negative way. Therefore, metaphors in political discourse
“offer positive representations of the speaker and his supporters, of their actions
and policies, and a negative representation of opponents and their actions and
policies” (Charteris-Black, 2014: 204).
In response, the Remain campaign created two variations of the PROJECT
FEAR metaphor, namely “project hate” and “project lies”. These were, however,
mentioned far less frequently in the corpus. There are only three instances of
“project lies” in all the television debates and all of them came from a member of
the audience in the “EU: In or Out?” debate with Michael Gove. (This is not to
say, of course, that the two sides did not accuse each other of lying more often,
but the variation on “project fear” as “project lies” was only put forward three
times). In a single instance, Sadiq Khan labels the Leave side as “project hate”
46
regarding the issue of immigration in the “BBC Great Debate”. He is definitely
aware that he has to face the pervasive PROJECT FEAR metaphor in the debate:
(17) “You might start off saying how wonderful immigration is. But
your campaign hasn’t been project fear. It’s been project hate as far as
immigration is concerned”. (Sadiq Khan on the “BBC Great Debate”,
00:44:04-00:44:21)
Conversely, the Remain campaign framed their opponents in the argument as
gambling with Britain’s future. As Sadiq Khan exemplifies in his initial summary
of the Remain side’s argument and Frances O’Grady repeats later:
(18) “Even those on the Remain side admit it’s a big gamble”. (Sadiq
Khan on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:05:41-00:05:49)
(19) “Union reps, from BMW, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, you name it,
across the manufacturing sector are saying that we cannot afford this
gamble with our jobs, our wages, our livelihoods and our rights”.
(Frances O’Grady on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:14:33-00:14:47)
The conceptual metaphor BREXIT IS A GAMBLE is also implicit in David
Cameron’s closing statement on the “EU: In or Out?” debate where he addresses
the audience one last time:
(20) “As we go home, we wake up in the morning, we look our children
and grandchildren in the eyes who we’re responsible for through our
pay packet. Let us not roll a dice on their future.” (David Cameron on
“EU: In or Out?”, 00:53:22-00:53:32)
In this same debate, one member of the audience drew a particularly vivid image
of the Leave campaign’s lack of information about what would happen after
Brexit. Although he chose the source domain WAR instead of GAMBLE, the
entailments are similar to the examples given above, namely that the Leave side
47
are not taking responsibility for the consequences of Great Britain’s leaving the
European Union:
(21) “With all due respect, Mr. Gove, it appears to me it’s almost like a
first world war general. You’re waving the flag, you’re saying, ‘Over
the top, men’, but you have no idea what’s in the front line or what the
casualty will be in the conflicts to come”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or
Out?”, 00:37:40-00:37:55)
Here, the Leave campaigners are conceptualized as irresponsible military leaders
who risk their soldiers’ lives without sufficient knowledge of the terrain or the
odds of victory. Their lack of strategy is bizarrely advertised by waving the flag.
The soldiers, on the other hand, stand in for the voters and supporters of the
Remain campaign. They are naïve, uninformed and trust their leaders blindly. The
consequences for their imprudent decision will lead to a fight for survival that will
likely cost them their lives and impact the future generations to come. This
metaphor entails a reproach of the Leave campaigners, who did not bother to
inform the voters of the detrimental consequences of Brexit for the country, and of
their voters, who acted on hollow promises.
Another way to highlight the uncertainty inherent in leaving the European
Union is the metaphor of a leap in the dark without knowing what lies ahead.
Sadiq Khan pointedly used this image in his opening and closing statements:
(22) “The stakes are high. You either vote Leave and take a leap in the
dark or you vote Remain and build on that prosperity”. (Sadiq Khan on
the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:02:01-00:02:08)
(23) “You [confronting the Leave side] want the British public to take a
one-way leap in the dark without a plan”. (Sadiq Khan on the “BBC
Great Debate”, 01:34:10-01:34:17)
48
3.3. Dysfunctional Family Ties with the European Union
It is striking that hardly any of the lexemes manifesting the FAMILY metaphor can
be found in the corpus of the television debates. Andreas Musolff (2016) found
that the relationship between Britain and Europe was predominantly depicted as a
troubled marriage in the EUROMETA corpus, a bilingual sample of press
coverage on EU politics in Britain and Germany since 1990 (2016: 34). This
corpus also shows that the possibility of leaving the EU was referred to as marital
rows, divorce or adultery previous to the referendum. The Daily Mail and The
Independent described an “amicable divorce” from the EU, while The Economist
humoured: “Britain and Europe are like a couple in a difficult marriage. One day
they have a blazing row; the next they want to kiss and make up” (quoted in
Musolff, 2016: 33).
The “amicable divorce” was mentioned by Nigel Farage when he
answered a question on the economic hit Britain might take as a consequence of
leaving the European Union:
(24) “Once we have divorced ourselves, amicably, from the political
union we will then go on buying cars and wine and trading”. (Nigel
Farage on the “ITV Brexit Debate”, 00:03:40-00:03:45)
The second time “divorce” was mentioned, it was again Nigel Farage who argued
in his interview with Andrew Neill that “divorce from political union” would
allow Great Britain to “re-engage with the rest of the world” (“Nigel Farage and
Andrew Neil Interview”, 00:27:04-00:27:09). The only time this divorce was
painted in a negative light was put forward by a member of the audience in in one
of the debates:
(25) “It appears to me that you’re asking people to vote for a divorce
and sort the financial settlement out afterwards. And that makes no
sense to me. You know, there’s lots of people who divorce and the last
thing you want to do is to try and sort out the money afterwards. You
need to negotiate before. And without having a plan in place, without
49
having put the effort in before, it makes no sense to me”. (member of
the audience on “EU: In or Out? with Michael Gove”, 00:37:07-
00:37:36)
The argument that Micheal Gove and the Leave campaign are unprepared for the
financial settlement of the divorce from Europe, refers to their apparent lack of
trade deals they should have prepared in case of the Brexit.
As Anderson (1983) argues, communities are imagined. Since metaphors
are the principal linguistic instrument of imagination and construction of social
reality, FAMILY metaphors can have a profound impact on the way the European
Union is conceived of. After all, metaphors “constitute the object they signify”
(Hülsse, 2006: 403). During the enlargement of the European Union during the
1990s, the FAMILY metaphor was often employed in reference to the joining of the
Easter European states. The enlargement was viewed as a “family reunion” or as
“homecoming” and the new member states as “our European brothers” (Hülsse,
2006: 406). As Hülsse (2006) observes, this depoliticises the enlargement process
and implies that membership is a birth right: it has to be granted to the Eastern
European states regardless of whether they fulfil the required conditions or not.
However, elements from the source domain of the FAMILY were
apparently not seen as fitting for the relationship between the European Union and
Great Britain in the television debates analysed. As can be seen from the slogan of
the Leave campaign on public transport (“We send the EU £350 million a week.
Let’s fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave.”) the European Union is never
conceptualized as a provider or an equal. In addition, EU regulations are issued by
a stranger to the country, somebody who is entirely unrelated to the best interests
of Great Britain. Such a relationship is much easier to break up than strong family
ties between the “European brothers”, as the member states have been called in
the past (Hülsse, 2006: 406). Rather, the EU suppresses the country with its
regulations and, simultaneously, takes more financial resources than it gives back.
Since none of these elements fit the target domain EU MEMBERSHIP, it is not
surprising that neither the FAMILY nor the related HOME metaphor occurred in the
50
corpus, which would have entailed a primordial and natural position of Britain in
the European Union.
It may be that Great Britain had never sufficiently felt to be a part of a
family of nations for politicians to use family terms when addressing their
potential voters. When the Amsterdam Treaty was negotiated in 1997, the new
currency was metaphorically framed as a “child” (Musolff, 2004). In contrast to
the other member states, Great Britain never became the “parent” of this child.
What is more, the strongest relationship between member states of the EU was
always depicted between France and Germany, a (married) couple. Great Britain’s
awkward role was expressed as “ménage a trois” or “love triangle” by the press
(Musolff, 2004: 15). “In the long gestation of Europe’s Economic and Monetary
Union […] it suddenly seems likely this week that the anxious parents, Germany
and France, are expecting a soft baby euro”, The Guardian wrote on 30 May 1997
for example. In addition, the more elaborate FAMILY metaphors Musolff identified
in the newspaper articles might be restricted to written language. In this sample of
transcripts, at least, not even the Remain supporters made use of metaphors about
family ties with Europe.
3.4. Immigration
The source domains utilized to talk about immigration in the television debates
are conceptually closely linked to the NATION AS A CONTAINER metaphor. Since
containers have an inside, an outside, distinct boundaries and openings that can be
closed completely or partially, there is only a limited capacity of content that the
nation can make room for. This conceptualisation is, of course, not exclusive to
Great Britain, but can be observed across European countries: Del-Teso-Craviotto
(2009) demonstrates how the minority of immigrants from Argentina is
constructed as the “out-group” in Spain. Von der Volk (2003) examines the right-
wing political discourse in France and finds metaphors of AGRESSION, WAR and
WATER, which all highlight the loss of control over immigration. Also, TRAFFIC
metaphors are used by the media to suggest easy access to the benefits of the
French social system and BUILDING metaphors to describe the limited restriction
51
to the immigration process. Charteris-Black (2006) analysed the British right-
wing political discourse and media in spoken and written sources and found two
primary metaphors in reference to immigration that overlap roughly with the
findings of this study. Firstly, there is the CONTAINER metaphor already
mentioned. Secondly, there is the metaphor of NATURAL DISTASTER, in particular
those metaphorical expressions connected to WATER such as tsunamis, floods and
tidal waves. Charteris-Black (2006) argues that both these metaphors have
persuasive power by evoking strong emotions of fear and desire for protection.
Only two instances of the WATER metaphor were found in the corpus. In both of
these examples there is a NATURAL DISASTER envisaged because of the vast
number of immigrants:
(26) “I’ve been campaigning against EU enlargement for 20 years
because I thought letting in people whose average incomes were so
much lower than ours would lead to big migratory waves and
problems.” (“Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil Interview”, 00:19:15-
00:19:24)
(27) “How do we deal with the increased demand on our public services
given the seemingly never-ending stream of people arriving from
Europe?” (member of the audience on “EU: In or Out? with David
Cameron”, 00:33:30-00:33:40)
(28) “What we’ve seen over the last 20 years is that the waves of
globalization, whether it be services, people or goods – this institution
[the EU] has not been able to deal with”. (Gisela Stuart on the “ITV
Referendum Debate”, 01:19:09-01:19:20)
In the last utterance “waves” are actually specified as “of globalization” by
Gisella Stuart where “globalization” seems to be conceptualized as FLUID, which
in not a conventional metaphor. Since this expression is immediately followed by
“people”, a concept which his far more likely to be conceptualized as FLUID, it
was counted as belonging to the same category. The fact that Gisela Stuart puts
52
“services” and “goods” on the same level with immigrants further emphasises the
dehumanizing effect that the WATER metaphor has.
Moreover, the WATER metaphor is particularly apt at conveying the loss of
control on immigration into the country (Van der Valk, 2000: 234). A report of
migration in the news from 2010 to 2012 (Allen & Blinder, 2013) found that other
water-based metaphors, such as “influx”, “wave”, and “flood”, are among the
most frequently used for immigration. The same report also showed that “illegal”
is the descriptor most frequently used in connection with immigrants. The pairing
of the world “illegal” and “immigrants” in combination with the WATER metaphor
can be critically misleading since the vast majority of immigrants in Great Britain
have, in fact, legal status. The rising numbers of immigrants are therefore not as
uncontrolled as the rhetoric in the television debates and media reports suggests.
Connected to the idea of NATION STATE AS A CONTAINER is the source
domain PRESSURE that builds up if there is too much of a fluid inside the
container. “Pressure” in connection with immigration is mentioned a total of 48
times in the corpus investigated, showing that this is a central category for the
target domain IMMIGRATION. On the one hand, pressure is linked to the demand
on the NHS and public services Great Britain offers to its people, on the other
hand, migrants are seen as putting downwards pressure on locals’ wages.
(29) “Those people in Greece and Spain, who are suffering so much as a
result of the European Union, are coming here in order to put pressure
on jobs here”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:15:48-00:15:55)
(30) “If we remain in the EU, what plans do you have to deal with the
pressure of migrants on the NHS and its workers?” (member of
audience on “ITV Brexit Debate” addressed to David Cameron,
00:34:16-00:34:23)
(31) “Uncontrollable immigration is having a dampening effect on
wages and what we’re finding is: school places have pressure on,
doctors’ surgery appointments and, of course, getting onto the housing
ladder.” (Andrea Leadsom on the “ITV Referendum Debate”,
00:09:24-00:09:39)
53
In the last example, both WATER (“dampening effect”) and CONTAINER (“pressure
on”) metaphors are combined without causing any problem for the audience’s
understanding. “Strain”, as in ”Our NHS is under tremendous strain” (“BBC
Question Time Special with Michael Gove”, 00:29:26-00:29:29), and “drive
down”, as in “In too many places immigration has driven down local wages”
(“BBC Great Debate”, 00:19:19-00:19:26), are also lexicalizations of the
CONTAINER metaphor that suggest limited resources. They occurred three times
respectively in connection to immigration in the corpus. The entailment that all of
these expressions have in common is that immigration is detrimental for the living
conditions of those already living in Britain.
