What Makes Metaphors Manipulative Tools?

Manipulation implies a conscious choice from speakers to trigger a change of opinion in the interlocutors and to make them accept their own point of view, i.e. their own vision of the world. As pointed out by Goatly [2007], Charteris-Black [2005, 2014] or Van Dijk [1998], metaphors can be used as manipulative tools. Metaphors have traditionally been considered as figures of speech used by rhetoricians to convince crowds; cognitivists have demonstrated that they are figures of thought as well, which partly accounts for their manipulative potential. The three underlying reasons to this are, among others, the highlighting-hiding process, the existence of asymmetrical metaphors, and the multivalency of metaphors. The manipulative potential of metaphors is examined in twelve speeches from pro-life supporters, ranging from 2006 to 2019. One of the main ideological debates going on in the US has been on abortion, as the pro-life movement has grown stronger in recent years and has been threatening the right to abortion guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. The study of the metaphors in those speeches has enabled us to highlight how pro-lifers manipulate people regarding the apprehension of reality by systematically using a limited number of conceptualizations.

Brexit and the Myth of Grandeur

The decision by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union came as a shock to many. A key player during the referendum campaign was the Vote Leave organisation which managed to convince people that they would be better off outside the European project. Their success was made all the easier as Euroscepticism had been running deep in the country for decades. It is on this fertile ground that Vote Leavers drew to persuade people of the necessity to leave. Using critical metaphor analysis, this paper examines the way Vote Leavers won the argument by developing three political myths, which, once combined, conjured up the notion of British grandeur. Drawing on Jonathan Charteris-Black’s seminal works on the relation between metaphors and the creation of political myths in political rhetoric, this paper posits that the Brexit debate was not won solely on political ground and that the manipulative power of metaphors may have also been a key element. This might explain the current political deadlock, as political solutions might not provide the answers to the questions raised during the campaign.

Representations of climate in the English-speaking press: building a metaphorical interdiscourse

La presse représente, par essence, un discours intertextuel composé de citations explicites, mais également de références plus implicites qui la placent dans un interdiscours complexe. En particulier, il est admis que les médias s’inspirent largement les uns des autres, créant entre différents articles, genres et publications des liens intertextuels et interdiscursifs qui sont susceptibles d’évoluer dans le temps. La présente étude se propose d’analyser ces liens et, plus particulièrement, ceux constitués par les métaphores appliquées au domaine du climat telles qu’elles sont employées dans la presse généraliste anglophone. La métaphore, qu’elle soit pédagogique ou constitutive d’une théorie, est ici définie comme une projection d’un domaine vers un autre créant une analogie qui permet de mieux comprendre le domaine spécialisé concerné. Le phénomène qui nous intéresse ici est celui de la circulation des métaphores entre presse et discours spécialisé et, au sein du discours de presse, entre journaux, aires géographiques et périodes de temps. Afin de comprendre ce phénomène, un corpus d’articles de presse portant sur le changement climatique publiés dans le Daily Telegraph, le Guardian, le New York Times et USA Today entre 2014 et 2017 a été constitué. Celui-ci est comparé à un corpus de Earth Negotiation Bulletins, rapports issus de la COP21 en 2015. Les métaphores liées au domaine du climat ont été identifiées et analysées notamment à l’aide du logiciel WMatrix et de son outil d’identification des domaines sémantiques. Il apparaît ainsi que les journaux s’inspirent des textes spécialisés, mais n’abordent pas nécessairement les métaphores de la même manière. La période, l’aire géographique et la ligne éditoriale des journaux influencent également l’usage des métaphores.

