Types of conceptual metaphor in American political speeches: cognitive and discursive approaches

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Types of conceptual metaphor in American political speeches: cognitive and discursive approaches

Olena Naboka, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages of Humanitarian Faculties, Odessa I.I. Mechnikov National University; Olena Koliasa, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Assistant Professor at the English and Translation Department Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University

In linguistics, the problem of conceptual language is widely developed, which a deep study of its fragments is necessary. In addition, the relevance of the research is also due to the general focus of modern linguistic science on determining the ways of representing the mental world of the individual in language, the study within the cognitive-discursive paradigm in the author's choice of specific language means, the strengthening of the interest of modern linguists and psycholinguists in the study of the mental mechanisms of individual reflection of reality, as well as the urgency of developing the issue of cognitive and conceptual styles in linguistics. The object of the study is the political speeches of political figures of the USA. The subject is the types of conceptualization of political metaphor in the speeches of US political figures. The purpose of the research is to analyze and distinguish the means of verbalization of concepts in the political speeches of American politicians. The set goal involves solving the following main tasks: to define and describe the main functions of political speech; identify and classify cognitive metaphors in the political speeches of politicians.

Key words: political discourse, metaphor, concept, cognitive-discursive approach, political speech.

Типи концептуальної метафори в американських політичних промовах: когнітивний та дискурсивний підходи

Олена Набока, кандидат філологічних наук, доцент кафедри іноземної мови гуманітарних факультетів Одеського національного університету імені І.І. Мечникова; Олена Коляса, кандидат філологічних наук, доцент кафедри англійської мови та перекладу Дрогобицького державного педагогічного університету імені Івана Франка

Лінгвістиці широко розроблена проблема концептуальних мовних картин світу, для цілісного уявлення про які необхідне глибоке вивчення його фрагментів. Крім того, актуальність дослідження зумовлена також загальною спрямованістю сучасної лінгвістичної науки на визначення способів репрезентації ментального світу особистості в мові, дослідження в межах когнітивно-дискурсивної парадигми дискурсивних і когнітивних чинників в авторській творчості. вибір конкретних мовних засобів, посилення інтересу сучасних лінгвістів і психолінгвістів до вивчення психічних механізмів індивідуального відображення дійсності, а також актуальність розробки питання когнітивного і концептуального стилів у лінгвістиці. Об'єктом дослідження є політичні виступи американських політичних діячів. Предмет - типи концептуалізації політичної метафори в промовах американських політичних діячів.

Мета дослідження - проаналізувати та розрізнити засоби вербалізації концептів у політичних промовах американських політиків. Поставлена мета передбачає вирішення таких основних завдань: визначити та описати основні функції політичного мовлення; ідентифікувати та класифікувати когнітивні метафори в політичних промовах американських президентів; проаналізувати метафори як засоби вербалізації понять у політичному дискурсі американських політичних діячів. У результаті дослідження виокремлено метафори як мовні засоби вербалізації концептів у дискурсі американських політичних діячів, здійснено лексико-стилістичний аналіз текстів політичних промов, а також стратегії і тактики, які використовувалися. Проаналізовано спроби учасників політичного дискурсу переконати аудиторію в правомірності своєї думки. Аналіз проаналізованого матеріалу дає підстави вважати, що політичний дискурс американських політиків насичений метафорами. Політичні метафори несуть оціночне навантаження і тісно пов'язані з типом політичного мислення, відображають специфічний спосіб сприйняття політичних реалій адресатами.

Ключові слова: політичний дискурс, метафора, мовлення. концепт, когнітивно-дискурсивний підхід, політичне

Formulation of the problem

Politics and language are closely related. The success of this or that ideological movement and political party depended on the ability to use the language correctly, and to build speeches competently. However, such an important property of language as the ability to influence social and political processes has been realized by the general public relatively recently.

The modern political space is not similar to the world of modern politics even in the relatively recent period due to the rapid development of information technologies and communications. Political discourse was born together with politics. The political speech of each period has its characteristics, according to the characteristics of the political systems in which it is generated. When studying the peculiarities of the political discourse of a particular period of history, it is necessary to take into account not only the content but also where it “speaks”. A feature of modern political life is that politicians communicate with the population less and less directly, speaking in halls and squares, and via the mass media.

It is difficult to overestimate the role of mass media in the development of modern political discourse. This indisputable fact gives reason to speak about the merging tendencies of political discourse and mass media discourse.

The object of the study is the political speeches of American political figures.

The subject is the types of conceptualization of political metaphor in the speeches of American political figures.

The purpose and tasks of the article

The purpose of the research is to analyze and distinguish the means of verbalization of metaphors in political speeches of American politicians.

The set goal involves solving the following main tasks: to define and describe the main functions of political speech; to identify and classify cognitive metaphors in the political speeches; to analyze metaphors as means of verbalizing concepts in the political discourse of American political figures.

As a result of the study, metaphors were singled out as linguistic means of verbalization of concepts in the discourse of American political figures, lexical and stylistic analysis of the texts of political speeches was carried out, as well as the strategies and tactics used by participants in political discourse to convince the audience of the legitimacy of their opinion were analyzed.