The concept of a nation state containing all the necessary resources for its
people, which are limited in quantity, is also manifested in the argument that
immigrants should “put in” before they can “take out” of that system:
(32) “Crucially on immigration and the movement of people, I said I
didn’t think it was right that people could come to our country and
immediately take out”. (Nigel Farage on the “ITV Brexit Debate”,
00:29:31-00:29:38)
(33) “The right answer is the approach that David Cameron has taken,
which is negotiating a special arrangement with the European Union
whereby people who come here could only take out when they’ve put
in”. (Angela Eagle on the “ITV Referendum Debate”, 00:08:53-
00:09:04)
(34) “Some economic surveys will say that EU migrants pay more tax
than they take out in benefits”. (“Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil
Interview”, 00:06:49-00:06:55)
There are eleven instances in which the CONTAINER metaphor is realized through
these phrasal verbs. What is more, “take out” is only used in the sense of
“receiving benefits from the country” in the entire corpus. These findings show
that there are conceptual mappings between the domains NATION and CONTAINER
54
that enable politicians in the debates to talk about “taking out” and “putting in”
without explicit reference to Great Britain or its government
A third and last conceptualization device in reference to immigration
found in this corpus is to the NUMBER metonymy. Although the metonymy is
often explicated as “number of people”, “number” or the plural “numbers” occur
by themselves 46 times. As can be seen from the frequency of this metonymy,
politicians and audience members in the debate are very likely to refer to
“numbers coming into Great Britain”, rather than “people” or even “numbers of
people”. Obviously, the NUMBER metonymy is far more suited to convey the
Leave side’s wish to control how many persons are allowed to stay in the country
than the WATER metaphor that symbolizes the loss of control. Like the metaphors
mentioned above, the metonymy also deprives immigrants of their human status
by reducing them to their single feature of countability.
(35) “And it’s because I believe our country is so great that I want to
control who comes here and the numbers that come here”. (Michael
Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:33:37-00:33-49)
(36) “We need to build a house every four minutes night and day just to
cope with the current numbers”. (Nigel Farage on the “ITV Brexit
Debate”, 00:17:30-00:17:37)
(37) “When it comes to immigration outside the EU, we do put a limit
on numbers that come for economic reasons”. (David Cameron on the
“ITV Brexit Debate”, 00:32:01-00:32:08)
(38) “Part of the reason of those stresses in the long term is because we
cannot control the numbers coming in”. (Gisella Stuart on the “ITV
Referendum Debate”, 00:51:18-00-00:51:23)
Like Musolff (2016) found, the public media does not make use of openly hostile
metaphors towards immigrants. In newspaper articles on immigration since 1990
PARASITE imagery, historically employed to spread the ideology of totalitarian
systems, hardly occurred; neither did it in the television debates investigated here.
Shockingly, PARASITE metaphors are much easier to be found in anti-immigration
55
blog posts where the language use is so harsh that “there is little conceptual
difference to Nazi propaganda” (Musolff, 2016: 87). The internet seems to give a
license to such conceptualizations. Although it is true that no such blatant hostility
and racism towards immigrants were identified in the corpus, there are no
instances of metaphors that cast a positive light on immigration either.
Steen (2008: 222-223) introduced the category of “deliberate metaphor” in
regard to figurative language use that is “a relatively conscious discourse strategy
that aims to elicit particular rhetorical effects” and is “expressly meant to change
the addressee’s perspective on the referent or topic”. Deliberate and non-
deliberate metaphors are presented as the solution to the paradoxical problem that
metaphor analysis requires the comparison of source and target domains but that
metaphorical processing, according to empirical studies, does not always involve
this comparison and relies on semi-automatic categorization instead, especially
when it comes to conventionalized metaphors (Steen, 2008: 232-238). Gibbs
(2011) opposes this view by arguing that the composition process of a text or
speech may be deliberate, but that the way that metaphors are accessed is
inherently automatic. Thus, no conscious comparison of source and target
domains takes place, which renders the distinction between deliberate and non-
deliberate metaphors unnecessary (Gibbs, 2011: 49). But purposeful
communication is used deliberately to achieve certain effects on one’s audience
and new metaphors are constantly found to draw desired mappings between two
concepts. This means that speakers, especially those in public discourse, cannot be
relieved of the responsibility of choosing their language. This is the view taken by
Deignan (2011), Müller (2011), Steen (2011) and Musolff (2016)
3.5. The European Union as a Container
The EUROPEAN UNION AS A CONTAINER is one of the least structured metaphors
in the corpus since it is an ontological metaphor, but clearly the most frequently
repeated. The debates on Sky News with David Cameron and Michael Gove are
called “In or Out?” and politicians talk about “leaving” or “remaining in” the
European Union. The blended word form “Brexit” itself is a manifestation of the
56
container image. Clearly, the geographical location of Great Britain will not
change after the referendum, but the political decision of the “exit” is
conceptualized as spatial movement out of the European container. Petrica (2011:
149) observes that, especially for insular countries, such as Great Britain or Malta,
joining the European Union seems to change geographical location, giving rise to
the conceptual metaphor EUROPE IS A GEOGRAPHY CHANGER. Membership
exchanges isolation and limited political relations and resources for a more central
position within the multinational organization.
Great Britain’s position as a country that wants to leave the container is
unusual since being inside is commonly judged as an advantage. Tekin (2010)
explains how the container metaphor is employed to draw a clear boundary
between the countries inside the European Union and the outsider Turkey. In this
case, Turkey is described as “knocking on the door” of Europe and asking for
entrance in order to be admitted into the security of the European container
(Tekin, 2010: 195-204). Since leaving the presumably beneficial place in the
centre of administration and political decision making is not inherently regarded
as positive, the Remain campaign warned about the dangers of being outside this
community while the Leave campaign concentrated on casting a bad light on
Europe in different ways:
(39) “This is a one way ticket. If we’re out, we’re out. We will pay with
our jobs and wages if we go.” (Frances O’Grady on the “BBC Great
Debate”, 01:02:12-01:02:28)
(40) “There is a contrast between this side of the argument that is
offering hope and that side of the argument that is offering nothing but
fear about life outside”. (Boris Johnson on the “ITV Referendum
Debate”, 01:45:09-01:45:15)
(41) “We have a strong position at the centre of Europe. It makes us
stronger, safer and better off”. (Amber Rudd on the “ITV Referendum
Debate”, 01:42:30-01:42:37)
57
It is significant that the CONTAINER metaphor in the examples above suggests a
clear distinction between who is outside and inside an organization. David
Cameron stressed the special status of Great Britain in the European Union
multiple times since the country neither joined the single currency nor the
Schengen area, but still enjoys the economic benefits of being a member. His
argument revealed that membership does not equal membership. The CONTAINER
metaphor, however, does not permit such an interpretation. At best, one can be on
the brink of entering or exiting the container, but otherwise the absolute location
is either inside or outside the organization. Like other figures and tropes in
language, metaphor works to construct “social representation of ingroup and
outgroup” (Van Dijk 2000: 100).
The conceptualization of the European Union as a container also persists in the
post-Brexit scenario imagined by the prime minister:
(42) “The European Union doesn't stop existing just because we've left.
The channel doesn't get any wider if we decide to leave. A group of
people would be sitting around a table making decisions about our
biggest market, about the future of our continent, about things that
affect us and we would have our nose sort of pressed to the window
trying to find out what decision they will make”. (David Cameron on
“EU: In or Out?”, 00:15:06-00:15:26)
Here, David Cameron also adds an evaluative judgement to the distinction
between the inside and the outside. What is close to the centre of the container is
at the heart of the self and in control. By leaving the European Union, Great
Britain will lose this position and be unable to know what happens behind the
impenetrable wall of the European container. Another image used by the Remain
campaign to anticipate the peripheral position Great Britain will have after Brexit
is that of a queue of countries that are waiting to trade with the United States:
(43) “Let’s be clear about this: Remain has highlighted President
Obama’s threat. He said a couple of weeks back that if we left the EU,
58
we’d be at the back of the queue when it comes to trade deals”.
(“Hilary Benn and Andrew Neil Interview”, 00:22:35-00:22: 43)
(44) “If we come out, we go to the back of the queue. That’s not project
fear. That’s what Obama said”. (Ruth Davidson on the “BBC Great
Debate”, 00:29:57-00:30:06)
Brexit, in other words, is an unwise move for Great Britain because it means
leaving its privileged position at the front, which it has achieved through
membership, in order to go to the back of the queue. In contrast to the vertical
dimension observed for the CONTROL IS UP metaphor, politicians introduce a
horizontal dimension which classifies countries according to their relative position
to the centre. The smaller the distance to the centre is, the greater the influence of
the country in question. As was already observed in the case of Turkey, most
countries wish to progressively get closer to the centre. This explains why the
image of a queue is perfectly suitable to envisage the situation. Chilton (2004:
204) describes how spatial containment schemas of this sort “make concepts of
the group and identity available”. This conceptualization is also used for
individual countries, such as Great Britain, which was demonstrated in reference
to the target domain IMMIGRATION. Since metaphor typically explains the less
familiar in terms of the more familiar, the container schema is naturally extended
to the multi-national organization of the EU in this case.
One variation of the CONTAINER metaphor is THE EUROPEAN UNION IS A
HOUSE. The two conceptual metaphors share “the notion of a bounded area
protecting what is inside from external danger” (Charteris-Black, 2006: 563). This
was first coined by Gorbatchev in his phrase “the common house of Europe” and
was widely used in European politics after 1989 (Chilton & Ilyin, 1993). The
HOUSE metaphor is more specific in that buildings, unlike containers, can be
constructed by their inhabitants according to their preferences. In the following
example, however, Michael Gove declines that Great Britain had any part in
building the European Union:
59
(45) “Instead of having a fractious relationship which – let’s be honest –
we do have at the moment, we can move to being friendly neighbours.
And I think far better than being a difficult lodger in a house that we
didn’t design is being a great neighbour in a home that we can call our
own”. (Michael Gove on Sky News, 00:46:20-00:46:36)
Great Britain assumes the passive role that merely goes along with the plans of the
European Union. But these plans do not fit the interests of Great Britain because it
did not take part in the design of the house where they both have to live. By
regaining control over its own political, social and economic issues, Britain is
taking care of its own container and, thus, building a home that the British people
can call their own. The conception as a “difficult lodger” suggests that the present
situation, by contrast, is unpleasant for both parties.
As shown in this chapter, the European identity is imagined in terms of a
container. This shows how we are still caught in nationalist thinking patterns,
which do not allow for transition zones between the self and the other. Container
metaphors propose that there are clear-cut boundaries between entities and, thus,
imagine identity as exclusive. As Hülsse (2006) has shown, the only metaphor
used in the European enlargement process that was able to convey a post-modern
or post-national identity, is the PATH metaphor. The abundance of other
metaphors that describe national identity, on the other hand, proves that the
European community is only rarely envisaged as a post-modern political entity, as
proposed by some (e.g. Schimmelfennig, 2001; van Ham, 2001; Manners &
Whitman, 2003; Scott, 2005).
In the Brexit debate, PATHS as a source domain would have proved a
helpful device to form a mental picture of the different degrees of membership
David Cameron tried to describe. PATHS conceptualize identity in terms of
degrees and stages, rather than well-defined borders. Although he did not
explicitly denounce it, Tim Farron nevertheless criticized the construction of
national identity the CONTAINER metaphor entails:
60
(46) “Are we an outward-looking, decent, embracing, tolerant country,
confident of our place in the world? Or are we insular? Are we small?
Are we glowering across the white cliffs of Dover, something that is
very un-British? I’m voting in because I’m a patriot!” (Tim Farron on
the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:36:16-01:36:36)
3.6. Taking back Control
The pilot study showed that the Leave campaign’s slogan, “Take back control”,
was mentioned a staggering 22 times. This trend was continued in the entire
corpus where the slogan occurred a total of 60 times, often used prominently by
politicians at the end of a statement in order to finish their point. Based on the
neural theory of language, Lakoff (2009: 116) argues: “Say things not once, but
over and over. Brains change when ideas are repeatedly activated”. Even without
taking the neural theory of language into consideration, this high frequency in the
corpus shows the salience of the issue in the debates. In contrast to human
emotions (e.g. Kövecses, 2003), there are few attempts to find the source domains
employed to metaphorically conceptualize the target domain CONTROL. Yet, the
corpus strongly suggests that CONTROL is the issue at the heart of the discussion
about Great Britain leaving the European Union. In her closing statement for the
“ITV Referendum Debate”, Gisella Stuart emphasizes the importance of taking
back control above all else:
(47) “This is our last chance to take back control. […] We don’t have to
choose between trade and democracy. Countries across the world trade
with Europe without giving away permanent control. A vote to stay is
dangerous. It means handing over more and more power to unelected
elites and bureaucrats every year. We will be trapped in a system
where we will be outvoted by countries which have the euro as their
currency. We will not be able to control our borders and have a say in
who has the right to live and work here. […] That’s why I’m saying to
you: on 23 June vote Leave and take back control”. (Gisella Stuart on
the “ITV Referendum Debate”, 01:42:49-01:43:58)
61
From this text sample alone, a number of metaphors used to conceptualize the
target domain CONTROL can be enumerated. First of all, the slogan “Take back
control” in itself describes CONTROL as a physical object. Charteris-Black (2014:
202) explains that one of the functions of metaphor in political discourse is
heuristic, that is, it simplifies abstract, complex and controversial issues in order
to make them generally intelligibly to the audience. Image-based metaphors are
particularly suitable to fulfil this function. Political, economic and social control
at such a large, European-wide level is, indeed, a topic that is difficult to grasp for
voters who are not experts in this field. Moreover, the short slogan “Take back
control” does not even specify which precise issues the Leave campaign wants to
regain control of, and is therefore an inherently fuzzy, ambivalent expression to
use. For this reason, conceptualizing CONTROL as a physical object and evoking
an image where the personified nation state takes back a lawful possession is a
useful rhetorical device. While the ontological metaphor CONTROL IS A PHYSICAL
OBJECT does not structure the target domain by highlighting some of its specific
features, it implies that CONTROL is concrete enough to be grasped physically.
