Politics metaphor in British and Bosnian-Herzegovinian migration discourse

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1. Introduction

The concept of POLITICS has long been studied within the traditional framework of cognitive linguistics (Lakoff 1992, 1996, 2008) and is listed among 10 most common target domains (Kövecses 2010: 23–24). Undoubtedly, the crosslanguage frequency of metaphors depends on cultural-historical facts and whether a concept (e.g. business, finance, theater) plays more or less dominant role in a society. Given that metaphorical thinking is “commonplace and inescapable” (Lakoff 1992: 1), people resort to a variety of source domains utilized in crossdomain mappings to highlight different aspects of a target domain. Thus, a concept may be structured by various conceptual metaphors. In the context of this research, politics is structured by the conceptual metaphors POLITICS AS WAR, POLITICS AS A BUSINESS, POLITICS AS A JOURNEY, POLITICS AS A GAME, POLITICS AS A THEATER, etc. Previous studies reveal that each of these metaphors highlights some aspect of the concept POLITICS that is specific for that particular metaphor only. The THEATER metaphor structures our knowledge of political discussions, which are then structured using parts of the theatrical play (Stanojević 2009: 358). The POLITICS AS A BUSINESS metaphor equates efficient political management with efficient business management, highlighting a careful tally of costs and gains – positive actions are metaphorically seen as gains, negative actions are costs, risky actions are a financial risk, whereby one decides whether achieving objectives is worth the costs, etc. (Lakoff 1992). 

As politics is mostly about exerting power, certain elements of the WAR domain, for instance, are exploited to conceptualize political power as physical force (Kövecses 2010: 24–25). With the POLITICS AS A WAR metaphor, different political groups tend to be seen as armies, political figures tend to be seen as army leaders, the ideologies and policies of the political groups are conceptualized as weapons, political moves are seen as a military action, political goals are war objectives, etc. This conceptual metaphor is closely related to our conceptualization of a NATION AS A PERSON (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 34, Musolff 2018) in a sense that neighboring countries tend to be seen as ‘neighbors,’ who can be friendly or hostile, weak or strong – whereby strength here corresponds to military strength (Kövecses 2010: 68). In this regard, when it comes to foreign politics and international relations, a country can be identified as strong and another as weak, leaving room to portraying one country as a villain, another as a victim, and yet a third country as a hero (Kövecses 2010: 69, 122–123). Politics has many additional aspects that are understood by means of other source domains, e.g. the GAME domain utilizes and highlights the existence of rules (cf. Kövecses 2010: 20). There are different types of games (sports games, board games, team or individual, etc.) which gives a variety of further elaborations and properties to be activated for metaphorical purposes. It is possible, though, that two conceptual metaphors highlight quite similar or the same aspect – e.g. Kövecses (2010: 294) points out that “WAR, SPORTS, and GAMES metaphors all focus on and highlight the notion of winning in relation to the activity to which they apply.” It can be claimed that, in a majority of cases, we opt for a conceptual metaphor that utilizes and activates a certain aspect of a source domain and helps us achieve a desired rhetorical goal. Kövecses (2010: 227) found that there is “a close correlation between personal history and the metaphors used by individuals.” This also means that our individual preferences influence our choice of metaphors, and given our personal experience we may more efficiently manipulate concepts in terms of choosing which aspects to hide or highlight. Dolić (2021: 52) describes the conceptual metaphor as an amazing ability of the mind to filter correspondences between different entities in order to better understand one in terms of another. It is precisely this ability to filter that enables us to control the shape of the message, and gives us the power to manipulate recipients’ perception. As there are many different types of warfare, sports and games, journalists rely on their own knowledge of conventional and unconventional mappings underlying the entities constituting the topic of the discourse – and which they believe is shared by many of their readers (Kövecses 2010: 294). Depending on what journalists want to highlight, they opt for a particular conceptual domain – WAR, SPORTS, GAMES, GAMBLE, BUSINESS, THEATER, etc. In this regard, I want to identify examples when such choices are deliberate and what their communicative function is. With an emergence of new social phenomena, such as the European migrant crisis, the concept of politics needs to be re-analyzed in terms of its figurative use in the context of articles about newly formed foreign politics relations, national interests, ideologies, etc. Answering research questions such as whether journalists resort to the use of covert or overt metaphorical expressions in order to highlight the desired aspects of a concept, whether the selected linguistic expressions and the corresponding conceptual structures conventional or novel, or whether the identified perspective-changing devices have different communicative functions in this type of discourse will give us insight into both the rhetorical goals of journalists and the rhetorical effects on recipients. In sections that follow, I discuss the theoretical foundation of this paper, as well as the choice of the methodological framework (‘The Data and Methods’ section). I proceed with the analysis of metaphors across the three dimensions of indirectness, conventionality, and deliberateness (‘The Corpus Analysis’ section), and discuss the communicative function of the identified metaphors (‘The Discussion’ section). Following that, concluding remarks are offered in the final section.

