As metaphors not only reflect perceived reality, but can also function as cues through which citizens come to understand complex political processes, the aim of this study is to look at how specific metaphors might impact on the citizens’ framing of Belgian federalism. To measure the impact of metaphors on political representations, we conducted an experiment among 493 citizens based on an article published in the newspaper “Le Soir”, in which Belgian federalism was compared to a Tetris game in both a text and an image. The participants were distributed across four experimental conditions according to the type of input they had been exposed to (text and image, text only, image only, no input) and were asked to perform a free description task. The productions of the participants were analyzed using keyword and content analyses. The results suggest that the participants who had been exposed to the experimental text tended to frame their perception of Belgian federalism in different ways. They also show that reading the text had more of an impact on the representations than looking at the image, but that this impact was in both cases short-lived.
(2005) The career of metaphor. Psychological Review, 112(1), 193–216.
Charteris-Black, J
(2011) Politicians and rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor (2nd ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Deschouwer, K
(2012) The politics of Belgium: Governing a divided society (2nd ed.). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Deschouwer, K., & Reuchamps, M
(2013) The Belgian Federation at a crossroad. Regional & Federal Studies, 23(3), 261–270.
Johnson, M
(2010) Metaphor and cognition. In D. Schmicking & S. Gallagher (Eds.), Handbook of phenomenology and cognitive science (pp. 401–414). London: Springer.
Koller, V
(2009) Missions and empires: Religious and political metaphors in corporate discourse. In A. Musolff & J. Zinken (Eds.), Metaphor and discourse (pp. 116–134). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lakoff, G
(1996) Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M
(1980) Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Musolff, A
(2004) Metaphor and political discourse. Analogical reasoning in debates about Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
(2015) UNITEX 3.1BETA : Manuel d’utilisation. Paris: Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée.
Perrez, J., & Reuchamps, M
(2014) Deliberate metaphors in political discourse: the case of citizen discourse. Metaphorik.de, 251, 7–41.
Reuchamps, M
(2013) The future of Belgian federalism through the eyes of the citizens. Regional & Federal Studies, 23(3), 353–368.
Reuchamps, M., & Perrez, J
(2012) Métaphores conceptuelles dans les discours citoyens en Belgique. In J. Perrez & M. Reuchamps (Eds.), Les relations communautaires en Belgique : Approches politiques et linguistiques (pp. 133–158). Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-L’harmattan.
Scott, M
(2012) WordSmith Tools version 6. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software.
Steen, G.J
(2008) The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-dimensional model of metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 23(4), 213–241.
Steen, G.J., Reijnierse, W.G., & Burgers, C
(2014) When do natural language metaphors influence reasoning? A follow-up study to Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2013). PLoS ONE, 9(12), e113536.
Thibodeau, P.H., & Boroditsky, L
(2011) Metaphors we think with: The role of metaphor in reasoning. PLoS ONE, 6(2), e16782.
Devillers, Sophie, Pierre Baudewyns, Lieven De Winter & Min Reuchamps
2019. Who Do You Feel and What Future Do You Want for Belgium? A Comparison of Candidates and Voters’ Identities and Institutional Preferences. In Candidates, Parties and Voters in the Belgian Partitocracy, ► pp. 245 ff.
Heyvaert, Pauline, François Randour, Jérémy Dodeigne, Julien Perrez & Min Reuchamps
2021. Metaphor in Mahathir’s political speeches in the context of economic crisis. South East Asia Research 29:4 ► pp. 434 ff.
Kovář, Jan
2020. Moving Forward or Turning Back? Slovak Parties and the Future of the EU. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 53:3 ► pp. 43 ff.
Legein, Thomas, Audrey Vandeleene, François Randour, Pauline Heyvaert, Julien Perrez & Min Reuchamps
2018. Framing the Basic Income: An Experimental Study of How Arguments and Metaphors Influence Individuals’ Opinion Formation. Basic Income Studies 13:2
Reuchamps, Min, Jeremy Dodeigne & Julien Perrez
2018. Changing your political mind: The impact of a metaphor on citizens’ representations and preferences for federalism. Regional & Federal Studies 28:2 ► pp. 151 ff.
Vandeleene, Audrey, François Randour, Jérémy Dodeigne, Pauline Heyvaert, Thomas Legein, Julien Perrez & Min Reuchamps
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.