This understanding of CONTROL is concise enough for a short, catchy slogan. Mio
(1997: 103) elucidates: “Because of information-processing demands, people
cannot pay attention to all aspects of political evidence. Therefore, something is
needed to simplify decision-making, and metaphor and other shortcut devices
(e.g. cognitive heuristics) address this need”.
This ontological metaphor also gives rise to a multitude of verbs and verb
phrases that either explicitly mention “hands” or refer to actions normally
performed with hands in the corpus in order to describe the process of regaining
control after Great Britain has made the decision to leave the European Union.
Describing the large sums of money that Great Britain has to pay to the European
Union, Michael Gove claims that precise numbers are not the most important
aspects:
(48) “That money is controlled by the European Union and if we vote to
leave, we can take back control of that money and we’re no longer in
62
the hands of people who may not always have our best interests at
heart.” (Michael Gove on Sky News, 00:30:30 – 00:30:39)
Similarly, he argues that, “at the moment, control of our immigration policy is not
in the hands of the British people” (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:33:49-
00:33:53) and that the British people have their destiny “in their hands” in the
upcoming referendum (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:46:47-00:46:53).
Conversely, further integration into the European Union, involves “further
transfers of power away from this country”, as Boris Johnson argues (“ITV
Referendum Debate”, 01:28:48-01:28:53). Another example are EU regulations
which are described as being “imposed” on Britain (Michael Gove on “EU: In or
Out?”, 00:35:33-00:35:40). This verb also suggests a downwards motion from the
sovereign EU to an obedient country, especially when the etymological roots are
taken into consideration.
These metaphorical expressions provide somewhat more structure than the
slogan “Take back control”. If, as the expressions entail, CONTROL is a physical
object small enough in size to be dealt with by human hands, the abstract target
domain is also simplified in its complexity.
The orientational metaphor that is best-known to form a mental picture for
the concept CONTROL is CONTROL IS UP, which is also featured in the Master
Metaphor List (Lakoff et al., 1991: 67). As can be gained from the example
below, this kind of metaphor implies a hierarchy between the European Union and
Great Britain rather than an alliance:
(49) “The only way that you can maintain support for migration and its
benefits is if people feel that this country controls the numbers and
controls who comes here at the moment. Under European Union Law
there are criminals here that we can’t deport. There are terrorists here
[…] that we can’t prevent from coming in”. (Michael Gove on the
“BBC Question Time Special”, 00:32:49-00:33:11)
63
Arguing for controlled immigration outside the European Union, Michael Gove
uses the phrase “under the European Union Law” and suggests that power
relations between the two institutions are measured by verticality. The entity
which is in the higher position is mapped onto the more powerful entity, while the
entity which is in the lower position is mapped onto the weaker entity, which is, in
this case, Great Britain. Metaphorical expressions of this sort give rise to
completely different entailments than the FAMILY metaphor where all members
are seen to meet at eye level. Grady mentions (1997) this metaphor under the
alternative name BEING IN CONTROL IS BEING ABOVE in regard to the
relationships between caregivers and children. This general metaphor in the
corpus is rooted in physical experience. Bodily size positively correlates with the
control one holds over others. This early childhood experience carries over to a
much larger experience of power relations between a country and a multi-country
organization in the Brexit debate.
Politicians of the Leave campaign envision a future in which Great Britain will
regain its superior position and will, once more, be on top of the situation:
(50) “The only way we will ever get that back under control is if we
vote Leave on Thursday.” (Andrea Leadsom on the “BBC Great
Debate”, 01:04:49-01:50:05)
There is an interplay between the desire for this superior position and
immigration, which is represented as uncontrollable inrush. However, the
metaphors used to describe this political issue have been discussed separately in
the chapter on the target domain IMMIGRATION.
Last but not least, subtypes of the event structure metaphor were used to
envision Great Britain’s lack of control as a member of the European Union. Both
Europe and Great Britain are seen as travelling on a path towards the future and
their relationship is conceptualized as a vehicle. Control over this vehicle is not
shared but remains in the hands of only one party. The vehicle of choice in the
following utterance by Boris Johnson is a car:
64
(51) “They [the Remain side] say that we have absolutely no choice […]
but to stay locked in the back of the EU car driven in the wrong
direction going to a destination we do not want to go”. (Boris Johnson
on the “ITV Referendum Debate”, 1:45:24-1:45:35)
The PATH metaphor is a subtype of the larger conceptual metaphor POLITICAL
ACTION AS SPATIAL MOVEMENT and has its roots in the integration process of the
European Union, which some member states were more committed to than others.
This resulted in the term “multispeed Europe” or “Europe of two speeds” in the
media and political speeches, where Great Britain is seen as slow or even outside
the common European path (Musolff, 2004: 59). It is worth noticing that Britain is
still an active party in determining their future actions within this media discourse.
While Germany accepted the concept of the multispeed Europe as an already
practiced policy, Great Britain criticized Europe as travelling too fast or even
heading towards disaster.
Crucially, the PATH metaphors found in this corpus do not describe a
shared European destination that Great Britain is travelling to as well. Instead, the
instances remain focused on the individual country. In addition, the metaphorical
image evoked by Boris Johnson in his closing statement on ITV has the audience
envision the (personified) country as entirely powerless in the future course of the
EU. The person locked in the trunk of the car may be aware of the crash their
vehicle is going to suffer, but they cannot save their life because they decided to
get into the car at some point in time. This scenario is indeed perfectly apt to show
how Britain must take charge of the steering wheel, instead of weakly cowering in
the back of a vehicle that is doomed. Boris Johnson has carefully selected a
powerful, expressive metaphor to communicate his message.
The conceptual metaphor THE EUROPEAN UNION IS A SUPPRESSOR can be
regarded as the other side of the same coin. Michael Gove was accused of
spreading lies by a member of the audience, particularly in regard to a canvas on
public buses in Great Britain saying: “We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s
fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave”. This number was highly contested by the
interviewer Feisal Islam on Sky News and was again brought up in the debate
65
with the audience. In his response, Michael Gove frames the European Union as
suppressor that has been hindering the British people from realizing their full
potential:
(52) “[…] on our side, the Leave campaign, what we believe in is
unlocking the potential of the British people and I think, John, that
there are all sorts of reasons to believe that our country, the fifth largest
economy in the world with the most impressive arm forces, with the
best publicly funded health service, we have so much to offer. That is
project hope”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:28:09-00:28:32)
In this example, Great Britain is depicted as caged by an organization that holds
the power over it and does not allow it to realize its full potential. The metaphor
entails that the influence of the European Union is entirely negative. Regulations
and constrictions are highlighted while economic and social partnership and
benefits are hidden.
In the following example, a member of the audience also made use of the
SUPPRESSOR metaphor. The European Union does not only constrain, but even
“suffocate” the British people in her words. Again, the verb “impose” signifies a
downward motion from the superior organization that acts from above.
(53) “I run a small business, employing ten local staff, and have been
stifled by the raft of EU legislations that’s been imposed on me.”
(member of the audience on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:08:31-
00:08:39)
Similarly, Petrica (2011) found that the European Union is characterized as a
spanker or sodomizer in Malta. While the economic status of Malta is much
weaker than Great Britain’s, the two countries have their insularity in common. In
addition, neither of the countries is a founding member of the EU and they are,
therefore, both seen as having less control in the organization.
66
While most conceptual metaphors used to characterise the European Union
by the Leave campaign are serious in nature, there are a few instances of
humorous metaphor use in the corpus. As Charteris-Black notes (2009: 106-107),
humour is an important element in rhetoric. Laughter is a shared social experience
that encourages the audience to see the speaker in a positive light. Humour works
particularly well when speakers have to deal with an inhomogeneous audience, as
is the case on the “BBC Great Debate” where half the audience supported the
Leave campaign and the other half the Remain campaign. Humour “can both
strengthen the support of followers and undermine the opposition of opponents by
uniting them through an empathic response” (Charteris-Black, 2009: 106). In the
following example, Andrea Leadsom reduces the tasks of the European Union to a
grotesquely small level and earns laughter from her audience.
(54) “Most economies can agree free trade deals within a year or two.
The European Union is taking ten years or never at all. Why? Because
28 member states cannot even organize a take-away-curry, let alone
what they’re going to do on free trade with the rest of the world”.
(Andrea Leadsom on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:30:42-00:31:03)
The next instance of metaphorical use, does not share the irony with Andrea
Leadsom’s statement, but has the same entailments. The European Union is
incapable of resolving issues that much smaller organizations can easily deal with.
In both cases, its deficiency is caused by its size: 28 member states are unable to
order their meal. In this instance, the European Union is explicitly named a “big
unwieldy organization” by Michael Gove:
(55) “How could Iceland, how could Switzerland get trade deals with
China when the European Union can’t? Because the European Union is
a big bureaucratic, unwieldy organization that cannot forge new trade
deals individual countries can”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”,
00:21:21-00:21:39)
67
Since the European Union is incapable of resolving tasks that individual countries
can resolve, Great Britain is better off with without it. The metaphorical
expressions analysed here, work in concert with the CONTROL metaphor discussed
earlier. While being suppressed by a larger organization is in itself an unwanted
situation, the motivation to “take back control”, as the Leave campaign stressed, is
strengthened by the incapability of the European Union that has been asserted in
the analysed statements.
3.7. The European Union as Destructive Force
The most negative conceptual metaphor the Leave campaign made use of during
the Brexit debates was that of the EUROPEAN UNION AS A DESTRUCTIVE FORCE.
In the following examples “destruction” and its consequences are explicitly
mentioned by the politicians. In addition, Great Britain is constructed as a body
politic that physically suffers from this treatment:
(56) “I'm just puzzled why you want to be allies with people in a union
and institution that wishes to and has been prepared to inflict such
pain”. (“Hilary Benn and Andrew Neill Interview”, 00:03:27-
00:03:34)
A specific subcase of the DESTRUCTIVE FORCE metaphor found in the corpus is
the EUROPEAN UNION AS A JOB DESTROYING MACHINE or ENGINE. This
expression was used six times by politicians of the Leave campaign, which is a
fairly high frequency considering the limited scope of the corpus. The metaphor
highlights certain aspects of a large organization that functions like an apparatus,
but hides other aspects. The characterization of the EU as a mere machine implies
that its workings proceed in an inhumane and unfeeling way. Since machines do
not care about human well-being, negotiation with the European machine is futile.
The machine-like European Union is juxtaposed with the vulnerable human body
of Great Britain. Michael Gove makes use of this metaphor in the following
examples:
68
(57) “I think that the truth about the European Union is that it is a job
destroying machine”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:13:58-
00:14:00)
Michael Gove blames the youth unemployment in Southern European countries
on their membership in the European Union and the single currency. Only a few
moments later he repeats, addressing the interviewer:
(58) “Do not belittle the hardship that has been caused by the job
destroying machine that is the European Union. […] Also, look at the
facts of unemployment in Southern Europe: youth unemployment in
Greece is nearly 50%, in Spain it is 40%. Now these are facts, and
these facts are also a story of human misery. […] Those people in
Greece and Spain who are suffering so much as a result of the
European Union are coming here”. (Michael Gove on “EU: In or
Out?”, 00:15:17-00:15:48)
When a young man in the audience asked a question on employment, Michael
Gove also pointed out that the problem has largely been caused by migrants from
Southern European countries such as Greece, Portugal and Spain and proceeds to
call the European Union “a job destroying machine“ and “a tragedy” for Great
Britain (Michael Gove on the “BBC Question Time Special”, 00:21:40-00:21:56).
Michael Gove is not the only politician in the Leave campaign who characterizes
the European Union as “a job destroying machine”. Asked by Andrew Neill how
he could claim that migrants were taking away British jobs when employment
rates were in truth at a record level, Nigel Farage answered:
(59) “It’s actually destroying the Baltic States. I mean, you take
something like Lithuania who’ve lost one third of their population
since they joined the European Union, so that’s not good for them”.
(“Nigel Farage and Andrew Neill Interview”, 00:09:20-00:09:30)
Later in the month, Boris Johnson repeated this metaphor in the “BBC Great
Debate” twice, using Southern European countries as deterring example:
69
(60) “The European Union, I’m afraid, is a job destroying engine. You
can see it across Europe and you can see it, alas, in this country as
well”. (Boris Johnson on the “BBC Great Debate”, 00:28:13-00:28:21)
(61) “Remember what John Major said about the single currency: He
said it had all the quaintness and implausibility of a rain dance. Look
where it is now, destroying jobs across the European Union”. (Boris
Johnson on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:20:14-01:20:27)
Since no evidence of this metaphor was identified in the EUROMETA corpus by
Musolff and his colleagues (2004, 2016), it can be assumed that this is the most
recently developed metaphor in the corpus. Of all the metaphors used to
conceptualize the European Union it is also the most negative. The identification
of a scapegoat in times of political and economic distress has often been offered
as a solution for social problems in history (Charteris-Black, 2009: 100). Political
parties that argue for continued membership in the European Union are more
likely to use metaphors that are common in this organization in general, such as
the FAMILY or HOUSE metaphors (Musolff, 2004). Political parties that want to
leave the European Union, on the other hand, are overall more likely to invent
original metaphors in the debates since none of the conventional metaphors are
appropriate to support their argument (Petrica, 2011: 151).