2. Theoretical foundation

Gerard Steen has published extensively (2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2011a, 2011b, 2015, 2016, 2023a, 2023b) about the Deliberate Metaphor Theory (henceforth the DMT) and its main focus on determining “how metaphors in language, thought and communication are related to each other in specific situations of use” (Steen 2010b: 95). Thus, his model involves the three-level analysis of metaphor considering the criteria of indirectness (the linguistic level of analysis), conventionality (the conceptual level), and deliberateness (the communicative level). This implies that metaphor is “not only seen as a matter of conceptual structures (metaphor in thought) expressed in linguistic forms (metaphor in language), but also as a matter of communication between language users (metaphor in communication)” (Reijnierse et al. 2018: 132). Thus, linguistic level, conceptual level, and communicative level of metaphor analysis are distinguished.

At the linguistic level, linguistic metaphors, i.e. metaphorical linguistic expressions, are identified and further classified into indirect, direct, and implicit metaphors. Indirect metaphors imply the indirect use of language when we speak about one concept in terms of another, i.e. when we try to conceptualize one phenomenon in terms of another. Indirect metaphors are established by comparing and contrasting the basic and contextual meanings of potentially metaphorical linguistic expressions whereby analysts rely on dictionaries for the sake of objectivity and reliability. The potentially metaphorical linguistic expression is looked up in dictionaries^[1], and their contextual and basic meanings are considered for sufficient similarity and/or distinctness (Steen et al. 2010: 37). For instance, in the sentence: 

(1) He might not have survived long enough to fight a second general election. (Collins),

the expression fight is looked up in a dictionary. Its basic meaning is “If an army or group fights a battle with another army or group, they oppose each other with weapons. You can also say that two armies or groups fight a battle” (Collins), while its contextual meaning is “If you fight an election, you are a candidate in the election and try to win it” (Collins). Upon establishing that the expression is indeed metaphorical in the given context, analysts proceed with determining what type of metaphor it is at the linguistic level, which implies the application of MIPVU (Steen et al. 2010: 25–26). Thus, in the example sentence above, the expression fight is an example of indirect metaphor. 

Direct metaphors, on the other hand, refer to the use of overt lexical units, which nevertheless activate cross-domain mapping. In the sentence: 

(2) Labour has accused Liz Truss’s government of acting like “gamblers in a casino” over the UK economy after the pound dropped to its lowest level against the dollar since decimalisation, following Friday’s unofficial budget. (The Guardian, September 26, 2022),

we witness direct metaphor use, where like is a signal for direct metaphor. The use of lexical items such as like and as in figurative language has been fairly controversial. However, in the light of the DMT findings, direct metaphors are identified when the basic meaning is sufficiently distinct from the contextual meaning for the latter to be seen as potentially participating in another semantic or conceptual domain. In other words, there is a comparison between A and B that triggers a mapping between the two contrastive domains (cf. Steen et al. 2010: 57– 58). In such cases, A can hardly literally ‘be’ B – it is only ‘likened’ to B in some way. Steen et al. (2010: 94–95) claim that “the cross domain mapping occurs in conceptual structure, and is expressed directly at the level of linguistic form”, and offer an option to have such directly expressed metaphors that are explicitly signaled with like, as, seem, appear, etc. annotated as “potentially metaphorical within the simile”. As for the claims that similes are not actually metaphors and are less forceful than if they were e.g. found in A is B form, I follow Steen et al.’s (2010: 112) instructions about “including rather than excluding borderline cases of metaphoricity and adopting a general view on metaphor, which means that I assume what would be metaphorical to a general reader. Furthermore, Steen et al. (2010: 19) have introduced the category WIDLII, ‘When In Doubt, Leave It In’, thus producing a three-category variable: clear metaphor-related words, metaphorrelated words that are WIDLII, and words that are clearly not related to metaphors.

In the DMT, direct metaphors are identified as “local referent and topic shift” or “the incongruous expressions integrated within the overall referential  and/or topical framework through comparison” (Steen et al. 2010: 38). Steen  (2007: 10–11) argues that direct use of language is also considered metaphorical because it involves subsequent conceptual analysis to determine the meaning in the background of cross-domain mapping. According to Steen (2009a: 182), direct metaphor can be structured as A is B metaphor, A is like B metaphor, and extended metaphor. The example (2) contains direct metaphor with A IS LIKE B structure. Direct metaphors with A is like B structure imply the use of lexical markers that signal direct use of metaphorical language. Detailed protocol for direct metaphor identification is offered by Steen et al. (2010: 38), as well as an explanation on lexical signals of cross-domain mappings. The signals that draw the addressee’s attention to the mappings between domains are, for instance, like, as, and as if, while – according to Steen et al. (2010: 41) – more general lexical items like kind of, sort of, something of are not taken into account as it is not always clear whether these indicate metaphoricity and other aspects of discourse. The sentence in (3) is the example of extended metaphor,^[2] where extended metaphorical comparisons are elaborated and stretched creatively within or between paragraphs:

(3) She told Times Radio: “Instead of blaming everybody else, instead of behaving like two gamblers in a casino chasing a losing run, the chancellor and the prime minister should be mindful of the reaction not just on the financial markets but also of the public. (The Guardian, September 26, 2022)

