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Article published In:
Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 11:1 (2021) ► pp.23–45

The container and force schemas in political discourse

The representation of military strategies in Barack Obama’s discourse

| University of Žilina

The paper focuses on metaphors based on the image schemas of container and force that were employed by U.S. President Barack Obama in the campaign against ISIL (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Systematic metaphors based on the schemas of container and force illustrate the strategy of the international alliance against ISIL’s activity. The strategy included the isolation of the organization, the restriction of the flow of foreign fighters and financial resources to the area controlled by ISIL as well as planning military operations designed to weaken the influence of the organization. The analysis has been conducted on the corpus of political speeches delivered by the speaker in the period from June 2014 to September 2016. Theoretical framework that is employed in the analysis of primary data is grounded in Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) which explores ideological aspects of discourse.

Keywords: container schema, force schema, metaphor, political speech, Barack Obama, ISIL
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The container and force schemas
  • 3.Theoretical framework for analysis
  • 4.Data and methodology
  • 5.Findings and discussion
    • 5.1Systematic metaphors based on the container schema in Barack Obama’s discourse
      • 5.1.1 the isolation of the isil’s container
      • 5.1.2 money is a fluid that flows into the container
      • 5.1.3 foreign fighters are a fluid that flows into the container
      • 5.1.4 the central part of the container is the heart of isil
    • 5.2Systematic metaphors based on the force schema in Barack Obama’s discourse
      • 5.2.1 squeezing/ tightening the isil’s container is attacking
      • 5.2.2 the machine metaphor – isil’s heart is a machine that pumps funds and propaganda outside the container
    • 5.3The combination of the container and force schemas
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 8 September 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.18031.ham
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