Some of the DESTRUCTION metaphors also refer explicitly to the body
politic of Great Britain and are, hence, manifested as physical illnesses. Earliest
traces of the NATION STATE AS A BODY can be found in the works of Plato and
Aristotle. Their respective works, Πολιτεία and Τίμαιος, Πολιτικά and De motu
animalium make use of this conceptual metaphor. In Livius’ Ab Urbe condita and
Plutarch’s Vitae parallelae, in the section about Coriolanus, the senate is
characterized as the belly of the body politic. Although it receives all the food and
remains idle, it is unwise for the other body parts, i.e. the plebeians, to revolt
against the belly since they would cut off their only source of nourishment. This
metaphor entails that the revolt against the senate is doomed. The tale of the belly
is included, most famously, in Shakespeare’s tragedy Coriolanus. Throughout
history, the metaphor of the body politic has been drawn on by philosophers and
70
politicians. Musolff (2016) gives an overview of how the metaphor of the body
politic is continued in German and British discourse about EU politics.
In the 12th
century, John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, ascribed the
duty to remove any “illness and blemishes” to the head, i.e. the prince. He takes a
radical approach to curing illness in the body politic: “Indeed, neither the ears nor
the tongue nor whatever else subsists within the body of the republic is safe if it
revolts against the soul for whose sake the eyes themselves are gouged out” (John
of Salisbury, 1990: 140-141)1. In the following examples, the European Union is
characterized as such a diseased body part which consequently puts the whole
body politic at risk.
Author Tony Parsons, who had previously declared he would support
Nigel Farage’s UKIP party in the upcoming election, answered when asked
whether immigration was part of the reason why he stood on the Leave side of the
argument:
(62) “We love our country. And I have not heard one argument about
how if we’re too timid, if we’re too frightened, too small to leave this
rotting carbuncle of the European Union, how do we accommodate
three million people?” (Tony Parsons on the “BBC Great Debate”,
01:08:18-01:08:39)
Susan Sontag has investigated the polemical use of disease metaphors historically
from early political theorists like Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes to
totalitarian movements, like Hitler’s depiction of the Jews as syphilitic and
cancerous. She condenses her findings: “Disease imagery is used to express
concern for social order, and health is something everyone is presumed to know
about” (1991: 73). In the light of the history of the disease metaphor, which Tony
Parsons employs in this example, his judgement of the European Union seems
particularly harsh:
1 He bases his claim on the authority of the New Testament: “If your eye or your foot offend you,
root it out and cast it away from you” (Mt. 18.9).
71
(63) “I honestly believe that we need to set ourselves free from this
rotten, corrupt bureaucratic institution (…)”. (Tony Parsons on the
“BBC Great Debate”, 01:37:05-01:37:18)
(64) “Of course we’ll still be in all the international bodies. We’ll be
part of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the UN
Security Council, all these things, but what we will not be part of is a
sclerotic creature that had a noble idea in the 1950s that demands
supremacy of its laws”. (Gisela Stuart on the “ITV Referendum
Debate”, 01:18:52-01:19:09)
Tony Parsons argues that the European Union is decaying like a live organism. Its
sickness spoils the otherwise healthy body politic of Great Britain. In Gisela
Stuart’s words, the body politic of Great Britain is still agile while the European
Union has become immobile because it suffers from sclerosis. The frame that both
these metaphorical expressions evoke sees the country as merely removing the
parts of its body that harm the rest with its sickness. In contrast to the CONTROL
metaphors, Great Britain does not have to exert much effort to break free from a
sick organization that is doomed anyway.
In a single instance in the corpus, David Cameron demonstrates that the
same metaphor, THE NATION STATE AS A BODY, can also be used for the purposes
of the Remain campaign. He characterizes Brexit as a “self-inflicted wound” for
the country:
(65) “If we were to get out of the single market, we’d see fewer jobs in
the car industry, we'd see less investment in our country. That would
be a self-inflicted wound for Britain”. (David Cameron on “EU: In or
Out?”, 00:08:45-00:08:53)
In this example, the body politic is sickened by the opposite action, namely
removing, that is leaving, the European Union. This shows that one and the same
conceptual metaphor can be used for a variety of purposes.
72
3.8. Metonymies
Scholars disagree on whether metonymy can be treated as a subtype of metaphor
(Genette, 1980; Levin, 1977; Lodge, 1977; Searle, 1979) or is governed by
independent principles (Jakobson, 1971; Bredin, 1984). More recently, Barcelona
(2003b) has proposed that metaphors are typically based on one or more
metonymic mappings. What puts metonymy in the close vicinity of metaphor,
however, is its function as a general cognitive principle, which is why it has been
included in this thesis. As Gibbs argues (1999: 62), “our ability to draw
metonymic inferences, where we infer wholes from parts or parts from wholes, is
one of the special characteristics of the poetics of mind”.
Instances of an idealized cognitive principle (ICP), according to Lakoff
and Johnson (1980: 35-41), are governed by a general principle such as PLACE
FOR INSTITUTION. This ICP accounts for the most frequently used metonymy in
the corpus: BRUSSELS FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION. Out of the 37 instances where
Brussels was mentioned in the corpus, 31 were judged to be metonymic in use.
This means that a larger concept than just the geographic centre of administration
for the European Union was referred to, like in the following examples:
(66) “They say we have no choice but to bow down to Brussels”. (Boris
Johnson on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:42:13-01:42:23)
(67) “Why has this government and the previous government let
Brussels interfere so much that we’re now at the point of voting to stay
in or out of Europe?” (member of the audience on the “BBC Question
Time Special with David Cameron”, 00:25:58-00:26:08)
(68) “It’s curious to hear this from Nicola Sturgeon because she’s
obviously more keen to be ruled by Brussels than she is to be by
Westminster politicians”. (Boris Johnson on the “ITV Referendum
Debate”, 01:20:15-01:20:22)
73
Here, a place is drawn as a domineering person and those politicians obeying its
rules and legislations as disloyal to Britain. Like Warren argues (2004: 112), in
metonymy “the speaker is focusing more on an attribute of an entity than the
entity itself”. Metonymy can thus be seen as a focusing device in rhetoric by
highlighting formal, functional and ontological characteristics. In addition, the
PART-WHOLE grasping concepts also facilitate the comprehension of complex
concepts (Cislaru, 2007: 108). Centres of power are often metonymized. Thus, we
can talk about “Washington” or “the White House” to refer to the administration
of the US as a whole. In the corpus at hand, “Downing Street” was also used
metonymically to refer to the entire British administration, not only the residence
of the current prime minister (Michael Gove on “EU: In or Out?”, 00:44:31-
00:44:35). The BRUSSELS metonymy allows the Leave campaign to reduce the
complexity, size and number of member states considerably to the centre of
administration. The Remain campaign attempted to counter by focusing on the
cooperative aspect of the European Union employing a table metonymy:
(69) “I’m passionate about the fact that we’re sat around the table with
27 other countries, eleven of which a quarter of a century ago were on
the other side of the iron curtain, six of which had nuclear weapons on
their soil pointing right here. Today they’re our friends and our
neighbours”. (Tim Farron on the “BBC Great Debate”, 01:35:55-
01:36:06)
Arguably this metonymy could also be categorized as a metaphor (EUROPEAN
COOPERATION AS A TABLE), but as explained above, there is a continuum rather
than a strict distinction between the two phenomena. If it is assumed that a TABLE
is part of the domain of political cooperation, then the mapping remains within the
same domain and we are talking about a metonymy.
74
4. Metaphor in Second Language Learning
4.1. Metaphorical Competence
In the wake of Lakoff and Johnson’s seminal study (1980), many researchers have
argued that activities and tasks that raise students’ awareness of metaphor and
metonymy aid second language learning (e.g. Holme, 2004; Lazar, 1996, 2003;
Littlemore & Low, 2006; Rundell, 2001). As has been established early on in this
thesis, metaphor is a pervasive occurrence in every language due to the way the
human mind and physical brain work. Thus, students of a foreign language
necessarily encounter metaphors when developing any of the four language skills,
speaking, listening, reading and writing, and learning grammar or vocabulary. It
does not come as a surprise, then, that metaphorical language can be a major
challenge to them. In a study with international students whose first language was
not English, Littlemore, Chen, Koester and Barnden (2011) determined that 42%
of the words and phrases these students found difficult to understand were used
metaphorically. This finding takes on even greater significance when we take into
consideration that metaphorical language is commonly used to convey knowledge
and new information by lecturers (Low, Littlemore & Koester, 2008). In another
study, 90% of the times oversea students were unable to comprehend the meaning
of the university lecturer the confusion was caused by misinterpretation of
metaphorical language (Littlemore, 2001b). This often meant that the students
could not understand the most significant points of the lectures or the lecturer’s
attitude in regard to the topic. Presumably, younger language students aged ten to
19 will be faced with metaphorical language to a similar extend during their
school years. In addition, they must be prepared for their university education or
encounters with native speakers in their future careers. Understanding and
producing metaphors in appropriate ways is therefore a skill students have to
acquire in the language learning classroom. This is also referred to as metaphoric
competence (Littlemore, 2001a) or, alternatively, as metaphorical competence in
the literature. In this thesis, the latter term will be used following Azuma (2004)
and Danesi (1993).
75
Scholars are in agreement about the significance of metaphorical
competence for second language learners. Danesi (1980) claims “the true sign that
the learner has developed communicative proficiency is the ability to metaphorize
in the target language” (1986: 9). Andreou and Galantomos (2008) have designed
a conceptual syllabus to raise metaphorical awareness in students. But overall,
scholars disagree on what exactly constitutes metaphorical competence.
Littlemore (2001a: 461) defines it as consisting of four components: (a) the
originality of metaphor production, (b) the fluency of metaphor interpretation, (c)
the ability to find meaning in metaphor, and (d) the speed in finding meaning in
metaphor. Littlemore and Low (2006: 79) later describe metaphorical competence
as “an individual’s ability to understand and produce metaphors”. Azuma (2004)
follows this broad definition on the whole, but importantly adds a deeper,
cognitive level to it. Not only does metaphorical competence include students’ (a)
ability to recognize metaphorical expressions in reading and listening and (b) to
use them in their speaking and writing of their L2, but also (c) to understand the
underlying concepts behind the metaphorical expressions in both their L1 and
their L2 (2004: 52).
The notion of metaphorical competence is also closely connected to the
notion of conceptual fluency. Conceptual fluency is a somewhat broader term than
metaphorical competence and refers to the ability to make use of the conceptual-
semantic system of a language in order to systematically produce all kinds of
figurative speech, including metaphor (Danesi 2016: 146). Conceptual fluency
was defined as an essential feature of native-speaker competence by Danesi
(1993). So-called conceptual errors are often the result of students choosing the
wrong source domain in forming a metaphor (Danesi, 2008). Participants in
Danesi’s study (2008) who had been educated to acquire the conceptual system of
the target language were able to use figurative language more frequently and
correctly. Without the explicit teaching of metaphors and their underlying
concepts, he argues, students either avoid figurative language or fail to convey
their ideas due to L1 interference. His findings also suggest that metaphorical
competence is, indeed, teachable although more research is needed to determine
this issue.
76
4.1.1. Lesson Plan
The following lesson plan is designed for a 7th
grade class of around 25 students.
Therefore, language learners can be expected to be on a B1+ language level,
progressing towards a B2 level for their final exams. Accordingly, the goal for
students is to passively understand “extended speech and lectures and follow even
complex lines of argument provided the topic is reasonably familiar”, according to
the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages or CEFR
(Council of Europe, 2011: 27). In this lesson plan, students will be confronted
with excerpts from newspaper articles, which they will be required to understand
in full at the B2 level (ibid.: 27). Although the CEFR does not specifically
mention control of metaphors, the types of spoken and written discourse pointed
out in the “can do” descriptors presuppose an understanding of metaphorical
language as has been established above. Moreover, the CEFR mentions metaphor
in connection with lexical competence, i.e. “knowledge of, and ability to use, the
vocabulary of a language” (ibid.: 110). Raising students’ metaphorical awareness
will therefore impact both vocabulary range and vocabulary control (ibid.: 112).
The aim of this lesson is to raise students’ awareness on the use of
metaphorical phrases in contexts where it might not be expected in the first place.
This is why the lesson starts off with collecting students’ preliminary knowledge
on what metaphors are and where they occur and, thus, activate top-down
processing. Most likely, students will have encountered metaphors in a poetic
context, particularly in their first language lessons. Maybe, they can come up with
an example of metaphors they have encountered in a literature class. In addition,
metaphor should be delineated from other rhetorical devices that it might be
confused with, such as simile, hyperbole, metonymy etc.
Due to the pervasiveness of metaphor, a variety of communicative
contexts could be chosen to train metaphorical competence. But since the first two
sections of the thesis focused on a political context, this theme will be carried on
into the lesson plan.
