Metaphors of Power: Unraveling Political Discourse through the Analysis of Conceptual Metaphors

Abstract

The present paper investigates the political communications at a different level by scrutinizing the sophisticated deployment of conceptual metaphor in political language. Based on the premise that language is a mirror of the culture and worldview of society, this paper analyzes the use of metaphor by the political elites in order to send messages, influence people's perception, and pursue ideologies that they wish to achieve. In greater detail, the paper investigates the domains of metaphors with themes such as "light", "darkness", and "journey", and how they are used throughout time and space. The paper examines the use of metaphors on speeches and how these metaphors are structured towards achieving certain rhetorical purposes, with the aim of understanding language, cognition, and society interrelations in the political context and the fluid nature of political communication. Serials are reliable sources and therefore the authors collected them from publications, databases, and archival records. The authors focus on those speeches that can provide insight into the metaphorical domains that are studied in this paper and which have been reported to be important in the political discourse being examined in this study. After that, a more detailed procedure is undertaken to employ Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) and Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) to identify, classify, and study the metaphorical expressions contained in the speeches chosen.

This study holds importance because it has the capacity to clarify the methods utilized concerning language and metaphor to construct political language and alter public consciousness. In illustrating the metaphor mysteries embedded in political context, it explains the importance language serves in politics and the socio-cultural variables involved.