Research analysis

Metaphor has always been of particular interest to scholars and writers. The famous German philosopher and writer F. Nietzsche called metaphors “the language of the God-maker”. Starting from the 20th century, the French philologists Fontanier and Bose created a typology of tropes, where they first highlighted the special properties of metaphor in comparison with metonymy and synecdoche (Metaphor, p. 65).

Among Ukrainian linguists, S. Yermolenko, O. Taranenko, V. Vovk, Babelyuk O.A., Koliasa O.V., Naboka O.M. and others were engaged in the study of metaphor.

Foreign scholars as J. Lakoff, and M. Turner consider metaphor as a mental operation, a tool for cognition, structuring, and understanding of the environment. It worth to single out the Ukrainian researcher A. Khudoliy, whose works are a valuable source in the field of metaphor studies (Khudoliy, 2005).

Many researchers of modern political discourse (T.M. Koval, E.I. Sheygal, O.M. Naboka etc.) in addition to its other features, highlight a high degree of metaphorical saturation”, moreover, metaphor is recognized as a necessary condition for the functioning of political discourse.

Presentation of the main material

There are different types of discourses: medical, literary (prose and poetic), journalistic, advertising, and military. Studies of the influence of language in mass media, religious texts, and rituals, as well as in politics are actively conducted.

Discourse, in particular political, has long been the object of study in many humanities, such as psychology, philosophy, psycholinguistics, linguistics, sociology, etc. Linguists, for example, study political speech like any other text, which is true taking into account first of all political and ideological intentions. Social psychologists examine political discourse for effectiveness in achieving certain goals - hidden and overt.

Any discourse, political or scientific, or legal, is a cognitive phenomenon in its essence because it is related to the reproduction and transmission of knowledge. In other words, it is a language that is seen as a purposeful social action. A broader definition is a complex unity of language form, meaning, and action, which can be expressed by the term “communicative act” (Nahorna, 2005).

The scholars also note that political speech is also related to other types of discourse. Thus, it intersects with the following types of discourses: pedagogical, scientific, legal, literary, mass media discourse, etc. The following structural features of the discourse are institutionality, the predominance of values over facts, semantic uncertainty bordering on the phantom, ideological polysemy, fideism, and esotericism.

In foreign linguistics “political discourse is the formal exchange of reasoned views as to which of several alternative courses of action should be taken to solve a societal problem. It is intended to involve all citizens in the making of the decision, persuade others (through valid information and logic), and clarify what course of action would be most effective in solving the societal problem” (Geeraerts, 2017).

In this definition, political discourse is considered as communication not only in the socio-political sphere (the search for the most effective way to solve a social problem) but also in the public sphere of communication (influencing the audience with persuasive information). That is, the emphasis is placed on relations between social groups.

Most interpretations of the essence of political communication are based on the definition of the central notion of “discourse”. The following definitions of political communication were formed based on the notion of discourse: political discourse is “a complex of speech structures in a certain linguistic context - the context of political activity, political views, and beliefs, together with its negative manifestations (for example, avoidance of political activity, lack of political beliefs, etc.)” political discourse is “any speech formation, the subject, addressee or content of which correlates with the sphere of politics” (Naboka, Koliasa, 2023); political discourse is “also a set of discursive practices that identify the participants of political communication or form its specific subject” (Babelyuk, Koliasa, 2023).

So, we understand political discourse as a set of texts, and speeches, which are created for communication in the sphere of socio-political activity, the purpose of which is to substantiate certain socio-political views.

One of the most important attitudes of political discourse is the formation of a certain attitude in a society to certain political events and the formation of the necessary assessment of society towards them. In other words, the main goal is to shape people's worldviews and influence their behavior.

Speech reality manifests itself in two ways: totalitarian and democratic. If we consider political discourse as a tool for creating a public consensus, taking into account the interests and opinions of both the majority and the minority of the population, then it can be argued that political speech, which was formed, for example, in the Soviet Union, does not fully meet all the requirements placed on political discourse. Political communication of the era of “advanced socialism” could not meet all the criteria due to the specifics of the social system in which it was formed, but rather had a ritual character. The lack of real freedom of speech, the rigid centralization of power, the persecution of dissent both among ordinary citizens and within the party, and as a result the inaccessibility of alternative sources of information to the general public made the political speech of that period demonstrative, artificial, or frankly “fake”. Such a phenomenon received the definition of “ritual communication”. The main markers of ritual communication are:

• the fact of pronouncing “necessary” phrases in this situation;

• the presence of ritualized marker words (language cliches);

• predominance of the form of a linguistic sign over its content.

Such a political speech is essentially a monologue and is not suitable for a political dialogue, where the speaker needs to convince the audience (readers), to prove his point. In this situation, the political communication of the dissidents represented an attempt to introduce an element of meaningfulness, and dialogue into an endless, ritualistic, absurd monologue (Naboka, 2022).