77
Next, students learn to differentiate between literal and metaphorical
language use by means of a variety of sentences taken from the British National
Corpus which show the metaphorical and literal use of the verb “to die”. Besides
examples that are clearly instance of either figurative or literal language use, there
are some more difficult examples worth discussing, such as “the giggles died
down”.
In the main activity, students receive a worksheet with a variety of
headlines and excerpts from different newspaper articles on immigration. They are
asked to highlight any metaphorically used words in groups of threes or fours.
Once they are finished, the words are collected and categorized on the blackboard.
Three source domains are available to them: WATER, NATURAL DISASTER, and
OTHER. The overlaps in the graphical organizer below show students that some
metaphorical expressions can be part of more than one source domain. Any
questions on whether words are actually used metaphorically and how to group
them will be discussed in plenum. Students will also be asked whether the same
metaphors are used in their mother tongue or whether they can think of other
metaphors in order to train intercultural competence. This discussion will
obviously be enriched by students whose first language is not German or not
exclusively German. Last but not least, the students’ preliminary notions of
metaphor from the beginning of the class will be revisited and possibly adapted.
78
Table 3: Lesson Plan to train metaphorical competence
Grade: 7th
grade
Number of students: about 25
Language level: B1+
Overall aim: develop metaphorical competence
Time: 50 min
Time Activity Aims Materials needed
5 min Students are introduced to the topic of this lesson
and asked what they know about metaphors:
-What is a metaphor?
-Where do you find metaphors?
-Can you think of an example?
Their answers are collected on the blackboard and
revisited at the end of the lesson.
-Activate knowledge students
already have on the subject.
-Activate top-down processing.
blackboard
5 min Students receive a worksheet on metaphorical and
literal use of the verb “die” and apply the
knowledge of metaphors they have just collected.
-Develop students’ ability to
recognize metaphorical
expressions in their reading and
Worksheet (4.1.2.):
Differentiate between
metaphorical and literal use
79
Possible questions that arise are discussed in
plenum.
writing.
-Clarify any questions on what
constitutes a metaphor.
15 min Students receive the worksheet with headlines and
extracts from different newspaper articles.
Working in pairs of three or four people, they
highlight any metaphorical expressions on the
sheet. They know that they will have to share their
results with the rest of the class in the next activity.
-Further develop students’
ability to recognize
metaphorical expressions.
-Show that metaphors do not
only occur in poetic contexts.
Worksheet (4.1.3.): Newspaper
headlines and extracts
15 min Students are asked to categorize the metaphorically
used words they identified according to the three
source domains on the blackboard: WATER,
NATURAL DISASTER, and OTHER. Again, questions
as to categorization will be discussed.
-Learn to categorize metaphors
according to their source
domains.
-Develop some degree of
fluency in metaphor
interpretation.
Graphical Organizer (4.1.4.)
on the blackboard
5 min Students are asked to compare the metaphors they
identified with their expectations and their L1:
-Would you have expected these metaphors to play
a role in discourse about migration?
-Understand the underlying
concepts of metaphors both in
their L1 and in their L2.
- Develop intercultural
none
80
-What impact do these metaphors have on the
issue?
-Can you think of any other metaphors used in
reference to migration?
-Does German make use of the same metaphors or
others?
competence.
-Encourage critical thinking.
5min The findings from this lesson are contrasted with
the initial assumptions students had on metaphor.
The aim is to show that metaphors are much more
frequent in many contexts than often assumed.
Round-off none
81
4.1.2. Differentiating between Literal and Metaphorical Use
The literal meaning of the verb die is “to cease to live”, but it can also be used
in a metaphorical or non-literal way. In the following sentences die is used in
both sentences. Try to select and mark the sentences where die is not used
literally.
Many of them may be subject of discussion so think about reasons why a
particular usage is metaphorical or not.
(1) Many people are dying with great indignity and with great suffering,' said
John Oliver, general secretary of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.
(2) This was a love worth dying for, at last.
(3) I'm dying for some punch. My throat's like sandpaper,' Maggie said.
(4) Most of these errors would have been fatal to the survival of the organism
or its ability to reproduce. Such errors would not be passed on to future
generations but would die out.
(5) Given a meatless diet [a cat] will rapidly become ill and will
then die a painful death. A cat is a carnivore and if it is to be kept as a pet
it must be given a carnivorous diet.
(6) Today, I would die for one of Mrs. Poulard's omelettes.
(7) Mrs. Fry shook [their hands] gingerly and said,' You must be dying for
something to eat, both of you. We usually eat at seven, but we waited for
you - I've got a casserole in the oven.'
(8) Tell Elizabeth? I would die of shame!
(9) It's what the actors do best. They have to exploit whatever talent is given
to them, and their talent is dying. They can die heroically, comically,
ironically, slowly, suddenly, disgustingly, charmingly, or from a great
height.
(10) The giggles die down as she adds: I'm already depressed about it.
82
4.1.3. Newspaper Articles
“you have got a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain because Britain has got jobs, it’s got a growing economy, it’s an incredible place to live”. (The Guardian News, July 30, 2015)
“BRITAIN was warned last night it
faces a massive benefits bill to pay
for the looming influx of immigrants,
including gypsies, from eastern
Europe”. (The Express , February 9,
2004)
Migrants flood
trains in
desperate bid to
leave Italy
As Italy struggles
to cope with the
Mediterranean
migration crisis, its
Alpine region of
South Tyrol is
facing an
increasing stream
of migrants who try
How Climate Change is
Behind the Surge of
Migrants to Europe
“Even as Europe wrestles
over how to absorb the
migrant tide, experts warn
that the flood is likely to get
worse as climate change
becomes a driving factor”
(Times, September 7, 2015)
UN expects thousands of refugees to flood Europe
Tens of thousands of new refugees will swarm into Europe in the coming days, the UN warned Tuesday — as those who survived the harrowing trip across the Mediterranean in smugglers’ rickety boats shared horror stories of their desperate voyages. (New York Post, September 9, 2015)
Financially
Strapped Greece
Struggles With Flood
of Refugees (Wall Street
Journal, August 30, 2015)
Forget the Greek
crisis or Britain's
referendum, this
tidal wave of
migrants could be
the biggest threat
to Europe since the
war (Daily Mail, June
26, 2015)
84
influx, absorb,
WATER tidal wave
flood tide,
stream surge
4.1.5. Possible Solution
wrestle
looming
NATURAL DISASTER
threat to face
struggle
OTHER METAPHORS
swarm (n.)
swarm (v.)
85
4.2. Organizing Lexis
One particularly well-researched area of metaphor application in the classroom is
vocabulary learning. One of the strategies to successfully memorize vocabulary is
to organize it somehow, rather than learning it in a random list (Sökmen, 1997).
The small sets of related words that students have already acquired can later be
used as the foundation for further acquisition of words since they have a
framework to connect them to. In addition to more traditional organizing
principles such as “topic”, “situation” and “narration”, Lewis (1997: 67-85) also
suggests grouping lexis according to underlying conceptual metaphors.
Contrary to traditional views, research in cognitive linguistics since the
1980s suggests that idiomatic language does not simply consist of dead metaphors
and is, in fact, compositional. This entails that learners of a language parse these
lexical items into their individual constituents which they can glean meaning from
(Gibbs, 1990; Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990; Crutchley, 2007). Speakers thus process
the idiomatic expression “to let off steam”, for instance, through decomposition
and connect the verb and the object to their literal references, “release” and
“anger”, respectively (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990).
Phrasal verbs are one instance of metaphorically motivated lexis that can
be decomposed into orientational metaphors and so-called light verbs
(Stefanowitch & Gries, 2005). The orientational metaphor COMPLETION IS UP in
combination with a variety of verbs gives rise to the linguistic expressions “give
up”, “wind up”, “eat up” and others. Their stress is on the adverbial part which
provides a rich mental imagery in contrast to the verb that conveys little schematic
content (Stefanowitch & Gries, 2005). According to the cognitive approach to
teaching and learning phrasal verbs, students whose awareness for underlying
orientational metaphors is raised are able to create mental generalizations in their
lexicon. This raised metaphorical awareness is a much more efficient learning
strategy than mere memorization or rote learning.
The value of organizing phrasal verbs through orientational metaphors in
the EFL classroom was tested by Kövecses and Szabó (1996) in an experiment
that focused on phrasal verbs with “up” and “down”. The first language of all
students in the study was Hungarian. The first group of students was instructed to
86
study the phrasal verbs with the aid of their underlying conceptual metaphors
(such as MORE IS UP and HAPPY IS UP). The second group of students was given
the translation of the phrasal verbs in their L1 instead. The test immediately
following the study period showed that the first group outperformed the latter by
almost 9%. Boers (2000) also compared the performance of two groups of
students who had been asked to study 26 phrasal verbs either via the variety of
conceptual metaphors they expressed or a number of synonyms. Again, the group
of students which had used conceptual metaphors as organizing principle
significantly outperformed the other group in the immediate post-test. In addition
to providing students with a useful organizing principle, the outcome of both
studies is likely to be the result of dual coding (Pavio, 1986). The conceptual
metaphors emphasize the figurative nature of the phrasal verbs and enable
students to connect the verbal input with a visual input. This association facilitates
the recollection of the lexemes by offering students “an additional access point”
through the image (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2009: 79).
These findings can be implemented in the EFL classroom by starting with
a manageable number of phrasal verbs and subsuming them under a small number
of conceptual metaphors. Students can gradually extend this list by adding new
lexical items under the appropriate heading. The cognitive effort involved when
students themselves have to group the phrasal verbs will support memorization
(Schmitt, 2008). However, findings by Condon (2008) suggest that explicit
reference to the underlying conceptual metaphors is required since students do not
automatically expand on the metaphorical bases that their teachers have
established. This implies that teachers have to continuously remind students to
connect the lexical target items to the underlying metaphors and cannot rely on
students to pick up the strategy by default. A helpful reference book for teachers
to create a list of phrasal verbs is Macmillan’s Phrasal Verbs Plus (2005) which
takes conceptual metaphor theory into consideration and argues that
understanding the metaphor behind phrasal verbs can facilitate students’
vocabulary comprehension and retention. The following list is modelled after
Boers and Lindstromberg (2009: 98), but includes only phrasal verbs taken from
the “BBC Great Debate” on the Brexit referendum:
87
Studies that deal with metaphorical expressions instead of phrasal verbs, however,
also indicate that conceptual metaphors are not merely an organizing principle as
good as any other. Instead, they surpass other options. Students in a study (Boers,
2000) were given a list of 18 well-known metaphorical expressions describing
anger, as listed by Kövecses (1990). They were either grouped under their
conceptual metaphors (e.g. ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER or ANGER IS
FIRE) or according to the intensity of the action (e.g. “blow up at someone” vs.
“simmer down”) or character traits described (“a ferocious temper”). Therefore,
both groups of students were presented with an equal measure of structure in their
target lexis. Nevertheless, in the following gap-filling test the group that had been
utilizing the metaphor headings achieved much better results. As Hoang (2014: 4)
elucidates, instruction based on conceptual metaphor theory “relies on the
interactive properties between the source and target domains of metaphors and
gives students a rationale to ponder upon why the phrases mean what they mean,
which likely explains the learning gain”. Designing pragmatic sets of lexical items
on the other hand (such as sets of near synonyms or antonyms) has been found to
be an unhelpful vocabulary learning strategy (Nation, 2000).
Phrasal Verbs grouped according to metaphor themes:
MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN
cut down expenses; hold down wages; drive down wages; bring down
migration; prices will go up; speed up accession;
ACTIVE IS UP; INACTIVE IS DOWN
put up the barriers to migrants; to be up for; back up a case; stand up for
democracy;
GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN
talk someone down; run down our city;
VISIBILE IS OUT
to point out; to put out a list;
PROBLEMS ARE PHYSICAL OBJECTS
walk away from; kick somebody out; get out of something; opt out of
something;
88
Early research on the influence of metaphor on learning suggests that it
can serve as a mnemonic device, evoking richer images than literal language and
facilitating the recall of information. In addition, metaphor accesses suitable
conceptual frameworks which allow new knowledge to be integrated into existing
mental schemas in the mind (Gibbs 1994: 129-134).
In the following section, two exercises that focus on organizing lexis
according to conceptual metaphors will be presented. No lesson plan was created
because these kinds of exercises should be incorporated continuously into
vocabulary teaching. In addition, an evaluation sheet that students can use to
reflect on the method and decide whether and how to use the exercises in their
future language learning process was added. Teaching students this kind of
vocabulary learning strategy is in line with the Austrian Curriculum for foreign
languages (2004: 1), which postulates that school should prepare students for life-
long, autonomous learning: “Der Fremdsprachenunterricht hat die Aufgabe, den
Schülerinnen und Schülern ein breites Spektrum an Sprachlernstrategien für den
weiteren selbstständigen Spracherwerb im Sinne des lebensbegleitenden
autonomen Sprachenlernens zu erschließen. Möglichkeiten zur Selbstevaluation
sind dabei besonders zu berücksichtigen”. The CEFR (Council of Europe, 2011:
106-107), too, counts such study skills as an essential component of foreign
language competence.
4.2.1. Idioms
The following exercise adopted from Boers and Lindstromberg (2008) organizes
idioms according to the source domain they arise from. As Boers and Stengers
determined in a corpus-based study (2008: 376), some of the most frequently used
source domains include (a) vehicles & travelling, (b) war & aggression, and (c)
games & sports, all of which will be used in the following exercise. Other source
domains that could be selected include fauna & flora, food & cooking, clothes &
adornment etc., which are also found to be productive in the English language.
