Metaphor and Political Discourse Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe [Paperback]

Far from being rhetorical ornaments, metaphors play a central role in public discourse, as they shape the structure of political categorisation and argumentation. Drawing on a very large bilingual corpus, this book, now in paperback, analyses the distribution of 'metaphor scenarios' in more than a decade of public discourse on European integration, elucidating differences in UK and German attitudes and argumentation. The corpus analysis leads to a refinement of cognitive metaphor theory by systematically relating conceptual, semantic and argumentation levels and incorporating the historical dimension of metaphor evolution. Finally, drawing on examples of metaphor negotiation and on a reassessment of Hobbes' concept of metaphor in Leviathan, the book highlights the ethical dimension of metaphor in politics.Andreas Musolff provides an analysis of the function of metaphor in political discourse, based on material from an extensive corpus of British and German press coverage of EU politics between 1989 and 2001. The analysis of distributions of 'metaphor scenarios' in the two corpus samples reveals differences in attitude and argumentative tendencies and leads to a refinement of cognitive metaphor theory. The ethical dimension of metaphor in politics is further explored with reference to Hobbes' Leviathan.Acknowledgements
Introduction: Metaphor and Politics
Conceptual Domains and Scenarios
Analogical Argument in Political Discourse
Corpora and the Semantics of Metaphor
Europe as a Body Politic
Discourse History in a Metaphor Corpus
Metaphor Negotiation
Metaphor as Deception
Open and Closed Metaphor Scenarios
References
Index