Cover not available
Article published In:
Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 8:2 (2018) ► pp.184–206

The body politic of independent Scotland

National personification and metaphor as ideological visions

| Linnaeus University

The creation of national personifications is a political act that informs us about ideological and cognitive strategies underpinning nation-building. Many European nations are associated with national personifications, but Scotland stands out by not having a tradition of representing the nation in this way. The 2014 independence referendum began to change that, and national personifications featured, not only in the main pro-independence campaign material, but in the visual profile of many new, radical organizations. These personifications also raise questions about the use of metaphor in political discourse. By combining multimodal metaphor and metonymy analysis with interviews with artists who have designed Scottish personifications for the independence movement, this article investigates how new Scottish body politic metaphors were constructed during the campaign. This methodology increases our understanding of the wider context of the referendum, and aids the interpretation of national personifications by providing arguments for interpretation. The analysis shows that body politic metaphors used in the campaign draw on traditional Scottish symbols, but traditional body politic metaphor types are subverted, typically concerning gender roles, in order to convey messages that are relevant in a contemporary political landscape.

Keywords: metaphor, metonymy, multimodality, National Collective, nationalism, Yes Scotland
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.National Personifications as metaphor and metonymy
  • 3.Methodology and material
  • 4.Personifications of Scotland
    • 4.1Enfranchising Scotland
    • 4.2Scotland, the inclusive mother
    • 4.3Rethinking executive power
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 23 October 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.17009.eng
References
Anderson, B.
(1983) Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
BBC
(2012, September 8). Salmond’s Alasdair Gray Christmas card artwork sold. BBC. Retrieved from: [URL]
Bechhofer, F., & McCrone, D.
(2012) Imagining the nation: Symbols of culture in England and Scotland. Ethnicities, 131, 544–564. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Billig, M.
(1995) Banal nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Bottici, C.
(2014) Imaginal politics: Images beyond imagination and the imaginary. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bremner, S.
(2015) The early days of a better nation: Or how we laid the foundation for the campaign that will win an independent Scotland. Edinburgh: Imagined Images Editions.Google Scholar
Buchanan, M.
(2016) ‘Liked’, ‘shared’, re-tweeted: The referendum campaign on social media. In N. Blain, D. Hutchison & G. Hassan (Eds.), Scotland’s referendum and the media: National and international perspectives (pp. 70–82). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cavarero, A.
(2002) Stately bodies: Literature, philosophy and the question of gender. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dekavalla, M.
(2016) The Scottish press account: Narratives of the independence referendum and its aftermath. In N. Blain, D. Hutchison & G. Hassan (Eds.), Scotland’s referendum and the media: National and international perspectives (pp. 70–82). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eadie, W.
(1990) Movements of modernity: The case of Glasgow and the art nouveau. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Edensor, T.
(2002) National identity, popular culture and everyday life. Oxford: Berg Publishers.Google Scholar
Engström, R. M.
2018). The (dis)continuation of Scottish nationalism: A discursive comparison of the Scottish National Party and National Collective. Journal of Political Ideologies, 231, 97–115. DOI logo
Eriksonas, L.
(2004) National heroes and national identities: Scotland, Norway and Lithuania. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Forceville, C.
(2002) The identification of source in pictorial metaphors. Journal of Pragmatics, 341, 1–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014) Relevance theory as a model for analysing visual and multimodal communication. In D. Machin (Ed.), Visual communication (pp. 51–70). Berlin: De Gruyet Mouton.Google Scholar
Gellner, E.
(1983) Nations and nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gray, A.
(1992) Poor things: Episodes from the early life of Archibald McCandless, MD., Scottish public health officer. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Griffin, R.
(2006) Palingenetic myth. In C. P. Blamires and P. Jackson (Eds.) World fascism: A historical encyclopedia (pp. 498–499). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.Google Scholar
