Slovenian and US Elections in Metaphors: A Cross-linguistic Perspective

The present paper examines metaphors in the discourse of elections from a cross-linguistic perspective. The methodological framework brings together the conceptual theory of metaphor, as one of the most prominent models within cognitive linguistics, and Critical Discourse Analysis. In addition, a cross-linguistic approach to analysing metaphors in discourse is suggested following Kovecses' (2005) criteria for cultural and linguistic universality and variation in metaphor. The analysis is based on a corpus of newspaper articles related to the elections held in 2008 in Slovenia and those held in the USA in the same year. The results suggest that while there is a certain degree of universality in terms of the predominant conceptual metaphors, there are also important variations between the two languages and cultures in question, such as the ubiquity of metaphorically motivated terminology and election jargon identified in (American) English texts. Adapted from the source document