Furthermore, the example (4) contains two cases of implicit metaphor use: the pronoun it semantically refers to the metaphorically used words identified in a sentence or paragraph. In other words, when a particular functional word (e.g. the pronoun it) is used as a cohesive device in a text, semantically referring to a full lexical word which is metaphorical in that segment of discourse, we label it as implicit metaphor. Steen et al. (2010: 39–40) have provided steps for finding implicit metaphor as well. Implicit metaphors (in my case the pronouns it in the example 4) are marked as metaphorical because of the semantic connection with linguistic expressions that were previously marked as metaphorical (gambling, in 4):

(4) Financial markets are unimpressed, the British public are unimpressed and the chancellor and the prime minister need to take note because they’re not gambling with their own money, they’re gambling with all our money. It’s reckless and it’s irresponsible as well as being grossly unfair. (The Guardian, September 26, 2022)

Also, Steen et al. (2010: 26) suggest marking the expression as metaphorical in cases “when ellipsis occurs where words may be seen as missing,” as in the case of should in “If we agree that in that case women should be embraced by the liberty principle then so should children” (Herrmann 2013: 162) – where there is an “underlying cohesive link (grammatical and/or semantic) in the discourse which points to recoverable metaphorical material” (Steen et al. 2010: 15).

The criterion of conventionality refers to determining whether a metaphor is novel or conventional, and it is applied to both conceptual metaphors and their corresponding metaphorical linguistic expressions (i.e. linguistic metaphors). Unless its contextual meaning is recorded in a dictionary, a linguistic metaphor is labelled as novel; if both the basic and the contextual meanings are recorded in a dictionary, the metaphor is conventional. In case of fight in (1), its basic and contextual meanings are listed in dictionaries – thus, the metaphorical expression is conventional. Therefore, conventional metaphors are “deeply entrenched ways of thinking about or understanding an abstract domain, while conventional metaphorical linguistic expressions are well worn, clichéd ways of talking about abstract domains” (Kövecses 2010: 34). 

On the other hand, novel metaphorical linguistic expressions are those that are not evidently clichéd through frequent use and whose contextual meanings are not listed in dictionaries. These are innovative and unconventional. For example, door, doorstep, and foundation are common metaphorical linguistic expressions from the domain of HOUSE that are clichéd through frequent use – unlike the novel metaphorical linguistic expression doormat. For the expression ‘otirač’/doormat, Mujagić (2022a: 35–36) has only identified the basic meaning in the B/C/S dictionaries, which means that the expression is unconventional in the context of use in migration discourse. Therefore, the metaphorical expression doormat is unconventional, but its corresponding conceptual domain (HOUSE) is conventional. This implies that conceptual metaphors (corresponding conceptual structures) may be conventional or novel, regardless of whether linguistic expressions themselves are labelled as conventional or novel. 

We often witness how the use of conventional metaphors may prompt the emergence of novel, more innovative figurative language use in order to achieve certain rhetorical purpose. One such example is when the “car without reverse gear” image used by the former British Prime Minister Blair, inspired the BBC anchorman to remark: 

(5) But when you’re on the edge of a cliff, it is good to have a reverse gear.
(Kövecses 2010: 289).

Novel metaphors are automatically deliberate. As with the example (5), the metaphor is introduced to serve “the speaker’s interests in persuading others”; often the metaphor is slightly, but not less significantly, changed to be “turned against the original user” (Kövecses 2010: 289) – as it is often the case in political debates. This novel metaphor is used as a perspective-changing device, which is obviously the property of a deliberate metaphor. 

Deliberate and nondeliberate metaphors are distinguished at the communicative level of analysis, where I applied the IdeM protocol outlined in Krennmayr (2011) in order to determine the instances of deliberate metaphor use in the corpus. While nondeliberate metaphors “stay ‘on topic’”, and “the recipient does not have to attend to the source domain of the metaphorical utterance”, deliberate metaphor “provides an alien perspective on the topic of utterance”,  i.e. “introduces a new perspective on the target domain” (Reijnierse et al. 2018: 133–134). Steen (2015: 68) points out that “the addressee has to move away their attention momentarily from the target domain of the utterance or even phrase to the source domain that is evoked by the metaphor-related expression.” Direct metaphors and novel metaphors are automatically deliberate, as they have a communicative function of changing recipients’ perspective about a topic. Furthermore, deliberate metaphors may be signaled with either lexical items  (e.g. like, as) or textual features (quotation marks, italics). Several metaphor studies discuss deliberate metaphor signals (Steen 2006, 2009b, Krennmayr 2011, Musolff 2011, Herrmann 2013). Darian’s research (2000) showed that quotation marks are the most common signals of deliberate metaphor use (another possibility being the use of italics, which is not recorded in my corpus of research). 

According to Steen (2008: 222), deliberate use of metaphor involves the change of “addressee’s perspective on the referent or topic that is the target of the metaphor, by making the addressee look at it from a different conceptual domain or space”. My aim is to present cases where the power of deliberate metaphor is exploited by journalists to persuade readers to look at current politics the way they see it. Therefore, this paper is based on the DMT because I believe that this model will give a good interpretation of the results. Steen et al. (2010) designed the framework that stresses the importance of objectivity by relying on detailed protocols and dictionaries as objective descriptions of language. This well-thought out framework resolves the issues of inter-analyst disagreements, the status of borderline cases, etc. Its application gives us insight into how deliberate metaphors participate in building different aspects of migration discourse as they draw attention to the source domain. 

