Cover not available
Part of
Metaphor, Nation and Discourse
Edited by Ljiljana Šarić and Mateusz-Milan Stanojević
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 82] 2019
► pp. 155–176

Chapter 6
Metaphors of plant cultivation and flowing liquid in German colonialist discourse (1871–1914)

This chapter offers a critical analysis of two major metaphor groups, plant cultivation and flowing liquids, using theories of conceptual metaphor alongside Zinken and Musolff’s premise that metaphor understanding in the real world is “a matter of engagement in debate” rather than solely a speedy and unconscious cognitive operation (Zinken & Musolff 2009: 4). A qualitative analysis of representative texts produced between 1879 and 1913 will show how metaphors of cultivation and flowing reflect German pro-colonialist ideology at the turn of the twentieth century: Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden’s Ethiopien, Friedrich Fabri’s Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien, Friedrich Ratzel’s Politische Geographie and Der Lebensraum. Frieda von Bülow’s Tropenkoller, Robert Streit’s Ein Opfer der Hottentotten, and, to a certain extent, Leo Frobenius’s Und Afrika Sprach show some of the less positive aspects of colonialist cultivation and flowing.
Keywords: discourse metaphor, discourse systematicity, Discourse Historical Approach, Critical Metaphor Analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1 Colonization as cultivation
      • 3.1.1Metaphor histories
      • 3.1.2Metaphors of cultivation in German colonialist discourse after 1871
    • 3.2Colonization as flowing
      • 3.2.1Metaphor histories
      • 3.2.2Metaphors of flowing in German colonialist discourse after 1871
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 May 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.82.07ras
References (26)
References
Primary sources
Bülow, Frieda von. 1896. Tropenkoller. Episode aus dem deutschen Kolonialleben [Tropical Madness: Episodes in German Colonial Life]. Berlin: Fontane.Google Scholar
Fabri, Friedrich. 1879. Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien? Eine politisch-ökonomische Betrachtung [Does Germany need Colonies? Political-Economic Observations]. Gotha: Perthes.Google Scholar
Frobenius, Leo. 1912–1913. Und Afrika Sprach… Bericht über den Verlauf der dritten Reiseperiode der Deutschen innerafrikanischen Forschungsexpedition in den Jahren 1910–1912 [And Africa Spoke… An Account of the third Journey of the German Central Africa Research Expedition], 3 vols. Berlin: Vita.Google Scholar
Hübbe-Schleiden, Wilhelm. 1879. Ethiopien. Studien über West-Afrika [Ethiopia. Studies of West Africa].Hamburg: L. Friederichsen & Co.Google Scholar
Ratzel, Friedrich. 1897. Politische Geographie [Political Geography]. Munich and Leipzig: R. Oldenbourg.Google Scholar
. 1901. “Der Lebensraum.” In Festgaben für Albert Schäffle zur Siebenzigsten Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages am 24. Februar 1901, ed. by Karl Bücher, et al., 101–189. Tübingen: Verlag der H. Laupp’schen Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
Streit, Robert. 1907. Ein Opfer der Hottentotten. Dem Volke und der Jugend erzählt [A Victim of the Hottentotts. A Story for the Nation and its Young People]. Dülmen i.W.: Laumann’sche Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
Secondary sources
Adelung, Johann Christoph. 1811 [1793]. Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart [Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of the High German Dialects]. Vienna.Google Scholar
Betts, Raymond. 1972. “Introduction.” In The “Scramble” for Africa: Causes and Dimensions of Empire, ed. by Raymond Betts, vii–xxi. D. C. Heath: Lexington, Massachusetts, Toronto, London.Google Scholar
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2014. Analysing Political Speeches. Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chilton, Paul. 2009. “Reading Sonnet 30: Discourse, Metaphor and Blending.” In Metaphor and Discourse, ed. by Andreas Musolff and Jörg Zinken, 40–58. Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. 1838–1971. Deutsches Wörterbuch [German Dictionary]. Leipzig: S. Hirzel.Google Scholar
Gründer, Horst. 1999. „… da und dort ein junges Deutschland gründen“. Rassismus, Kolonien und koloniale Gedanke vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert [“… to Found a new German Colony in Europe and Overseas.” Racism, Colonies and the Colonial Idea from the 16. to the 20. Century], 3rd ed. Munich: dtv.Google Scholar
Kövecses, Zoltán. 2005. Metaphor in Culture. Universality and Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Turner. 1989. More than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
The Oxford English Dictionary. 1989. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peters, Carl. 1940. Wie Ostafrika entstand [How East Africa was Founded]. Leipzig: Koehler & Voigtländer.Google Scholar
Rash, Felicity. 2006. The Language of Violence: Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
. 2016. The Discourse Strategies of Imperialist Writing. The German Colonial Idea and Africa, 1848–1945. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Semino, Elena. 2008. Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge: C. U. P.Google Scholar
Spalding, Keith. 1970–2000. An Historical Dictionary of German Figurative Usage. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Treitschke, Heinrich von. 1922. Politik: Vorlesungen gehalten an der Univeristät zu Berlin [Politics: Lectures held at the University of Berlin], 2 volumes, 5th ed. Leipzig: S. Hirzel.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl, and Karin Liebhart. 2009. The Discursive Construction of National Identity, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Zinken, Jörg, Iina Hellsten, and Brigitte Nerlich. 2008. “Discourse Metaphors.” In Body, Language, and Mind. Vol. 2: Sociocultural Situatedness, ed. by René Dirven, Roslyn Franck, Tom Ziemke, and Jordan Zlatev, 363–385. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Zinken, Jörg, and Andreas Musolff. 2009. “A Discourse-Centred Perspective on Metaphorical Meaning and Understanding.” In Metaphor and Discourse, ed. by Andreas Musolff and Jörg Zinken, 1–8. Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke. DOI logoGoogle Scholar