As we have already determined, metaphor in political discourse not only conveys information but also has an emotional impact, and changes the political picture of the world existing in the mind of a person. The metaphor is studied by taking into account the target attitudes, political beliefs, and personal qualities of the author, the specifics of the audience's perception of this text. By studying metaphorical models, it is possible to highlight its typical scenarios, conceptual sphere vectors, productivity, and frequency, to reveal the pragmatic potential of the researched model, that is, typical features of influencing the addressee, as well as the attraction of the model to certain spheres of communication, speech genres, social situations, etc.

Metaphors in US journalistic texts perform a conceptual function based on their ability to form new concepts (Naboka, 2022). The objects of social and political life are compared with the objects known by us in direct research (water, road). In the process of superimposing the sphere of politics and social life on the basic one, nodal points of intersection are distinguished. Relationships between objects determine the structuring of areas and transfer objects with certain of their properties to the described area. Concepts act as a social-cognitive basis of communication for people with different individual experiences.

The metaphorical-conceptual space of modern American journalism covers many concepts, to which we refer: spatiotemporal (sea and land), zoo-vegetative, anthropomorphic, gastronomic, and others. The whole complex conglomerate of conceptual metaphors is unified at the semantic level since it describes the same object - the world of social and political life from the point of view of a person (Khudoliy, 2005). According to A. Khudoliy, in our research we single out the following groups of conceptual metaphors in the speeches of American politicians:

“Society/socio-political life - man”, “Society - a sick person”, “Society - political life - the road”, “Social and political life - nature”, “Society - political life - day/night, light/darkness”, “Socio-political life - war”, “Socio-political life - theater”, “Socio-political life - construction”, “Socio-political life - visual arts”, “Socio-political life - education”, “Social- political life is a sport”.

In the group “Society/social and political life - man”, the speaker conceptualizes political realities in the form of body parts, organs, physiological actions, and needs. In the given examples, one can distinguish the decline and formation of ideologies, social changes, names of enemies, social classes, and socio-economic problems:

Cold War relics; The promise of America was born; the birth of a new millennium; the death of Communism; the face of evil; One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores; For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident.

In the group “Society - a sick person”, social troubles are metaphorically represented as sick people. These examples describe problems in the economic, social, moral, and national spheres: to nourish starved bodies; feed hungry minds; system rotten from the inside; “Our economy is badly weakened; To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West”; This is a humanitarian crisis - a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul; Our country is suffering.

In the group”Socio-political life - nature”: now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations; through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea; Washington flourished - but the people did not share in its wealth; President Obama and Secretary Clinton created a vacuum; winter of our hardship; I know that at a time of upheaval overseas.

In the group “Socio-political life - construction”, political structures, the development of society, and the country as a whole are metaphorically indicated. The given examples through the nominations “house”, “construction", and “room" describe the development of the country and individual structures, politics, and the country as a whole: “We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country”; “Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston”; “Over the last 2 years, we have begun to fully rebuild the United States Military”; When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice; a laboratory of democracy.

Metaphors “Socio-political life - day - night/ light - darkness" are distinguished as a separate group, because since ancient times the change of day and night has left a special mark on human consciousness. The basis for this model is the opposition, where “DAY - NIGHT” = “GOOD - EVIL”: Right now China would become the night; each of us has tried to be one of those thousand points of light; the star that guides us still.

The model “Socio-political life-war” is used to conceptualize political struggle and processes in international politics. This metaphor is used quite often by American presidents, which is due to the position of the United States on the world stage as an international arbiter and a fighter for democratic values: operations to disarm Iraq; We felt the unity and fellowship

of our nation when freedom came under attack; There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred; could suffer a massacre; Iran's leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction, we're going to fight for the hard-working middle-class families, he led the colonies to victory; All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone; Cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble, OPEC and OPEC nations, are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it; to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger; So part of our job, together, is to work to reject such extremism that infects too many of our young people.

The model “Socio-political life - sport” reflects political reality as a sports event, a competition. America and the American people are compared to an athlete who needs victories: This generation of Americans has been tested by crises; America will start winning again.

verbalization political speeche metaphor

Conclusions

The analysis of the stylistic means of the speeches of the American politicians showed that the most productive means is a metaphor, which allows you to convey a new idea or thought through linguistic expressions that are simple in structure. And therefore, metaphorical constructions are one of the methods of knowing reality and a means of influencing a person's worldview. Political metaphors carry an evaluative load and are closely related to the type of political thinking, and reflect a specific way of perceiving political realities by addressees.

The analysis of the analyzed material gives us the reason to believe that the political discourse of American politicians is saturated with metaphors. Political metaphors carry an evaluative load and are closely related to the type of political thinking, and reflect a specific way of perceiving political realities by addressees.

Political speeches are imbued with techniques of manipulation, argumentation, and suggestion, because entire teams of specially trained speechwriters, psychologists, analysts, etc., usually work with them. Metaphor is not the only, but one of the most effective means of suggestive and ideological influence on the consciousness of the masses, because it presents information in a form that is more understandable for people. With the help of a metaphor, you can form ideas about various spheres of human activity and the environment in general, manipulate public opinion, emotionally influence the consciousness of the people, focusing on the pain points of public consciousness, thereby generating aggression, fear, anxiety, or confidence, calmness, determination, etc.

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