Next, teachers have to decide how many idioms students can realistically
learn in the course of one lesson. Rob Waring suggests on his website that
89
efficient learning strategies can enable students to learn as many as 30 to 40 words
per hour. More moderately, O’Dell and McCarthy (1997; 2001) suggest that 15 to
18 words per lesson should be a more realistic target. Depending on the
consequent amount of practice, ten to twelve of these words will be retained in the
students’ productive vocabulary. For this reason, 15 idioms were chosen for this
exercise. Of course, the exercise could be expanded at a later point in time by
adding new idioms that arise from the same source domains to the organizer, once
students have established a solid basis.
Besides the idiom, an explanation taken from the Oxford Dictionary of
English Idioms (Ayto, 2009) and an example sentence, the cards for the teacher
also include the etymology of the phrase if a relevant one exists. The origin of
more transparent idioms, such as “at the crossroads”, is not included in the cards.
Students will receive the same cards without the etymology in the last row. Here,
the idioms are categorized according to the source domains, but obviously
students will be given a jumbled pack of cards.
a) Vehicles & Travelling
show someone the ropes be thoroughly acquainted with the way
something is done
“He has been working in this company for 60 years and knows the ropes to
everything.”
In its literal sense, this expression goes back to the days of sailing ships, when
skill handling ropes was essential for any sailor. The idiom is found in various
forms, from the mid-19th
century onwards, e.g. “learn” or “understand the ropes”
and “show” or “teach someone the ropes”.
all hands on deck every member of a team
“It was all hands on deck to finish the project on time.”
90
An order to every member of a ship's crew to report to the deck immediately,
usually in an emergency. “All hands on deck” or “all hands to the pumps”, in
addition to their literal shipboard senses, are also used to indicate that all members
of a team are required to be involved.
in a rut
Following a fixed (especially tedious or
dreary) pattern of behaviour that is
difficult to change
“After ten years in the same job, she said she felt like being stuck in a rut.”
The “rut”, in this expression, is the deep groove worn by a wheel travelling many
times along the same track.
pick up steam Gradually grow in momentum, power
and influence
“The election campaign is picking up steam”.
at the crossroads
At a critical point when decisions
with far reaching consequences must
be made.
“After finishing her degree she was standing at the crossroads, wondering which
way to turn”.
Used since 1795 in figurative sense of "a turning point, a moment of decision
91
(a) War & Aggression
hit the ground running
Start something and proceed at a fast
pace with enthusiasm
“I like to prepare my to-do-list the night before so that I can hit the ground
running in the morning”.
This late 20th-century expression achieved the status of a cliché in the 1990s. It
seems likely to refer to military personnel disembarking rapidly from a helicopter,
though it cannot be definitely traced back to any 20th
century war. (Oxford
Dictionary of Idioms, 2004: 144)
fight a losing battle/ an
uphill battle
Try hard at something when there is no
chance that you will win/ struggle
against unfavourable circumstances
“She was fighting a losing battle in the argument: He would never change his
mind on the subject”.
“Unless you have a goal your learning will be an uphill struggle.”
with flying colours With distinction
“If he had only studied a little bit, he would have passed his exam with flying
colours”.
Formerly, in military contexts, flying colours meant having the regimental flag
flying as a sign of success or victory; I conquered army usually had to lower (or
strike) its colours. (Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, 2004: 113)
fall into line Conform with others or with accepted
behaviour
“Most countries have signed the treaty, but some are reluctant to fall into line.”
This phrase originally referred to soldiers arranging themselves into military
formation. (Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, 2004: 101)
92
be caught in the crossfire
suffer damage or harm inadvertently as
the result of a fight between two other
people or groups
“During a divorce, kids often get caught in the crossfire”.
The literal sense of the phrase, in a military context, is 'be trapped (and possibly
killed) by being between two opposing sides who are shooting at each other.
(Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, 2004: 66)
(b) Games & Sports
jump the gun Act before the proper or the appropriate
time
“Surely it’s jumping the gun to buy the ring before you even asked her to marry
you?”
In athletics, a competitor who jumps the gun sets off before the starting pistol has
been fired. The expression appears in the early 20th century as beat the gun.
hands down (especially of winning) easily and
decisively
“Nigel always won hands down easily in any argument.”
Originally a horse-racing expression, win hands down meant that a jockey was so
certain of victory in the closing stages of a race that he could lower his hands,
thereby relaxing his hold on the reins and ceasing to I urge on his horse.
a race against time a situation in which someone attempts
to do or complete something before a
particular time or before something else
happens
“His parents face a race against time as they try to raise the money necessary for
his treatment”.
93
give it your best shot Try your hardest
“If you give it your best shot, you might make it to the finals”.
This expression employs shot in the sense of “attempt,”
a usage dating from the mid-1700s.
get (back) into the swing of
things
Get used to (or return to) being easy
and relaxed about an activity or routine
you are engaged in
“It will probably take her a month working at her new job until she gets into the
full swing of things.”
The expression dates back to the mid-1800s and alludes to the vigour of a
swinging body in tennis.
95
4.2.2. Phrasal Verbs
The following exercise is based on Ruzka-Ostyn’s Word Power (2003) in which
she has organized a vast number of phrasal verbs according to the stereotypical
meaning of the preposition, such as IN as “being inside or entering a container”.
She argues that awareness of metaphors allows us to readily understand the many
expressions they’re based on and, hence, encourages students to group phrasal
verbs accordingly in their vocabulary learning (2003: 7). Every exercise is made
more comprehensible with a drawing, which represents the mental image schema
of the spatial relation expressed by the preposition.
Students who complete the following exercise familiarize themselves with
the more concrete meaning of the preposition “in” and then move on to discover
that containers can also be abstract. Situations and circumstances are also
regarded as containers.
IN: Situations and circumstances are viewed as containers
Choose the appropriate phrasal verb from the bank to fit the sentences below.
Adapt the tense and voice as needed.
fall in – swear in – zero in on – trade in – throw in – cram in – step in – give in –
tune in – sign in – join in – listen in –turn in
(1) The president of the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . this week.
(2) The speaker cleverly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .to the growing frustration of the
audience.
(3) Did you know Mary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . in love with John?
(4) If you want to keep up your English , . . . . . . . . . . . . regularly to the BBC.
96
(5) Participants are asked to . . . . . . . . . . . when they arrive, so that we know
who is staying here.
(6) The newly arrived children asked the others if they could . . . . . . . . . . .
(7) Our car is so old now, that we’ll have to . . . . . it . . . . . . . to get a new
one.
(8) After hours of begging, their father finally . . . . . . . . . . and promised them
a trip to the amusement park.
(9) We . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . as much sightseeing as possible on our trip to
New York.
(10) I couldn’t find anyone to . . . . . . . . . . . . for me so that I could take a break
from my caregiving duties.
(11) He managed to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a few words before he was interrupted
again.
Glossary: (1) sworn in: promised in an official ceremony to respect the laws of
the country, (2) zeroed in on: focus on, (3) fell in: develop romantic feelings for,
(4) tune in: listen to (5) sign in: make a record of your arrival, (6) join in:
participate in the game, (7) trade in: sell the car as partial payment for a new one,
(8) give in: yield under insistence, (9) cram in: to make a special effort although
there is hardly enough time,(10)step in: find a replacement, (11) throw in: to say a
few words
97
4.2.3. Evaluation Sheet
How helpful do I find this method in memorizing vocabulary?
How much time does it take me to use this method in my vocabulary learning?
5 minutes or less
Around 10 minutes
More than 10 minutes
Could I use this method without the help of my teacher?
No. Yes, with some more practice.
Yes, absolutely.
Are there any materials needed for the method (dictionary, textbook, internet etc.)? If yes, which?
Would I like to change or adapt this method somehow? If so, how?
98
5. Conclusion
This thesis has analysed the metaphorical expressions used in nine television
debates on the EU referendum in Great Britain on 23 June 2016. After defining
metaphor as a cognitive and linguistic device that shapes the human mind, the
theoretical approach was applied to an authentic set of linguistic data. The results
presented in the second part of the thesis show that the target domain CONTROL
was one of the most significant subjects of the debate. As the Leave campaign’s
slogan “Take back control” already conveys, CONTROL is conceptualized as a
physical object that can easily be transferred from the EU administration to the
British government. In addition, the orientational metaphor CONTROL IS UP was
used to add a positive evaluation to the goal the Leave side set. The
conceptualization of BRITAIN AS A CONTAINER, which is manifested in the
blended word form “Brexit”, suggests that nations are clearly delineated entities
that can easily close themselves off against external threats, such as immigration.
What is more, it conjured up a black and white image of membership, which
renders David Cameron’s argument of Britain having a special status within the
European Union futile. Simultaneously, a negative image of the European Union
is drawn by supporters of the Leave side. Firstly, the European Union is never
understood as a family member in the debates, which would be expected in
discussions about a large, multi-national organization. Secondly, HOUSE
metaphors are used to demonstrate Britain’s missing participation in constructing
common rules. At its most extreme, the discussion depicts the European Union as
a DESTRUCTIVE FORCE that is responsible for large-scale unemployment in
Southern European countries and overwhelming pressure on British resources.
This thesis does not take a therapeutic stance, i.e. it does not argue that
voters must be protected from manipulative language use of politicians. Since
there is empirical proof, however, that metaphor has a much more fundamental
function than stylistic embellishment, the results of this study are assumed to have
impacted and persuaded voters to some extent. Therefore, an awareness of the
metaphors that can influence human thought is crucial for voters and scholars
reviewing the EU referendum alike.
99
In addition to frequency, the thesis also took other factors of metaphorical
strength into account. Metaphorical expressions are particularly strong when they
conjure up vivid mental images. Such expressions were rare but all the more
salient in the corpus. General metaphorical expressions, on the other hand,
provide far less structure and have a far more subtle conceptualizing effect on our
minds. The EU IS A CONTAINER metaphor that gives rise to expressions, such as
“Brexit” and “being inside” or “ being outside the EU”, is difficult to detect in
everyday speech, yet the implications it brings undoubtedly have a strong impact
on the Brexit debate. What is more, these general metaphors occur with a much
higher frequency than strong metaphorical expressions. The CONTAINER metaphor
even preserves a monopoly on how to conceptualize Brexit. No other metaphors
to talk about Britain’s “leaving” the European Union were found in the corpus.
Since this study only worked with a very limited corpus, the findings can
only be seen as indicative of typical language use in the given context. A larger
set of linguistic data would be needed to determine the frequency and the
centrality of the conceptual metaphors in the Brexit debate. In addition, a larger
corpus that extends over a longer period of time could trace the origin of certain
metaphors, describe the different contexts they are used in and attempt to explain
why they become central or stay peripheral in terms of their plausibility and
argumentative force. The central metaphors in the television debates from June
have presumably developed over a longer period of time in the months or even
years preceding the final election. The “amicable divorce from the European
Union” that has been discussed above, for instance, first occurred in the 1990s
(Musolff, 2004: 14). It was not possible to trace this development within the scope
of this thesis. The findings presented in this study could also be compared to the
conceptual metaphors used after the result of the EU referendum has become
known. Moreover, a comparison between the metaphors used to conceptualize the
EU in Great Britain and other countries that are far less likely to leave, such as
France, Germany or Austria, would likely yield interesting results.
Last but not least, the thesis presented the importance of conceptual
metaphor theory for second language learning. While the literature convincingly
argues that the integration of conceptual metaphor in the classroom benefits all
100
four language skills, teaching materials that bridge the gap between theory and
practice are still scarce. Not only is conceptual metaphor not commonly
considered in student’s textbooks specifically designed for the classroom, but
there are also few dedicated monographs or articles that focus on practical issues
and provide materials for teachers. For this reason, the thesis attempted to
translate theoretical proposals into one elaborate lesson plan and a variety of
exercises that can be used continuously throughout the school year. Since it is
impossible to cover the wide range of metaphor application, this thesis focused
specifically on metaphorical competence and vocabulary learning. The first
competence is closely connected to Danesi’s (1993) notion of conceptual fluency
and requires learners to be able to comprehend, actively use and interpret
metaphorical expressions in their first and second language. Since the use of
conceptual metaphor on the issue of immigration has been observed in some detail
in the foregone study, this topic was chosen to train students’ understanding and
awareness of metaphorical expressions and consider their impact. Naturally, any
other topic that is of interest to the students could be prepared for the classroom in
a similar way. Secondly, the vocabulary centred exercises demonstrate how
conceptual metaphor can serve as an organizing tool in expanding lexis. Hereby,
students can acquire strategies for independent and life-long language learning.
101
Bibliography
Primary Sources
“EU: In or Out? With David Cameron”. 2 June 2016. Hosted by Kay Burley &
Faisal Islam. Sky News. Television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BFSJRH1q-A (17 November 2017).
“EU: In or Out? With Michael Gove”. 3 June 2016. Hosted by Kay Burley &
Faisal Islam. Sky News. Television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8D8AoC-5i8 (17 November 2017).
“Hilary Benn and Andrew Neil Interview”. 6 June 2016. Hosted by Andrew Neil.
BBC. Television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufvSSTdg2tE&t=1364s (17 November
2017).
