Rhetorical confinement, contrasting metaphors, and cultural polarities

IF 0.9 Q2 LINGUISTICS

Metaphor and the Social World Pub Date : 2018-10-23 DOI:10.1075/MSW.17014.RIT

L. Ritchie, A. Feliciano, A. Sparks

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引用次数: 4

Abstract

In this study we contrast metaphors and metaphorical stories in President Trump’s 2017 inaugural address with those of former President Barack Obama’s first inaugural address. We draw on the concept of ‘rhetorical confinement’ (Patterson, 2011) to show how the contrasting life trajectories of the two leaders are reflected in the contrasting themes and tone established by their metaphorical language. We argue that Obama’s rhetorical tone, including his use of metaphors, was at least in part a response to the compound constraints of race and class. In contrast, Trump’s rhetorical tone and use of metaphors reflects and reinforces his image as a political outsider, as a challenge to the constraints of ordinary political discourse. The contrast between the rhetorically confined politeness of Obama’s discourse (lampooned as ‘political correctness’ by many of his opponents) and the unconstrained crudeness of Trump’s discourse (lauded as ‘telling it like it is’) apparently legitimates the open expression of previously suppressed resentments and encourages an extreme rhetoric that is symptomatic of, and may contribute to, the growing polarization in American political discourse.

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修辞限制、对比隐喻和文化极化

在这项研究中，我们将特朗普总统2017年就职演说中的隐喻和隐喻故事与前总统巴拉克·奥巴马的第一次就职演说进行了对比。我们利用“修辞限制”的概念（Patterson，2011）来展示两位领导人截然不同的生活轨迹是如何反映在他们隐喻语言所确立的截然不同的主题和基调中的。我们认为，奥巴马的修辞风格，包括他对隐喻的使用，至少在一定程度上是对种族和阶级的复合约束的回应。相比之下，特朗普的修辞语气和隐喻的使用反映并强化了他作为政治局外人的形象，是对普通政治话语约束的挑战。奥巴马话语中修辞受限的礼貌（被他的许多反对者讽刺为“政治正确”）和特朗普话语中无拘无束的粗鲁（被誉为“如实讲述”）之间的对比，显然使公开表达先前被压制的怨恨合法化，并鼓励了一种极端的修辞，并可能导致美国政治话语日益两极分化。

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来源期刊

Metaphor and the Social World LINGUISTICS-

CiteScore

2.20

自引率

11.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： The journal Metaphor and the Social World aims to provide a forum for researchers to share with each other, and with potential research users, work that explores aspects of metaphor and the social world. The term “social world” signals the importance given to context (of metaphor use), to connections (e.g. across social, cognitive and discourse dimensions of metaphor use), and to communication (between individuals or across social groups). The journal is not restricted to a single disciplinary or theoretical framework but welcomes papers based in a range of theoretical approaches to metaphor, including discourse and cognitive linguistic approaches, provided that the theory adequately supports the empirical work. Metaphor may be dealt with as either a matter of language or of thought, or of both; what matters is that consideration is given to the social and discourse contexts in which metaphor is found. Furthermore, “metaphor” is broadly interpreted and articles are welcomed on metonymy and other types of figurative language. A further aim is to encourage the development of high-quality research methodology using metaphor as an investigative tool, and for investigating the nature of metaphor use, for example multi-modal discourse analytic or corpus linguistic approaches to metaphor data. The journal publishes various types of articles, including reports of empirical studies, key articles accompanied by short responses, reviews and meta-analyses with commentaries. The Forum section publishes short responses to papers or current issues.