“How to be happy” according to Cosmopolitan: The metaphors of happiness at the service of positive psychology and neoliberalism ideology

The metaphorical representation of happiness in the women’s magazine industry appears to be of particular interest at the moment. Indeed, different political, social and economic actors have made happiness become one of the main objectives of Western societies, both at the individual (self-fulfillment, satisfaction, happiness) and at the collective (workplace wellness, well-being of society) level. However, beneath these laudable ideals, and despite their altruistic, apolitical and ideology-free appearance, there lies a discourse that pursues very clear objectives of benefit only to certain interest groups [Illouz & Cabanas 2018]. The women’s press represents a privileged source in the understanding of the expectations faced by women [Blandin 2018] and, perhaps in a more general way, by individuals in a particular culture. Finally, the metaphors used enable us to analyze certain thought patterns specific to some discourses [Charteris-Black 2004]. The aim of this paper is thus to understand how happiness is represented metaphorically in Cosmopolitan magazine and to determine whether this representation corresponds to an ideological agenda. A corpus-based analysis of the metaphors of happiness used in the Cosmopolitan magazine has been conducted. The results show that most of these metaphors can be categorized according to six conceptual patterns related to the notions of ‘strength’ and ‘limit’. The metaphors of happiness found in this corpus are shown to be ideologically charged and strongly related to positive psychology and neoliberal ideology.

Migrants, Metaphors and Manipulation: a Multimodal Case Study of Trump’s Speeches on Immigration (2015-2017)

This article intends to analyze the use of metaphors in a corpus of Donald Trump’s speeches on immigration; its main goal is to determine how migrants were depicted in the 2016 American presidential election, and how metaphor manipulated voters in the creation of this image. This study is multimodal since not only the linguistic aspect of speeches but also gestures are considered. The first part consists in presenting an overview of the theories on metaphor. It provides the theoretical framework and develops the main tenets of the ‘Conceptual Metaphor Theory’ (CMT). The second part deals with multimodality and presents what modes and gestures are. The third part provides the corpus and methodology. The last part consists in the corpus study and provides the main source domains as well as other rhetorical tools that are used by Trump to depict migrants and manipulate voters.

The persuasive vs. manipulative power of multimodal metaphors in advertising discourse

This is a conceptual paper whose purpose is, first, to contribute to the definition and understanding of features that could help to trace a demarcation line between the notions of persuasion and manipulation; second, to enquire into some of the possible ways of measuring the manipulative, as opposed to persuasive potential of metaphors and determine whether the use of metaphors necessarily entails a form of manipulation and if so, how; third, to study the implications of the degree of lexicalisation of a metaphor for its persuasive / manipulative force; finally, to enquire into the proportional relationship between multimodality and manipulative potential. In other words, my goal is to understand whether multimodal metaphors bear greater potential for manipulation as compared to their monomodal counterparts. These enquiries are addressed within the framework of the theory of semiotics and pragmatics developed by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). To ground my argument some examples of promotional metaphors from the car industry are discussed.

Metaphor as the Distorting Mirror of Brexit: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Metaphors and Manipulation in the Brexit Debate

This article offers a corpus-based inquiry into the use of metaphor in the Brexit debate. This study aims to stress the link between manipulation and the metaphors that are used to talk about Brexit. It mainly focuses on the cognitive dimension of metaphor, following the Conceptual Metaphor Theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson. The methodology is largely inspired by Charteris-Black’s analysis in three steps: identification, interpretation and explanation. The corpus includes political speeches from various British politicians who strongly got involved in the debate, such as Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron. In addition, two cases of multimodal metaphors are closely analysed. The article suggests looking at the links between the conceptual domains at the roots of the metaphors encountered in the corpus and the act of manipulating.

Парцеллят и сегмент: к вопросу о нетривиальных синтаксических позициях словоформ в русском языке

Парцеллят и сегмент – нетривиальные синтаксические позиции словоформ, участвующие в выражении субъективных смыслов. Обе позиции выделяются по отношению к базовой части: парцеллят обычно следует за ней, а сегмент ей предшествует. Парцелляция и сегментированная синтаксическая конструкция (именительный темы) являются важными грамматическими механизмами, которые позволяют субъекту речи в соответствии с коммуникативной целеустановкой адекватно выразить ту или иную мысль.