“ITV Brexit Debate with David Cameron & Nigel Farage”. 7 June 2016. Hosted
by Julie Etchingham. ITV. Television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baCwRZ7Fbvc&t=2065s (17
November 2017).
“ITV Referendum Debate”. 9 June 2016. Hosted by Julie Etchingham. ITV.
Television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAzMktzipRc (17
November 2017).
“Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil Interview”. 10 June 2016. Hosted by Andrew
Neil. BBC. Television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaSQT7QnbWI&t=509s (17
November 2017).
“BBC Question Time Special With Michael Gove”. 15 June 2016. Hosted by
David Dimbleby. BBC. Television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9-jDRQuToo&t=2003s (17
November 2017).
102
“BBC Question Time Special With David Cameron”. 17 June 2016. Hosted by
David Dibleby. BBC. Television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBOdhFk7I4w (17 November 2017).
“BBC EU Brexit Referendum: The Great Debate”. 21 June 2016. Hosted by David
Dimbleby, Mishal Husain & Emily Maitlis. BBC. Television.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmGcsxeHFtg (17 November 2017).
Secondary Sources
Ahrens, Kathleen. 2011. “Examining conceptual metaphor models through lexical
frequency patterns: A case study of U.S. presidential speeches”. In Handl,
Sandra & Schmid, Hans-Jörg (Eds.) Windows to the Mind: Metaphor,
Metonymy and Conceptual Blending. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 167-
184.
Allen, William & Blinder, Scott. 2013. “Migration in the news: Portrayals of
immigrants, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in national British
newspapers, 2010 to 2012”. Migration Observatory report & COMPAS at
the University of Oxford. http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/Report-Migration_News.pdf (21 October 2017).
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and
the Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Andreou, Georgia & Galantomos, Loannis. 2008. “Designing a conceptual
syllabus for teaching metaphors and idioms in a foreign language context”.
Porta Linguarum 9, pp. 69-77.
Ayto, John. 2009. Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Azuma. Masumi. 2004. Metaphorical Competence in an EFL Context: The
Mental Lexicon and Metaphorical Competence of Japanese Students
(Unpublished PhD Thesis). University of Nottingham, Nottingham.
103
Barcelona, Antonio. 2003a. “Metonymy in cognitive linguistics: An analysis and
a few modest proposals”. In Cuyckens, Hubert, Berg, Thomas, Dirven,
René & Panther, Klaus-Uwe (Eds.) Motivation in Language: Studies in the
Honor of Günter Radden. Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Publishing, pp. 223-255.
Barcelona, Antonio. 2003b. “On the plausibility of claiming a metonymic
motivation for conceptual metaphor”. In Barcelona, Antonio (Ed.)
Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads. Berlin/ New York: Mouton
de Gruyter, pp. 31-58.
Bergen, Benjamin K. 2012. Louder than Words. New York: Basic Books.
Black, Max. 1955. “Metaphor”. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 55 (1954-
1955), pp. 273-294.
Black, Max. 1962. Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy.
Ithaca/ NY: Cornell University Press.
Black, Max. 1977. “More about metaphor”. Dialectica 31 (3/4), pp. 431-457.
Boers, Frank & Lindstromberg, Seth. 2008. “From empirical findings to
pedagogical practice”. In Boers, Frank & Lindstromberg, Seth (Eds.)
Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Teaching Vocabulary and
Phraseology. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 375-393.
Boers, Frank & Lindstromberg, Seth. 2009. Optimizing a Lexical Approach to
Instructed Second Language Acquisition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Boers, Frank & Stengers, Helene. 2008. “A quantitative comparison of the
English and Spanish repertoires of figurative idioms”. Boers, Frank &
Lindstromberg, Seth (Eds.) Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Teaching
Vocabulary and Phraseology. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp.
355-373.
Boers, Frank. 2000. “Metaphor awareness and vocabulary retention”. Applied
Linguistics 1 (4), pp. 553-571.
104
Bordoditsky, Lera. 2000. “Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through
spatial metaphors”. Cognition 75(1), pp. 1-28.
Boroditsky, Lera. 2001. “Does language shape thought? Mandarin and English
speakers’ conception of time”. Cognitive Psychology 43 (1), pp. 1-22.
Bredin, Hugh. 1984. “Metonymy”. Poetics Today 5 (1), pp. 45-48.
Brugman, Claudia & Lakoff, George. 1988. “Cognitive topology and lexical
networks”. In Small, Steve, Cotrell, Garrison & Tannenhaus, Michael
(Eds.) Lexical Ambiguity Resolution. Paolo Alto, CA: Morgan Kaufman,
pp. 477-508.
Cameron, Lynne & Deignan, Alice. 2003. “Combining large and small corpora to
investigate tuning devices around metaphor in spoken discourse”.
Metaphor and Symbol 18 (3), pp. 149-160.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2006. “Britain as a container: Immigration metaphors
in the 2005 election campaign”. Discourse Society 17 (5), pp. 563-581.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2009. “Metaphor and political communication”. In
Musolff, Andreas & Zinken, Jörg (Eds.) Metaphor and Discourse. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 97-115.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2011. Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power
of Metaphors (2nd
edition). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2014. Analysing Political Speeches: Rhetoric,
Discourse and Metaphor. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chilton, Paul & Ilyin, Mikhail. 1993. “Metaphor in political discourse: The case
of the ‘Common European House’”. Discourse and Society 4 (1), pp. 7-31.
Chilton, Paul. 2004. Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. New
York: Routledge.
105
Cislaru, Georgeta. 2007. “Metonymic modelling of discourse, discourse
modelling of metonymy: The case of the place-name based metonymies”.
Culture Language and Representation 5, pp. 93-110.
Clausner, Timothy C. & Croft, William. 1997. “Productivity and schematicity in
metaphors”. Cognitive Science 21 (3), pp. 247-82.
Condon, Nora. 2008. “How cognitive linguistic motivations influence the learning
of phrasal verbs”. In Boers, Frank & Lindstromberg, Seth (Eds.) Cognitive
Linguistic Approaches to Teaching Vocabulary and Phraseology. Berlin/
New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 133-158.
Council of Europe. 2011. Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Press Syndicate
of the University of Cambridge.
Crutchley, Alison. 2007. “Comprehension of idiomatic verb and particle
construction in 6- to 11-year-old children”. First Language 27 (3), pp.
203-226.
Dancygier, Barbara & Sweetser, Eve. 2014. Figurative Language. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Danesi, Marcel. 1993. “Metaphorical competence in second language acquisition
and second language learning: The neglected dimension”. In Alatis, James
(Ed.) Language, Communication and Social Meaning. Washington:
Georgetown University Press, pp. 489-500.
Danesi, Marcel. 1986. “The role of metaphor in second language pedagogy”.
Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata 18 (3), pp. 1-10.
Danesi, Marcel. 2008. “Conceptual errors in second language learning”. De Knop,
Sabine & de Rycker, Teun (Eds.) Cognitive Approaches to Pedagogical
Grammar. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 231-256.
Danesi, Marcel. 2016. “Conceptual fluency in second language teaching: An
overview of problems, issues, research findings and pedagogy”.
106
International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature 5 (1),
pp. 145-153.
De Landtsheer, Christ’l. 2009. “Collecting political meaning from the count of
metaphor”. In Musolff, Andreas & Zinken, Jörg (Eds.) Metaphor and
Discourse. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 79-96.
Deignan, Alice. 2011. “Deliberateness is not unique to metaphor: A response to
Gibbs”. Metaphor and the Social World 1 (1), pp. 57-60.
Del-Teso-Craviotto, Marisol. 2009. “Racism and xenophobia in immigrants’
discourse: The case of Argentines in Spain”. Discourse and Society 20 (5),
pp. 571-592.
Fairclough, Norman. 2001. Language and Power. London: Longman.
Feldman, Jeroma A. 2006. From Molecule to Metaphor: A Neural Theory of
Language. London. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fillmore, Charles J. 1982. “Frame semantics”. In The Linguistic Society of Korea
(Ed.) Linguistics in the Morning Calm. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing, pp.
111-137.
Genette, Gerard. 1980. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaka, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Gentner, Dedre, Imai, Mutsumi, & Boroditsky, Lera. 2002. “As time goes by:
Evidence for two systems in processing space → time metaphors”.
Language and Cognitive Processes 17 (5), pp. 537-565.
Gibbs, Raymond W. & O’Brien, Jennifer E. 1990. “Idioms and mental imagery:
The metaphorical motivation for idiomatic meaning”. Cognition 36 (1), pp.
35-68.
Gibbs, Raymond W. 1990. “Psycholinguistic studies on the conceptual basis of
idiomaticity”. Cognitive Linguistics 1 (4), pp. 417-451.
107
Gibbs, Raymond W. 1994. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language
and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gibbs, Raymond W., Leggit, John S. & Turner, Elizabeth A. 2002. “What’s
special about figurative language in emotional communication?” In
Fussell, Susan R. (Ed.) The Verbal Communication of Emotions. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 125-150.
Gibbs, Raymond W. 1999. “Speaking and thinking with metonymy”. In Panther,
Klaus-Uwe & Radden, Güntner (Eds.) Metonymy in Language and
Thought. Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, pp. 61-76.
Gibbs, Raymond W. 2011. “Are ‘deliberate’ metaphors really deliberate? A
question of human consciousness and action”. Metaphor and the Social
World 1 (1), pp. 26-52.
Grady, Joseph E. 1997. Foundations of Meaning: Primary Metaphors and
Primary Scenes (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). University of
California, Berkeley.
Grady, Joseph E. 1999. “A typology of motivation for conceptual metaphor:
Correlation vs. resemblance”. In Gibbs, Raymond W. & Steen, Gerard J.
(Eds.) Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing, pp. 79-100.
Handl, Sandra. 2011. The Conventionality of Figurative Language: A Usage-
Based Study. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag.
Hebb, Donald. 1949. The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological
Theory. New York: Wiley & Sons.
Hoang, Ha. 2014. “Metaphor and second language learning: The state of the
field”. The Electronical Journal for English as a Second Language 18 (2),
pp. 1-27.
Holme, Randal. 2004. Mind, Metaphor and Language Teaching. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
108
Hülsse, Rainer. 2006. “Imagine the EU: The metaphorical construction of a supra-
nationalist identity”. Journal of International Relations and Development
9, pp. 396-421.
Hutton, Christopher. 2001. “Cultural and political relativism, universalism and the
politics of linguistic: Dilemmas of a wouldbe progressive linguistics”. In
Dirven, Renè, Hawkins, Bruce & Sandikcioglu, Esra (Eds.) Language and
Ideology, Volume 1: Theoretical and Cognitive Approaches. Philadelphia/
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, pp. 277–296.
Jäkel, Olaf. 1997. Metaphern in abstrakten Diskursdomänen. Frankfurt am Main:
Peter Lang.
Jäkel, Olaf. 1999. “Kant, Blumenberg, Weinrich: Some forgotten contributions to
the cognitive theory of metaphor.” In Gibbs, Raymond W. & Steen,
Gerard J. (Eds.) Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Philadelphia/
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, pp.9-27.
Jakobson, Roman. 1971. “Two types of language and two types of aphasic
disturbances”. Jakobson, Roman (Ed.) Selected Writings Vol. 2.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 239-259.
John of Salisbury. 1990. Policraticus. Of the Frivolities of Courtiers and the
Footprints of Philosophers. Nederman, Cary J. (Ed.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, Christopher. 1999. “Metaphor vs. conflation in the acquisition of
polysemy: The case ‘see’”. In Hiraga, Masako K., Sinha, Chris & Wilcox,
Sherman (Eds.) Cultural, Typological and Psychological Issues in
Cognitive Linguistics: Selected Papers of the Biannual ICLA Meeting in
Albuquerque, July 1995. Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Publishing, pp. 155-169.
Koivisto-Alanko, Päivi & Tissari, Heli. 2006. “Sense and sensibility: Rational
thought versus emotion in metaphorical language“. In Stefanowitsch,
109
Anatol & Gries, Stefan Th. (Eds.) Corpus-Based Approaches to Metaphor
and Metonymy. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 191-213.
Koivisto-Alanko, Päivi. 2000. Abstract Words in Abstract Worlds: Directionality
and Prototypical Structure in the Semantic Change of English Nouns of
Cognition. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.
Koller. Veronika. 2006. “Of critical importance: Using electronic text corpora to
study metaphor in business media discourse“. In Stefanowitsch, Anatol &
Gries, Stefan T. (Eds.) Corpus-Based Approaches to Metaphor and
Metonymy. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 237-266.
Kövecses, Zoltán & Szabó, Péter. 1996. “Idioms: A view from cognitive
semantics”. Applied Linguistics 17 (3), pp. 285-299.
Kövecses, Zoltán. 1990. Emotion Concepts. New York: Springer.
Kövecses, Zoltán. 1998. “Are there any emotion-specific metaphors?” In
Angeliki, Athanasiadou & Tabaskowska, Elzbieta (Eds.) Speaking of
Emotion: Conceptualization and Expression. Berlin/ New York: Mouton
de Gruyter, pp. 127–151.
Kövecses, Zoltán. 2003. Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture and Body in
Human Feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kövecses, Zoltán. 2005. Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kövecses, Zoltán. 2009. “Metaphor, culture and discourse: The pressure of
coherence”. In Musolff, Andreas & Zinken, Jörg (Eds.) Metaphor and
Discourse. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11-24.
Kövecses, Zoltán. 2010. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kövecses, Zoltán. 2011. “Methodological issues in conceptual metaphor theory”.