3. The data and methods

In order to analyze metaphors in segments of real discourse, I rely on currently one of the most detailed models of metaphor analysis proposed by Steen (2007, 2008, 2015), whose main merits are objectivity, reliability, and a high degree of inter-analyst agreement. Potentially metaphorical expressions are identified by applying the MIPVU procedure devised by Steen et al. (2010). The MIPVU, the six-step procedure for identifying metaphorical linguistic expressions (i.e. linguistic metaphors at the first level of the aforementioned Steen’s three-dimensional model) is explained in detail in Steen et al. (2010: 25–26). Furthermore, the authors resolve dilemmas such as what comprises a lexical unit, how to establish contextual and basic meanings, how to achieve unanimous agreement during the annotation process, and other operational issues. Therefore, the MIPVU procedure is a reliable tool to confirm whether the expression is indeed metaphorical, and serves as the basis for further analysis at the linguistic level. After establishing that the identified expression is indeed metaphorical, an analyst proceeds to determine whether it is indirect, direct, or implicit metaphor. The guidelines to determining the type of metaphor at the linguistic level are given in Steen et al. (2010: 33, 38–40) and Krennmayr (2011: 51–52, 58–60). 

At the conventional level of analysis, annotators rely on dictionaries, which results in objectivity in decision-making, as well as the possibility of repetition and reproduction of the results. The linguistic and conceptual levels of metaphor analysis serve as a firm basis and meet the challenge of identifying a deliberate metaphor in communication (Steen 2007, 2008, 2011a, 2011b, Steen et al. 2010). At this level, the IDeM protocol (Krennmayr 2011: 154–155) is used. By applying several clearly defined steps to identify deliberate metaphor, we determine “whether the metaphorical expression that has been identified by MIP/MIPVU is meant to change the recipient’s perspective on the topic of the text” (Krennmayr 2011: 154). Deliberate metaphors imply the use of certain types of signals (quotation marks, direct metaphor signals) or innovative language (novel metaphors, and extended metaphors).^[3] The variety of signals and the types of cognitive devices leaves room for the manipulation of concepts and signals, using different discourse strategies to achieve the desired rhetorical effect. Journalists resort to different signals and creative language use in order to emphasize and elaborate concepts, which opens up the possibility to influence recipients’ reasoning and change of perspective.

The corpus comprises articles retrieved from the sections about ‘the European migrant crisis from August 2015 to March 2016 (247,912 words). English corpus contains 126,010 words from The Guardian, Daily Mail, and Daily Express. The corpus in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian^[4] contains 121,902 words from the newspapers Faktor, Oslobođenje, Dnevni avaz, Buka, Nezavisne novine, Dnevni list, BH Dani, Večernji list, BH Magazin, and Glas Srpske. This corpus is part of a comprehensive study presented in Mujagić (2022b), the book which focuses primarily on ANIMAL and DANGEROUS WATERS metaphors. This corpus was annotated by the book author, after which the agreement is reached with the two book reviewers. Once the linguistic expressions are labelled metaphorical (the linguistic level of analysis), they are grouped according to which conceptual domain they belong (the conceptual level). From this broad corpus of metaphorical expressions, the specific set of metaphorical linguistic expressions is selected for discussion in this paper. In the book (Mujagić 2022b), these have only been identified as secondary metaphors (cf. Santa Ana 2002: 71). After identifying these 20 expressions as metaphorical,  I attempt to shed light on their role in migration discourse.

 4. The corpus analysis

In this section, I analyze metaphors across the three dimensions of indirectness, conventionality, and deliberateness. The statistical overview of metaphorical linguistic expressions and their corresponding conceptual domains in both English and B/C/S, as well as the types of metaphors according to the three-dimensional model are outlined in the Appendix, which provides accurate data on the representation of certain expressions and forms in the corpus. I proceed with the description of metaphors identified in the corpus by discussing each conceptual metaphor and the corresponding metaphorical linguistic expressions under separate heading (thus headings about politics as war, game, trade, and theater). The overview of the entire metaphorical framework of politics and the interrelatedness of the identified metaphors is given in ‘Discussion’.

The main focus of this research is not the frequency of concepts or metaphorical linguistic expressions about politics, which is a task that would demand a more focused and comprehensive study in itself, but the rhetorical goals and the effects of their exploitation once these are selected by journalists. The issue of frequency, though, is mentioned in some other sense in this paper and is relevant in a way that frequently used, i.e. overused and clichéd expressions will have their meanings already included in dictionaries and thus be recognized as conventional metaphors, while less used creative and innovative expressions will lack dictionary entries for contextual meanings and thus be labelled as novel metaphors during the annotation process. In that way, their effects on recipients are indeed revealed during the analysis as novel metaphors are said to function as deliberate metaphors at the communicative level. 