Hague, E.
(2014) Mass market romance fiction and the representation of Scotland in the United States. In M. S. Leith & D. Sim (Eds.), The modern Scottish diaspora: Contemporary debates and perspectives (pp. 171–190). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Hassan, G.
(2014a) Caledonian dreaming: The quest for a different Scotland. Edinburgh: Luath.Google Scholar
(2014b) State of independence: The rise of ‘third’ Scotland. Soundings, 571, 61–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ichijo, A.
(2004) Scottish nationalism and the idea of Europe: Concepts of Europe and the nation. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Indyprints
(n.d.) Indyprints by Stewart Bremner. Available at [URL]
Johns, R., & Mitchell, J.
(2016) Takeover: Explaining the extraordinary rise of the SNP. London: Biteback Publishing.Google Scholar
Keating, M., & McEwen, N.
(2016) The Scottish independent debate. In M. Keating (Ed.), Debating Scotland: Issues of independence and union in the 2014 referendum (pp. 1–26). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kövecses, Z.
(2006) Language, mind and culture: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M.
(1980) Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Law, A.
(2015) Mediating the Scottish independence debate. Media Education Journal, 561, 3–7.Google Scholar
Leith, M. S.
(2008) Scottish National Party representations of Scottishness and Scotland. Politics, 281, 83–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leith, M. S., & Soule, D. P. J.
(2012) Political discourse and national identity in Scotland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Littlemore, J.
(2015) Metonymy: Hidden shortcuts in language, thought and communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lovenduski, J.
(2005) Feminizing politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Machin, D. & van Leeuwen, T.
(2016) Multimodality, politics and ideology. Journal of Language and Politics, 151, 243–258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCrone, D., Morris, A. & Kiely, R.
(1995) Scotland—the brand: The making of Scottish heritage. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Musolff, A.
(2004) Metaphor and political discourse: Analogical reasoning in debates about Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) The heart of Europe: Synchronic variation and historical trajectories of a political metaphor. In K. Fløttum (Ed.), Speaking of Europe: Approaches to complexity in European political discourse (pp. 135–150). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nairn, T.
(1977) The breakup of Britain: Crisis and neo-nationalism. London: New Left Books.Google Scholar
O’Reilly, M.
(2015) Why women? Inclusive security and peaceful societies. Available at [URL]
Pittock, M.
(1999) Celtic identity and the British image. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
(2008) The road to independence? Scotland since the sixties. London: Reaktion Books.Google Scholar
Rhind, N.
(2011) A portrait of Bella Caledonia: Reading national allegory in Alasdair Gray’s “Poor Things”. International Journal of Scottish Literature, 81, 1–15.Google Scholar
Shephard, M. P., & Quinland, S.
(2015) Social media and the Scottish independence referendum 2014: Events and the generation of enthusiasm for yes. In A. Bruns, G. Enli, E. Skogerbo, A. O. Larsson & C. Christensen (Eds.), The Routledge companion to social media and politics (pp. 488–502). Oxford: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stirling, K.
(2008) Bella Caledonia: Woman, nation, text. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, S.
(1996) Politics without metaphors is like a fish without water. In J. S. Mio & A. N. Katz (Eds.), Metaphors: Implications and applications (pp. 185–201). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Trevor Roper, H. R.
(2008) The invention of Scotland: Myth and history. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Warner, M.
(1985) Monuments and maidens: The allegory of the female form. New York: Atheneum.Google Scholar
Youval-Davis, N., & Anthias, F.
(1989) Woman-nation-states. Basingstoke: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Bildhauer, Bettina
2021. Uniting the Nation through Transcending Menstrual Blood: The Period Products Act in Historical Perspective. Open Library of Humanities 7:2 DOI logo
Juszczyk, Konrad, Barbara Konat & Małgorzata Fabiszak
2022. Speakers who metaphorize together – argue together. Metaphor and the Social World 12:2 ► pp. 245 ff. DOI logo
Musolff, Andreas
2021. The Nation as a Body or Person in Present-Day British Political Discourse. In National Conceptualisations of the Body Politic [Cultural Linguistics, ], ► pp. 35 ff. DOI logo
Musolff, Andreas
2021. Nation, Nationalism and Metaphor. In National Conceptualisations of the Body Politic [Cultural Linguistics, ], ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.