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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. 137–168

Chapter 5
“Today, the long Arab winter has begun to thaw”

A corpus-assisted discourse study of conceptual metaphors in political speeches about the Arab revolutions

The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ represents one of the most significant socio-political crises in the Middle East and North Africa in recent years and its ramifications continue to affect not only local but global policy. This chapter investigates how the Arab revolutions have been conceptualised metaphorically in international political discourse by applying cognitive-linguistic theory (Lakoff and Johnson 2003[1980]; Fauconnier and Turner 2002) and adopting a triangulatory approach combining corpus-linguistic methods with critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black 2004). A wide range of metaphors could be identified with the most pervasive source domains ranging from season, birth-pregnancy-family and journey to contagious diseases and natural forces and disasters. Findings also show that, while using the same mappings, political representatives tend to focus on different entailments reflecting their distinct political backgrounds and attitudes.

Keywords: cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor theory, conceptual blending theory, corpus linguistics, critical metaphor analysis, political discourse, political revolution
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Metaphor, political language and persuasion
  • 3.Corpus
  • 4.Method
  • 5.Findings and discussion
    • 5.1Season metaphors
    • 5.2Birth, pregnancy and family metaphors
    • 5.3Natural forces/disasters metaphors
    • 5.4Contagious diseases or healthy and unhealthy bodies
    • 5.5Journey metaphors
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Political speeches and interviews
  • References
Published online: 16 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.87.05ull
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