4.1. POLITICS AS WAR

In political discourse, it is common for nations to be personified – as it is also evident in the examples included for this analysis. Thus, Russia is ‘thinking’, ‘pursuing’, ‘watching’, while the EU is ‘confronting’, etc. In the examples (1–3) the countries are presented as ‘enemies’ fighting a (political) war. The conceptual metaphor POLITICS AS WAR is made manifest by the metaphorical linguistic expressions weaponising and weaponised. 

(1) Russia has been accused of “weaponising” the refugee crisis as a way of destabilising Europe – a claim recently reinforced by Nato’s top commander in Europe. That assertion may well be disputed. What is beyond doubt is the continuing need to know what Russia is thinking, and what goals it might pursue as it watches the EU confront multiple crises. (“Putin’s long game has been revealed, and the omens are bad for Europe”, The Guardian, March 18, 2016)

(2) To say that Putin has “weaponised” the refugee crisis hands him too much control over events, for Russia didn’t start the crisis. But it has capitalised on a situation that has deepened Europe’s weaknesses and divisions. (“Putin’s long game has been revealed, and the omens are bad for Europe”, The Guardian, March 18, 2016)

(3) Russia’s Vladimir Putin has also seen the opportunity to exacerbate Europe’s problems and has been accused of “weaponising” the crisis and ensuring the flow of migrants continues as they try to escape Russian bombing. (“European societies close to collapsing, warns Nick Ferrari”, The Daily Express, January 24, 2016)

The basic meaning of weaponise is “used as a weapon or made into a weapon” (Collins), while the contextual meaning is “use as a political weapon” (Macmillan). At the linguistic level, these are the examples of indirect metaphor use. Given that both meanings are listed in dictionaries, the metaphorical linguistic expression is conventional. Moreover, this metaphorical expression abounds in articles about the European migrant crisis and political relations between countries that resulted from it,^[5] which implies its entrenched and clichéd use. In other words, the conventional expression weaponise makes manifest the conventional conceptual metaphor POLITICS AS A WAR. The expression is signaled with quotation marks and thus labelled as a deliberate metaphor at the communicative level of analysis. In this context, the metaphor is used to build argumentation and shape discussion with the aim of changing the recipients’ perspective. In English corpus, the relationship of the EU and Russia is conceptualized using POLITICS AS WAR, manifesting itself in the use of the metaphorical expression weaponise, where it is evident that this metaphor is instrumentalized as a rhetorical tool in discussions where migration is seen as a political weapon. Similar conclusions were drawn by Solopova and Kushneruk (2021) about emotionally charged, negative images of Russia in foreign media discourse, namely British media. In B/C/S, the examples of POLITICS AS WAR metaphor are not identified. It can only be speculated at this point as to why this metaphor is not identified in the corpus. One can suppose that maybe it is ‘left’ for some other contexts such as discussing inner political issues that Bosnia and Herzegovina is dealing with – which is something that can be addressed by future studies.

4.2. POLITICS AS A GAME

In English, the relationship between the EU and Turkey, the countries seen as the ‘actors’ of the European migrant crisis, is conceptualized using POLITICS AS A GAME metaphor. It is made manifest through the use of the metaphorical linguistic expressions gamechanger, play, and team up. The basic meaning of gamechanger is “something or someone that affects the result of a game very much” (Collins), while its contextual meaning is “something that completely changes the way something is done, thought about, or made” (Macmillan).

(4) The Turkish deputy foreign affairs minister, Ali Naci Koru, described the EU-Turkey deal on refugees as a gamechanger, saying the number travelling to the Greek islands was declining rapidly and such journeys would soon end. (“Half of $12bn refugee fund pledged at London meeting not disbursed”, The Guardian, March 30, 2016)

In (5) and (6), Britain and Austria are portrayed as persons who will either play its role or team up with other players. The following examples describe political moves of countries – each looking from its own perspective what its best interests are:

(5) By building on the work of previous conferences in Kuwait, I hope we can deliver billions of dollars more at the conference tomorrow than was raised in the entirety of last year. Britain will play its part. We are already the world’s second biggest bilateral donor to the region, and we will now more than double our total pledge to over £2.3bn – committing twice as much this year as last. (“Syrians want to go home and rebuild their country. I intend to help them”, The Guardian, February 3, 2016)

(6) Athens on Thursday recalled its ambassador from Vienna, in effect accusing Austria of teaming up with other countries in the region to – in the words of the Greek migration minister – transform Greece into “Europe’s Lebanon.“ (“The Guardian view on the EU and the refugee crisis: stop arguing, and fix it”, The Guardian, February 25, 2016)

The basic and contextual meanings of expressions team up and play are listed in dictionaries, which means these are conventional metaphorical expressions. At the linguistic level of analysis, these are indirect metaphors. Figuratively speaking, the countries are ‘teaming up’ to achieve a particular aim or a common goal, while ‘playing’ implies competing with someone for one’s own interest. The corpus analysis reveals that different types of GAME are exploited for metaphorical purposes: team sports and games, individual ones (like chess), gambling games, and sometimes their combinations within a single sentence (like pawns and bargaining chips in the example 8):

