Title: Coercive metaphors in news headlines: a cognitive-pragmatic approach
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2014, vol. 40, iss. 1, pp. [149]-173
Extent
[149]-173
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2014-1-8
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/131487
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
This article explores the application of metaphors in news headlines with a view to interrogating their potential for coercion. Coercion in news discourse is understood as a strategic deployment of pragma-linguistic devices, including metaphors, to foreground the representations of socio-political reality that are compatible with the interests of the news outlet rather than those that inform public debate. It is argued that coercion can be exposed through systematic discourse analysis. Methodologically, the study aims to integrate the cognitive and pragmatic approaches to metaphor in regarding it as both a conceptual building block of news representations and a strategic framing device in news discourse. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of a sample of metaphors excerpted from a corpus of 400 most-read headlines from one of the most visited English-language newspaper sites The Daily Mail is conducted to illustrate such coercive applications of metaphor as simplification, imaging, animalization, confrontation, (de)legitimization, emotionalization, and dramatization. In the course of the analysis it is demonstrated how certain ideologically-biased representations can be coerced through figurative language.
References
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[41] Santa Ana, Otto (1999) " 'Like an Animal I Was Treated': Anti-immigrant Metaphor in U.S. Public Discourse." Discourse and Society 11 (1), 191–224.
[42] Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson (2008) "A Deflationary Account of Metaphor". In: Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 84–105.
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[44] Tannen, Deborah (1999) Argument Culture. New York: Ballantine Press.
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[2] Bell, Allan (1991) The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.
[3] Bernstein, J. M. (1991) Introduction to The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture by Theodor W. Adorno. London: Routledge, 1–28.
[4] Cap, Piotr (2006) Legitimization in Political Discourse: A Cross-disciplinary Perspective on the Modern US War Rhetoric. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.
[5] Charteris-Black, Jonathan (2005) Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
[6] Charteris-Black, Jonathan (2006) "Britain as a Container: Immigration Metaphors in the 2005 Election Campaign". Discourse and Society 17 (5), 563–581.
[7] Chilton, Paul (1996) Security Metaphors: Cold War Discourse from Containment to Common House. New York: Peter Lang.
[8] Chilton, Paul (2004) Analyzing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
[9] Chovanec, Jan (2010) "Legitimation through differentiation: Discursive construction of Jacques Le Worm Chirac as an opponent to military action." In: Okulska, Urszula and Piotr Cap (eds.) Current Directions in Political Discourse Analysis: Methodological and Critical Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 61–81.
[10] Chovanec, Jan (2014) Pragmatics of Tense and Time in News: From Canonical Headlines to Online News Texts. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
[11] Coulson, Seana (2001) Semantic Leaps. Frame-shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[12] Fabiszak, Małgorzata (2007) A Conceptual Metaphor Approach to War Discourse and its Implications. Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University Press.
[13] Fairclough, Norman (1995) Media Discourse. London: Longman.
[14] Fauconnier, Gilles and Mark Turner (2002) The Way we Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.
[15] Fowler, Roger (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.
[16] Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. (ed.) (2008) The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[17] Goatly, Andrew (2007) Washing the Brain: Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
[18] Grady, Jay (1999) "A Typology of Motivation for Conceptual Metaphors. Correlations vs. Resemblance". In: Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr and Gerard J. Steen (eds.) Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 79–100.
[19] Halliday, Michael A. K. (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
[20] Hart, Christopher (2010) Critical Discourse Analysis and Cognitive Science: New Perspectives on Immigration Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
[21] Herrera Soler, Honesto (2008) "A Metaphor Corpus in Business Press Headlines." Iberica 15, 51–70.
[22] Jeffries, Leslie (2010) Critical Stylistics: The Power of English. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
[23] Johnson, Mark (2008) "Philosophy's Debt to Metaphor." In: Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 39–52.
[24] Koller,Veronika (2005) "Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Cognition: Evidence from Business Media Discourse." Discourse and Society 16 (2), 199–224. | DOI 10.1177/0957926505049621
[25] Kövecses, Zoltan (2005) Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[26] Krzeszowski, Tomasz (1997) Angels and Devils in Hell: Elements of Axiology in Semantics. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Energeia.
[27] Lakoff, George (2002) Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
[28] Lakoff, George (2008) "The Neural Theory of Metaphor." In: Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 17–38.
[29] Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[30] Molek-Kozakowska, Katarzyna (2009) "Metaphor as a Rhetorical Device in U.S. Interventionist Discourse: A CDA Review of Recent Metaphors of War and Terror." In: Wąsik, Zdzisław and Józef Zaprucki (eds.) Słowo jako wyraz duchowości człowieka. Jelenia Góra: Kolegium Karkonoskie, 55–70.
[31] Molek-Kozakowska, Katarzyna (2010) "Personalization in Political Discourse: Its pragma-linguistic Realizations and Potential Persuasive Effects." In: Witczak-Plisiecka, Iwona (ed.) Pragmatic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics: Pragmatics of Semantically-restricted Domains. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 51–64.
[32] Molek-Kozakowska, Katarzyna (2011) Discursive Exponents of the Ideology of Counterculture. Opole: Opole University Press.
[33] Molek-Kozakowska, Katarzyna (2012) "Multiple Ideologies in the Media Construction of Women in Politics: A Case Study of Gender Parity Debate in Poland." Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines (CADAAD) Journal 5 (2), 72–87.
[34] Molek-Kozakowska, Katarzyna (2013) "Towards a Pragma-linguistic Framework for the Study of Sensationalism in News Headlines." Discourse and Communication 7 (2), 173–197. | DOI 10.1177/1750481312471668
[35] Musolff, Andreas (2004) Metaphor and Political Discourse: Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
[36] Pragglejaz Group (2007) "MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse." Metaphor and Symbol 22 (1), 1–39.
[37] Reah, Danuta (1998) The Language of Newspapers. London: Routledge.
[38] Richardson, John (2007) Analysing Newspapers. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
[39] Reisigl, Martin and Ruth Wodak (2001) Discourse and Discrimination. Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London: Routledge.
[40] Sandikcioglu, Esra (2000) "More Metaphorical Warfare in the Gulf: Orientalist Frames in News Coverage." In: Barcelona, Antonio (ed.) Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads: A Cognitive Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 299–320.
[41] Santa Ana, Otto (1999) " 'Like an Animal I Was Treated': Anti-immigrant Metaphor in U.S. Public Discourse." Discourse and Society 11 (1), 191–224.
[42] Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson (2008) "A Deflationary Account of Metaphor". In: Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 84–105.
[43] Stern, Joseph (2008) "Metaphor, Semantics and Context." In: Gibbs, Raymond W. Jr. (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 262–279.
[44] Tannen, Deborah (1999) Argument Culture. New York: Ballantine Press.
[45] Van Dijk, Teun A. (1998) Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: SAGE.
[46] Van Dijk, Teun A. (2001) "Critical Discourse Analysis." In: Schriffin, Deborah, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi E. Hamilton (eds.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell, 352–371.
[47] Van Dijk, Teun A. (2006) "Discourse and Manipulation." Discourse and Society 17 (2), 359–383. | DOI 10.1177/0957926506060250
[48] Van Leeuwen, Theo (2007) "Legitimation in Discourse and Communication." Discourse and Communication 1 (1), 91–112.