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Part of
The Language of Crisis: Metaphors, frames and discourses
Edited by Mimi Huang and Lise-Lotte Holmgreen
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 87] 2020
► pp. 51–86

Chapter 2
From economic crisis to austerity policies through conceptual metaphor

A corpus-based comparison of metaphors of crisis and austerity in the Portuguese press

This chapter analyses the role of conceptual metaphors in the conceptualization and ideological exploitation of the global financial crisis and the subsequent austerity policies in the Portuguese press. The analysis relies on a corpus of news and opinion articles published between September 2008 and March 2009, when the financial breakdown that led to the global economic crisis took place, in June-July 2011, after the entry of the Troika in Portugal and the announcement of the first austerity measures, and May 2013, when protests against the austerity policies intensified. Assuming the general frameworks of Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis and corpus-based and discourse-based approaches to conceptual metaphor, the study highlights how metaphor can be a powerful conceptual and discourse strategy to frame economic, political and social issues and to serve emotional and ideological purposes.

Keywords: conceptual metaphor, Cognitive Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, financial crisis, austerity policies, embodiment, persuasion, ideology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical and methodological background
  • 3.The metaphorical conceptualization of the financial crisis
    • 3.1Propositional schemas
    • 3.2Image schemas
    • 3.3Event schemas
  • 4.The metaphorical conceptualization of austerity
    • 4.1Propositional schemas
    • 4.2Image schemas
    • 4.3Event schemas
    • 4.4Metaphors of austerity after 2011–2013
  • 5.Embodiment, ideology and morality of the metaphors of crisis and austerity
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
Published online: 16 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.87.02soa
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