(7) Today, Europe’s best bet against the mounting crisis seems to be to deploy the new regime in Turkey, the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), with its mutating mixture of extreme nationalism, conservative religion, and militarisation. (“Syrian refugees in Turkey are pawns in a geopolitical game”, The Guardian, February 15, 2016)

(8) Putting all the burden on the shoulders of Turkey seems a desirable option, but it is not viable, let alone fair. Turkey is already home to around 2.5 million Syrian refugees. The government is holding them as bargaining chips in its many negotiations with Europe. These people are not on any dignified path to citizenship. (“Syrian refugees in Turkey are pawns in a geopolitical game”, The Guardian, February 15, 2016)

(9) Turkey’s government is trying to negotiate with the EU, using refugees as bargaining chips. This hardly brings the crisis closer to a resolution. (“Syrian refugees in Turkey are pawns in a geopolitical game”, The Guardian, February 15, 2016)

The basic meaning of bet is “an agreement in which you bet money on what will happen, or the amount of money that you bet” (Macmillan), while its contextual meaning is “a chance or opportunity” (Cambridge). On the other hand, the basic meaning of chip is “a small piece of plastic used instead of money when gambling (playing games for money)” (Macmillan), and in the context of the examples (8) and (9), the expression bargaining chips refers to “something that you can use to persuade someone to give you what you want” (Macmillan), i.e. “something that is used as leverage in a negotiation” (Collins), with the emphasis on using it to achieve one’s own advantage. These are the examples of conventional metaphorical expressions belonging to the conventional conceptual metaphor POLITICS IS A GAME, or more specifically a gambling game. However, they differ at the linguistic level of analysis: bet is indirect, while bargaining chips is a direct metaphor with A AS B structure (refugees as bargaining chips) – which means it is deliberate at the communicative level. In addition, the expression pawns identified in the article headline in the examples (7–9) implies that migrants are likened to either chess pawns or board game pawns. It is a direct metaphor with A IS B structure, where the author draws recipients’ attention to a cross-domain mapping by creating a direct comparison between the two things. Direct metaphors are automatically deliberate, as they are intended to change recipients’ perspective of an issue.

In B/C/S corpus, only one expression from the GAME domain is identified:

(10) Jedini način da izađemo iz ove pat pozicije jeste da prekoračimo pitanje tolerancije: drugima treba ponuditi ne samo poštovanje, već mogućnost udruživanja u zajedničkoj borbi jer problemi sa kojima se suočavamo su zajednički problemi. (“Norveška ne postoji”, BH Magazin, the column)
[The only way to get out of this stalemate is to overstep the matter  of tolerance: we should offer others not only respect, but the possibility of joining together in a common struggle because the problems we face are common problems.]

The basic meaning of the expression pat pozicija (English ‘stalemate’) originates from chess and implies a position “in which a player cannot make any move which is allowed by the rules, so that the game ends and no one wins” (Collins), while its contextual meaning refers to “a situation in which two opposing forces find that further action is impossible or futile” (Collins). In the example (10), the metaphorical expression from the GAME domain is used for elaboration and explanation, i.e. to give opinion on possible actions of a state. 

In this example, the original expression pat pozicija and its direct equivalent in English, a stalemate, evoke the same feeling to a general reader. After all, they are full translation equivalents, with a full match at the level of both form and content. In addition, both expressions are conventional (they have entries in dictionaries), which means that they are well-established, clichéd, and accepted in both languages. Apart from the issue of equivalence, the issue of dead metaphors is worth mentioning here. To some speakers, stalemate may intuitively sound like a dead metaphor which no longer feels metaphorical in English. Tracing and accounting for the decline of metaphor is a complex matter depending from a lot of different factors. Yet, one must consider the importance of the context in which such metaphors are used – if we have a text that abounds with metaphorical linguistic expressions from the GAME domain, these only intensify the metaphoricity and evoke a particular feeling to a general reader. Furthermore, Steen (2008: 231) claims that “the fact that dead metaphors can only be called metaphorical by looking at their polysemy in the history of the language does not make them less metaphorical to the metaphor researcher, even if it does to the metaphor researcher who is only interested in contemporary usage.”

4.3. POLITICS AS A TRADE

The metaphorical linguistic expressions belonging to the conventional conceptual metaphor POLITICS AS A TRADE are only identified in the articles in English. In (11), to deliver and pick up the bill imply that migrants are trade goods that can be delivered and billed for:

(11) The UN high commissioner for refugees, visiting Athens this week, committed the UNHCR to increasing its involvement in reception operations in cooperation with the Greek government. He has to deliver on this as soon as possible. The European commission should do the only thing it does well: pick up the bill. It has a lot to lose if it doesn’t. (“This racist backlash against refugees is the real crisis in Europe”, The Guardian, February 25, 2016)

These metaphors are indirect, which means that their effect is covert, but not less harmful for at least two reasons. First, migrants are dehumanized, i.e. portrayed as merely a commodity. Second, delivery for which a bill will be received means that entrusting goods or persons also implies removing responsibility and transferring it to someone else – as evident from this Collins entry: “If you deliver a person or thing into someone’s care, you give them responsibility for that person or thing.” In the example (11), doesn’t is marked indirect, as it is related to the metaphorical segment pick up the bill.

