Article published in:
Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 8:2 (2018) ► pp. 157–183

From the light of truth to the dark alleys of tyranny

The evocative power of metaphor in American political speeches

| University of Verona
The present study aims at exploring the evocative power of metaphor in a number of remarkable American political speeches. The investigation concentrates on the metaphorical framing of political issues in terms of light and darkness. The analysis is carried out on a corpus consisting of the top 100 political speeches in the twentieth century according to a ranking given by American rhetoricians in a national survey (http://​www​. news​.wisc​.edu​/misc​/speeches). Overall, the study shows how the metaphorical uses of the evocative concepts of light and darkness have facilitated the communication of central political ideas, values and beliefs in twentieth century American political rhetoric.
Keywords: American political discourse, political speeches, conceptual metaphors, light and dark metaphors, corpus linguistics
Published online: 23 October 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.16025.deg
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