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Article published In:
Pragmatic perspectives on disagreement
Edited by Jennifer Schumann and Steve Oswald
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 12:1] 2024
► pp. 111–138

Exploiting metaphor in disagreement

ORCID logo | University of Groningen
ORCID logo | Leiden University

The use of metaphors is a common strategy in argumentative discourse to resolve disagreements and create common ground. Nonetheless, metaphor use could also backfire. An opponent could, for example, hijack a metaphor to oppose the proponent’s standpoint. The current study focuses on this type of resistance, which we have dubbed ‘metaphor exploitation’. Such exploitation is of particular interest because proponents are pragmatically committed to the metaphor which is subsequently exploited to attack their ideas. This paper introduces a model to distinguish metaphor exploitation from other types of reusing metaphor (extension and recontextualisation) and contrasts it with the neighbouring phenomenon of metaphor reframing. Subsequently, the model is applied by analysing the strategic use of metaphor exploitation in a corpus of 196 replies on Twitter (now ‘X’) to a violence metaphor employed by former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (his so-called ‘mugger metaphor’). As such, this paper offers the tools for systematically analysing the reuse of metaphors in disagreement.

Keywords: metaphor, exploitation, extension, recontextualisation, reframing, resistance
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Types of metaphor reuse
    • 2.1Extension
    • 2.2Recontextualisation
    • 2.3Shifting
    • 2.4Reframing
    • 2.5Overview of types of metaphor (re)use
  • 3.Exploitation of a violence metaphor
    • 3.1Violence metaphors
    • 3.2Johnson’s mugger metaphor
  • 4.Method
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Overview of metaphor reuse
    • 5.2Exploitation by extending the metaphor
    • 5.3Exploitation by recontextualising the metaphor
    • 5.4Metaphor exploitation versus reframing
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 18 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00101.van
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