4.4. POLITICS AS A THEATER

The THEATER metaphor is often exploited to talk about contemporary political matters in figurative terms (cf. Stanojević 2013, 2009, Blackbourn 1987, Borčić 2010) – which means that POLITICS AS A THEATER is a conventional conceptual metaphor. In the example (12) in B/C/S, it is realized through the use of conventional metaphorical linguistic expressions cirkusanti pod maskama (‘circus performers under masks’), reditelj (‘director’), scena (‘act), zaplet (‘plot’), and čin (‘act’).

(12) Zar se ovakvi međunarodni skrbnici ne doimaju kao cirkusanti pod maskama kakve se, u pokladno vrijeme, mogu sresti i vidjeti na mostarskom, splitskom, dubrovačkom, kotorskom i svakom drugom mjestu koje njeguje karnevalske običaje? Nade u bolje dane ni na vidiku! Samo je sunce pravedno jer grije i jedne i druge – govorio je karizmatični kotorski svećenik don Branko Sbutega. Zemljama koje su se pod sretnim okolnostima izgradile i demokratizirale namijenjen je izbjeglički tsunami. Koja je svrha preseljenja naroda Bliskog istoka i sjeverne Afrike? Što je prekooceanski redatelj planirao? Teško je to domisliti! Europa je zbunjena. Na sceni je prvi čin i početak zapleta. Pred nama je proljeće. Pred nama su još masovniji izbjeglički valovi – pravi stampedo. Čelnici Europske unije pozivaju i spremaju se za alternativne mehanizme obrane. („Ži(v)čana Evropa“, Večernji list, the column, February 28, 2016)
[Don’t these international guardians seem like circus performers under masks, the kind you can meet and see during carnival time in Mostar, Split, Dubrovnik, Kotor, and any other place that cherishes carnival customs? Hopes for better days are nowhere in sight! Only the sun is fair because it keeps both sides warm – as the charismatic priest from Kotor, Don Branko Sbutega, used to say. Countries that have been built and democratized under fortunate circumstances are destined for a refugee tsunami. What is the purpose of resettling the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa? What was the overseas director planning? It’s hard to ascertain! Europe is confused. The first act and the beginning of the plot are on stage. Spring is upon us. Ahead of us are even more massive waves of refugees – a real stampede. The leaders of the European Union are calling for and preparing for alternative defense mechanisms.] 

This metaphor is, however, elaborated and creatively stretched within a single sentence or between paragraphs – which makes it a deliberate metaphor at the communicative level. In this entire paragraph, the European migrant crisis –  a socio-political phenomenon bringing forth all the complex geopolitical  relations – is figuratively presented as a theater performance. The very fact that the journalist mentions Mostar, Split, Dubrovnik, and Kotor^[6] as places that nurture carnival customs confirms the claim that the THEATER metaphor is culturally conditioned and not possible to exploit in those cultures where there is no theater as we know it (cf. Stanojević 2009: 349). The THEATER metaphor is not identified in English corpus, probably due to the fact that journalists for one reason or the other resorted to the extensive use of the GAME metaphor.

5. Discussion

The corpus analysis reveals that the journalists indeed resort to the use of covert, conventional structures. The statistical overview shows that the ratio of different types of metaphors is as follows: 73.3% of indirect metaphors, 20%  of direct, and 6.7% of implicit metaphors in English; 83.3% of indirect, 16.7% of direct, and 0 implicit metaphors in the B/ C/ S languages. The linguistic analysis reveals that the most frequent type of metaphors are indirect ones, which subtly influence our perception of an issue in a manner that may not be immediately noticeable but is not necessarily harmless. For instance, all the identified expressions from the WAR domain are indirect metaphors, thus covert – not attracting recipients’ attention to cross-domain mappings by any type of lexical signal. In case an indirect metaphor is signaled by quotation marks, its use is deliberate on the part of the author. Direct metaphors, on the other hand, are overt and more striking. Implicit metaphors are a result of textual cohesion and as it turns out, are quite rare (cf. Mujagić 2022a, 2022b). All metaphorical linguistic expressions identified in the corpus are conventional, as well as their corresponding conceptual structures. This implies that the journalists resort to the manipulation of familiar concepts when creating “effective and easily memorable language, whereby listeners have no major difficulties in processing it, given that it is based on well-established concepts” (Berberović & Delibegović-Džanić 2014: 22). The journalists in both languages restricted themselves to the use of conventional expressions and cognitive structures possibly to facilitate comprehension of complex political situation to wider audience/ general readership. 

