The rising prominence of women in politics has sparked a growing interest in comparing the language of male and
female politicians. Many researchers have explored whether gender in politics has had an impact on their metaphor styles. While
these studies have been oriented qualitatively and have concentrated on the two-way interaction between metaphor and gender, the
possibility that metaphor and gender may interact with other additional factors is largely overlooked. This article adopts a
quantitatively oriented approach complemented with textual analysis to explore potential multiple-way interactions between
‘metaphor’, ‘gender’, ‘speech section’ and ‘political role’ in political discourse. By conducting a case study of metaphor use in
Hong Kong political speeches, we found evidence of gendered metaphors and their variability according to politicians’ political
roles and different rhetorical sections in their speeches.
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