Metaphoric Language Use in a Sample of Modern Political Discourse on Iran-West Relations

Subject Areas :

Somayyeh Jafarnezhad ¹ , Bahloul Salmani ² , Hossein Sadegh Oghli ³

1 - English Language Department, Sarab Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sarab, Iran
2 - Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
3 - English Language Department, Sarab Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sarab, Iran

Received: 2020-04-09 Accepted : 2020-09-18 Published : 2021-04-01

Keywords: conceptual metaphor, source domains, political articles, Critical Metaphor Analysis,

Abstract :

The present study was carried out with the purpose of examining the role of metaphorical language in the critical discourse analysis (CDA) of political texts based on a modern framework postulated by Kövecses (2015). The corpus of the study consisted of thirty-thousand words chosen as a textual sample to see which source conceptual domains are used and what generic/discursive attributes emerge upon the analysis. It was prepared through systematic random sampling from different editorial articles in Western political magazines on the relations between Iran and the West in the time span of 2010-2019. Then, Critical Metaphor Analysis was used to explain the trend and patterns in the political articles, mostly lending support to previous research by authority figures in critical and political metaphor analysis that metaphors are used in shaping political thinking, in aiding political persuasion, and in steering cognitive scenarios and models towards the shaping of interpretations of the nations as person or body metaphors. Finally, the study lent ample support to this latter view in its textual findings of the conceptual metaphors used. The findings of the study provide foreign language education in general and the EFL classrooms in particular, with some implications for further research.

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