However, the question of communicative functions of the identified deliberate metaphors deems more detailed elaboration. I analyzed the conceptual metaphors POLITICS AS A WAR, POLITICS AS A GAME, POLITICS AS A TRADE, and POLITICS AS A THEATER, focusing on the cases where the journalists exploit these metaphors as perspective-changing cognitive mechanisms. The WAR metaphor, identified in English texts only, has a persuasive function. Due to its emotive effect, the WAR metaphor is an apt instrument of persuasion. Skilled use of metaphorical expressions from this domain can have profound impact on recipients and persuade them to share the writer’s point of view. The POLITICS AS A WAR metaphor is used to build argumentation and shape discussion when talking about the relationship of the EU and Russia, i.e. implying a (metaphorical) war between the two and their ever-shifting relations (cf. Solopova et al. 2003). Yet, the dominant metaphor in English is the GAME metaphor, which varies in expressions and structure. It is used to describe relations between nations, either striving to achieve common goals or competing for their own interests. By describing and explaining, journalists can pursue different types of communicative goals (e.g. to persuade, propose a course of action, share information, and advance a hypothesis; cf. Macagno & Rossi 2021). This research identified examples when the journalists resorted to the direct language use when pursuing a persuasive goal, which presupposes supporting a viewpoint. The metaphorical expressions a gamechanger and bargaining chips are examples of direct use of metaphorical language, which means that their rhetorical effect is greatly strengthened as direct metaphors overtly ask recipients to draw connection between the source and target concepts. Another metaphor used in English only is the POLITICS AS A TRADE, which is used to describe the cooperation between the EU and Greece. The TRADE metaphors are high in the concreteness dimension of physicality (and low in the concreteness dimension of specificity), which makes it an apt conceptual tool for (1) elaboration of a complex topic on the part of the author, and (2) facilitation of recipients’ understanding of a topic at hand.

The THEATER metaphor is identified in B/C/S only and used when giving opinion on the seriousness of the political situation between the relevant actors of the Crisis. It is creatively elaborated in a column to offer criticism of world leaders, America, and Europe. It may also be seen as an attempt to create empathy towards migrants and awaken moral consciousness of the issue of migration in general. Recruiting creative facets of the source concept produces more striking examples of figurative creativity, both linguistically and conceptually. This also contributes to achieving discourse coherence at intertextual and intratextual level. The expressions from these domains are successfully intertwined within texts in a wellestablished conceptual framework that helps recipients comprehend the contemporary socio-political issues leaving them hardly immune from its associative power (mostly of ‘others’ being ‘enemies’ or ‘rivals’). Political discourse is packed with metaphors heightening emotional intensity (cf. Musolff 2021), but this study showed that the selection of linguistic and conceptual structures in migration-oriented political discourse is meticulous – this is implied by the dominant use of covert and conventional metaphors. However, conventional structures can easily be reiterated and creatively stretched producing instances of deliberate metaphor use. These cognitive devices are naturalized (even clichéd), and yet with a clear rhetorical message they leave a significant effect on the recipient in communication. 

6. Conclusion

Metaphor is a multifaceted phenomenon. This paper paints the fuller picture about the use of deliberate metaphors from the POLITICS domain in migrationoriented media discourse. These cognitive devices are used as perspective-changing means by journalists to persuade, build argumentation and shape discussion. Furthermore, these are creatively elaborated when criticizing politicians and their migration policies. The communicative function of such linguistic and conceptual structures is to shift the addressee’s perspective on migration and view current political relations in a desired way. Given that the concept of politics may be viewed in relation to different social, economic, or cultural phenomena (not only migration), further research is encouraged to apply the same model of metaphor analysis to determine communicative functions of POLITICS metaphor in other types of discourse.

Appendix: Statistical overview of metaphors in the corpus

 Table I. Source domains in English corpus 

Table II. Source domains in Bosnian/ Croatian/ Serbian corpus

Table III. Overview of English metaphors according to the three-dimensional model

Table IV. Overview of metaphors according to the three-dimensional model

_{¹ In this case, Collins, Macmillan, Cambridge, Oxford, and Merriam Webster Online Dictionaries were consulted for English corpus. For B/C/S corpus, I consulted Anić (2003), Čedić et al. (2007), Halilović et al. (2010), Jahić (2010/2012), Hrvatski jezični portal (online database), and Vujanić (2007).}

_{² For extended metaphors cf. Steen (2008, 2009a)}

_{³ For deliberate metaphor signaling see Steen (2009a, 2009b, 2010), Krennmayr (2011), Musolff (2011), and Herrmann (2013).}

_{⁴ According to the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are three official languages of the country – Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (henceforth, B/C/S). Consequently, the analysis includes texts from several different newspapers published across the country. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a complex media space, where clear and explicit territorial boundaries cannot be drawn regarding the use of one of the three official languages, i.e. it is impossible to determine the area where only one language is explicitly spoken and written. Thus, this paper analyses articles from several newspapers from all around the country.}

_{⁵ See, e.g., articles “Who is ‘weaponising’ the Syrian refugees?” and “Migrant crisis: Russia and Syria ‘weaponising’ migration” available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ opinion/2016/03/weaponising-syrian-refugees-160313121135473.html and http://www.bbc.com/ news/world-europe-35706238; Accessed on April 15, 2023}

_{⁶ These are the names of the cities in the Balkans.}

About the authors

Mersina Mujagić

Author for correspondence.
Email: mersina.mujagic@unbi.ba
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8592-1949

Associate Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature at the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her research interests are cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis.

References