In Handl, Sandra & Schmid, Hans-Jörg (Eds.) Windows to the Mind:
110
Metaphor, Metonymy and Conceptual Blending. Berlin: De Gruyter
Mouton.
Krasnoboka, Natalya & De Landtsheer, Christ’l. 2007. “Broadcasting the orange
revolution: Rhetoric of the Ukrainian media during the last presidential
campaign”. In Farnen, Russell F., Dekker, Henk, De Landtsheer, Christ’l,
Sünker, Heinz & German, Daniel B. (Eds.) Political Culture, Socialization
and Education: Interdisciplinary and Cross-National Perspectives for a
New Century. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. London/
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied
Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. 2003. Metaphors We Live By (2nd
edition).
London/ Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George & Turner, Mark. 1989. More than Cool Reason: A Field Study to
Poetic Metaphor. London/ Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George, Espenson, Jane & Schwartz, Alan. 1991. Master Metaphor List,
second edition. University of Caolifornia at Berkeley
<http://araw.mede.uic.edu/ ~alansz/metaphor/ (10.10.2017).
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories
Reveal about the Mind. London/ Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George. 1991. “Metaphor and war: The metaphor system used to justify
war in the Gulf”. Peace Research 23 (2/3), pp. 25-32.
Lakoff, George. 1993. “The contemporary theory of metaphor”. In Ortony,
Andrew (Ed.) Metaphor and Thought (2nd
edition). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 202-251.
111
Lakoff, George. 1996. Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals
Don’t. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George. 2002. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (2nd
edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George. 2008. “The neural theory of language”. In Gibbs, Raymond W.
(Ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. New York:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 17-38.
Lazar, Gillian. 1996. “Using figurative language to expand students’ vocabulary”.
ELT Journal 50 (1), pp. 43-51.
Lazar, Gillian. 2003. Meanings and Metaphors. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Levin, Samuel R. 1977. The Semantics of Metaphor. Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press.
Lewis, Michael. 1997. Implementing the Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and
a Way Forward. Boston: Thomson Heinle.
Littlemore, Jeanette & Low, Graham. 2006. Figurative Thinking and Foreign
Language Learning. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Littlemore, Jeanette, Chen, Phyllis T., Koester, Almut & Barnden, John. 2011.
“Difficulties in metaphor comprehension faced by students whose first
language is not English”. Applied Linguistics 32 (4), pp. 408-429.
Littlemore, Jeanette. 2001a. “Metaphoric competence: A language learning
strength of students with holistic cognitive style?”. TESOL Quarterly 35
(3), pp. 459-491.
Littlemore, Jeanette. 2001b. “The use of metaphor in university lectures and the
problems that it causes for overseas students”. Teaching in Higher
Education 6 (3), pp. 333-349.
Lodge, David. 1977. The Modes of Modern Writing. London: Arnold.
112
Low, Graham, Littlemore, Jeanette & Koester Almust. 2008. “Metaphor use in
three UK university lectures”. Applied Linguistics 29 (3), pp. 428-455.
Luke, Timothy W. 2004. “Megametaphorics: Rereading globalization and
virtualization as rhetorics of world politics”. In Beer, Francis A. & De
Landtsheer, Christ’l (Eds.) Metaphorical World Politics. East Lansing:
Michigan State University Press, pp. 237-258.
Macmillan Education. 2005. Phrasal Verbs Plus. Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Manners, Ian & Whitman, Richard G. 2003. “The ‘difference engine’:
Constructing and representing the international identity of the European
Union”. Journal of European Public Policy 10 (3), pp. 380–404.
McCarthy, O’Keeffe & Walsh, Steve. 2010. Vocabulary Matrix: Understanding,
Learning, Teaching. Hampshire: Heinle, Cengage Learning EMEA.
McGlone, Matthew S., & Harding, Jennifer L. 1998. “Back (or forward?) to the
future: The role of perspective in temporal language comprehension”.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
24 (5), pp. 1211-1223.
Miller, George A. 1993. “Images and models, similes and metaphor”. In Ortony,
Andrew (Ed.) Metaphor and Thought (2nd
edition). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 357-400.
Mio, Jeffery S. 1997. “Metaphor and politics”. Metaphor and Symbol 12 (2), pp.
113-133.
Müller, Cornelia. 2011. “Are ‘deliberate’ metaphors really deliberate? A question
of human consciousness and action”. Metaphor and the Social World 1(1),
pp.61-66.
Musolff, Andreas & Zinken, Jürgen. 2009. Metaphor and Discourse. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
113
Musolff, Andreas. 2004. Metaphor and Political Discourse: Analogical
Reasoning in Debates about Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Musolff, Andreas. 2016. Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and Scenarios.
London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Najak, Nandini P. & Gibbs, Raymond W. “Conceptual knowledge in the
interpretation of idioms”. Journal of Experimental Psychology 119 (3), pp.
315-330.
Narayanan, Srinivas. 1997. Embodiment in Language Understanding: Sensory-
Motor Representations for Metaphoric Reasoning about Event
Descriptions (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). University of
California, Berkeley.
Nation, Paul. 2000. “Learning vocabulary in lexical sets: Dangers and guidelines”.
TESOL Journal 9 (2), pp. 6-10.
O’Dell, Felicity & McCarthy, Michael. 1997. English Vocabulary in Use.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Dell, Felicity & McCarthy, Michael. 2001. Test Your English Vocabulary in
Use. Upper Intermediate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Paivio, Allan. 1986. Mental Representations: A Dual-Coding Approach. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Partington, Alan. 2006. “Metaphors, motifs and similes across discourse types:
Corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) at work“. In Stefanowitsch,
Anatol & Gries, Stefan Th. (Eds.) Corpus-Based Approaches to Metaphor
and Metonymy. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter pp. 267-304. .
Petrica, Monica. 2011. “ ‘Overt’ vs. ‘covert’ cultural variance in metaphor usage:
Europe vs. Malta and the EU membership debate”. In Handl, Sandra &
Schmid, Hans-Jörg (Eds.) Windows to the Mind: Metaphor, Metonymy and
Conceptual Blending. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 143-166.
114
Pollio, Howard R., Barlow, Jack M., Fine, Hardol J. & Pollio, Marilyn R. 1977.
Psychology and the Poetics of Growth: Figurative Language in
Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Education. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Pragglejaz Group. 2007. “MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used
words in discourse”. Metaphor and Symbol 22 (1), pp. 1–39.
Reddy, Michael J. 1979. “The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our
language about language”. In Ortony, Andrew (Ed.) Metaphor and
Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 284-310.
Richards, Ivor A. 1936. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. London: Oxford University
Press.
Rudzka-Ostyn, Brygida. 2003. Word Power: Phrasal Verbs and Compounds - A
Cognitive Approach. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Rundell, Michael & Fox, Gwyneth (Eds.). 2002. Macmillan English Dictionary
for Advanced Learners. Oxford: Macmillan Education.
Rundell, Michael. 2001. “Cats, conversations and metaphor”. Humanising
Language Teaching 3. www.hltmag.co.uk.Pilgrims (08.11.2017).
Schimmelfennig, Frank. 2001. “Liberal identity and post-nationalist inclusion:
The Eastern enlargement of the European Union”. In Cederman, Lars-Erik
(Ed.) Constructing Europe’s Identity: The External Dimension. Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner, pp. 165–86.
Schmitt, Norbert. 2008. “Review article: Instructed second language vocabulary
learning”. Language Teaching Research 12 (3), pp. 329-363.
Scott, James W. 2005. “The EU and ‘Wider Europe’: Toward an alternative
geopolitics of regional cooperation?”. Geopolitics 10 (3), pp. 429-454.
Searle, John R. 1979. Expressions and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech
Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
115
Searle, John R. 1993. “Metaphor”. In Ortony, Andrew (Ed.) Metaphor and
Thought (2nd
edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 83-
111.
Sökmen, Anita J. 1997. “Current trends in teaching second language vocabulary”.
Schmitt, Norbert & McCarty, Michael (Eds.) Vocabulary: Description,
Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.
237-257.
Sontag, Susan. 1991. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. London:
Penguin.
Steen, Gerard & Gibbs, Raymond W. 1999. “Introduction”. In Gibbs, Raymond
W. & Steen, Gerard J. (Eds.) Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics.
Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, pp. 1-8.
Steen, Gerard J. 1999. “From linguistic to conceptual metaphor in five steps”. In
Gibbs, Raymond W. & Steen, Gerard J. (Eds.) Metaphor in Cognitive
Linguistics. Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Steen, Gerard J. 2007. “Finding metaphor in discourse: Pragglejaz and beyond”.
Culture, Language and Representation 5, pp. 9-25.
Steen, Gerard. 2008. “The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-
dimensional model of metaphor”. Metaphor and Symbol 23 (4), pp. 213-
241.
Steen, Gerard. 2011. “What does ‘really deliberate’ really mean? More thoughts
on metaphor and consciousness and action”. Metaphor and the Social
World 1 (1), pp. 53-56.
Stefanowitch, Anatol & Gries, Stefan T. 2005. “Covarying collexemes”. Corpus
Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 1, pp. 1-43.
Stefanowitch, Anatol. 2004. “HAPPINESS in English and German: A metaphorical-
pattern analysis”. In Achard, Michel & Kemmer, Suzanne (Eds.)
Language, Culture, and Mind. Stanford: CSLI, pp. 137–149.
116
Stefanowitsch, Anatol. 2006a. “Corpus-based approaches to metaphor and
metonymy”. In Stefanowitsch, Anatol & Gries, Stefan Th. (Eds.) Corpus-
Based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy. Berlin/ New York:
Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1-16.
Stefanowitsch, Anatol. 2006b. “Words and their metaphors: A corpus-based
approach”. In Stefanowitsch, Anatol & Gries, Stefan Th. (Eds.) Corpus-
Based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy. Berlin/ New York:
Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 63-105.
Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics: The Mind-as-Body
Metaphor in Semantic Structure and Semantic Change. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Tekin, Beyza C. 2010. Representation and Othering in Discourse: The
Construction of Turkey in the EU Context. Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing.
The British National Corpus, version 3 (BNC XML Edition). 2007. Distributed by
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, on behalf of the BNC
Consortium. URL: http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ (6.12.2017).
Tissari, Heli. 2003. LOVEscapes: Changes in Prototypical Senses and Cognitive
Metaphors since 1500. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.
Tsoukas, Haridimos. 1991. “The missing link, a transformational view of
metaphors in organizational science”. Academy of Management Review 16
(3), pp. 566-585.
Turner, Mark. 1991. Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive
Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Twardzisz, Piotr. 2013. The Language of Interstate Relations. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
117
Ungerer, Friedrich & Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2006. An Introduction to Cognitive
Linguistics (2nd
edition). Harlow: Longman.
Van der Valk, Ineke. 2001. “Parliamentary discourse on immigration and
nationality in France”. In Wodak, Ruth & van Dijk, Teun A. (Eds.) Racism
at the Top: Parliamentary Discourses on Ethnic Issues in Six European
States. Klagenfurt: Drava Verlag, pp. 221-260.
Van der Valke, Ineke. 2003. “Right-wing parliamentary discourse on immigration
in France”. Discourse and Society 14 (3), pp. 309–348.
Van Dijk, Teun A. 2000. “On the analysis of parliamentary debates on
immigration”. In Reisigl, Martin & Wodak, Ruth (Eds.) The Semiotics of
Racism: Approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis. Vienna: Passagen
Verlag, pp. 85-104.
Van Dijk, Teun A. 2006. “Discourse and manipulation”. Discourse and Society 17
(3), pp. 359-383.
Van Ham, Peter. 2001. European Integration and the Postmodern Condition:
Governance, Democracy, Identity. London: Routledge.
Vertessen, Dieter & De Landtsheer, Christ’l. 2007. “A metaphorical election
style: Metaphor use at election times”. In Pikalo, J & Carver, T (Eds.)
Politics, Language and Metaphor. London: Routledge, pp. 272-285.
Voss, James F., Kennet, Joel, Wiley, Jennifer & Engstler-Schooler, Tonya Y.E.
1992. “Experts at debates: The use of metaphor in the U.S. senate debate
on the Gulf Crisis”. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 7 (3/4), pp. 197-214.
Waring, Rob. 2015. “Second language vocabulary”. Rob Waring’s Website.
http://www.robwaring.org/vocab/index.html (29.10.2017).
Warren, Beatrice. 2004. “Anaphoric pronouns of metonymic expressions”.
Metaphoric.de 7, pp. 105-114.
118
Wilson, Nicole J. & Gibbs, Raymond W. 2007. “Real and imagined body
movement primes metaphor comprehension”. Cognitive Science 31 (4),
pp. 721-731.
Yu, Ning. 1998. The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor: A Perspective from
Chinese. Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Yu, Ning. 2009. From Body to Meaning in Culture. Philadelphia/ Amsterdam:
John Benjamins Publishing.
119
Eidesstattliche Erklärung
Ich erkläre hiermit an Eides statt durch meine eigenhändige Unterschrift, dass ich
die vorliegende Arbeit selbstständig verfasst und keine anderen als die
angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel verwendet habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich
oder inhaltlich den angegebenen Quellen entnommen wurden, sind als solche
kenntlich gemacht.
Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch nicht
als Magister-/Master-/Diplomarbeit/Dissertation eingereicht.
Innsbruck, Dezember 2017 ___________________________
Carina Rützler
Recommended