The metaphorical construction of âpeopleâ in the Iranian political discourse
A cognitive critical metaphor analysis
äºInternational Review of PragmaticsSearch for other papers by Ali Basarati in
Current site
Google Scholar
Search for other papers by Reza Kazemian in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
The present paper seeks to examine the metaphorical structures that conceptualise people and their status and role in the discourse of the Iranian Supreme Leader. Drawing upon critical cognitive metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004) and the theory of agency in language (Duranti, 2004), we approached 300 speeches of the Iranian Supreme Leader from 1997 to 2023 to figure out how the agency of people in different areas is controlled and constricted by the conceptual properties of the target domains such as war, fight, and prevention. We indicated that the metaphor of fight is employed to conceptualise the ideological and political activism of people and developmental programmes. The metaphor of prevention renders knowledge and consciousness as influential instruments in insulating the IRI from the threats of the enemies. We also found that the metaphor of controllable objects confiscates peopleâs controlled and constricted agency and conceptualises them as objects of control.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1999. Towards the Philosophy of the Act. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
-
Kazemian, Reza & Somayeh Hatamzadeh. 2022. COVID-19 in English and Persian: a cognitive linguistic study of illness metaphors across languages. Metaphor and Symbol 37: 152â170.
-
Kazemian, Reza, Hadaegh Rezaei & Somayeh Hatamzadeh. 2022. Unraveling the force dynamics in conceptual metaphors of COVID-19: a multilevel analysis. Language and Cognition 14: 437â455.
-
Black, Max. 1962. Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Thought. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
-
BogetiÄ, Ksenija. 2024. Military metaphors in the discourses of the pandemic in two post-Yugoslav states: literal associations and historization of crisis. Metaphor and the Social World 14: 64â84.
-
Cameron, Lynne & Graham Low. 1999. Researching and Applying Metaphor. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
-
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
-
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2014. Metaphor in Media: Selected Studies. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
-
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2011. Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
-
Chilton, Paul. 2004. Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
-
Duranti, Alessandro (ed.). 2004. A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell.
-
Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold.
-
Gibbs Jr, Raymond W. 2015. The allegorical character of political metaphors in discourse. Metaphor and the Social World 5: 264â282.
-
Giddens, Anthony. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
-
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuralism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
-
Group, Pragglejaz. 2007. MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol 22: 1â39.
-
Hart, Christopher. 2017. âRiots engulfed the cityâ: an experimental study investigating the legitimating effects of fire metaphors in discourses of disorder. Discourse & Society 29: 279â298.
-
Koller, Veronika. 2004. Metaphor and Gender in Business Media Discourse: A Critical Cognitive Study. Berlin: Springer.
-
Kövecses, Zoltan. 2015. Where Metaphors Come From: Reconsidering Context in Metaphor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Laclau, Ernesto. 2005. On Populist Reason. London: Verso
-
Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
-
Landau, Mark J. & Lucas Keefer. 2015. The persuasive power of political metaphors. In J.P. Forgas, K. Fiedler & W.D. Crano (eds), Social Psychology and Politics, 145â158. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
-
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics (vol. 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Martin, Catherine A. & Farida Fozdar. 2022. The masterâs tools: media repurposing of exclusionary metaphors to challenge racist constructions of migrants. Discourse & Society 33: 56â73.
-
Mio, Jeffery S. 1997. Metaphor and politics. Metaphor and Symbol 12: 113â133.
-
MujagiÄ, Mersina. 2024. POLITICS metaphor in British and Bosnian-Herzegovinian migration discourse. Russian Journal of Linguistics 28: 144â165.
-
Musolff, Andreas. 2012. Metaphor and Political Communication: A Linguistic Analysis of Political Discourse. New York: Routledge.
-
Musolff, Andreas. 2017. Truths, lies and figurative scenarios: metaphors at the heart of Brexit. Journal of Language and Politics 16: 641â657.
-
Musolff, Andreas. 2021. Researching political metaphor cross-culturally: English, Hungarian, Greek and Turkish L1-based interpretations of the Nation as Body metaphor. Journal of Pragmatics 183: 121â131.
-
Rabiei Kohandani, Mohammad. 2021. Metaphors of politics and government in the discourse of the Islamic Republic Party. Islamic Politics Research 9: 176â200.
-
Richards, Ivor A. 1936. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
-
Searle, John. 2010. Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Taylor, Charlotte. 2018. Representing the Windrush generation: metaphor in discourses then and now. Critical Discourse Studies 17: 1â21.
-
Todorov, Tzvetan. 1990. Genres in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 313 | 313 | 28 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 18 | 18 | 0 |
The metaphorical construction of âpeopleâ in the Iranian political discourse
A cognitive critical metaphor analysis
äºInternational Review of PragmaticsSearch for other papers by Ali Basarati in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Reza Kazemian in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
The present paper seeks to examine the metaphorical structures that conceptualise people and their status and role in the discourse of the Iranian Supreme Leader. Drawing upon critical cognitive metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004) and the theory of agency in language (Duranti, 2004), we approached 300 speeches of the Iranian Supreme Leader from 1997 to 2023 to figure out how the agency of people in different areas is controlled and constricted by the conceptual properties of the target domains such as war, fight, and prevention. We indicated that the metaphor of fight is employed to conceptualise the ideological and political activism of people and developmental programmes. The metaphor of prevention renders knowledge and consciousness as influential instruments in insulating the IRI from the threats of the enemies. We also found that the metaphor of controllable objects confiscates peopleâs controlled and constricted agency and conceptualises them as objects of control.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 313 | 313 | 28 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 18 | 18 | 0 |
