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Part of
Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive Interaction: Multimodal and cross-linguistic perspectives
Edited by Manuela Romano and M. Dolores Porto
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 262] 2016
► pp. 215–244

The use of metaphor and evaluation as discourse strategies in pre-electoral debates

Just about winning votes

| University of Alcalá
The present chapter analyzes metaphor use in a Spanish pre-electoral debate and its interplay with evaluation. The metaphorical expressions found are cross-­culturally contrasted with those from a previous study for English (Neagu 2013) to verify to what extent they are equivalent in English and Spanish and whether similarities are influenced by ideological factors. Furthermore, the evaluative overload of metaphors in the Spanish debate is explored by confronting them with the evaluative devices encountered in the same text after the application of Hunston’s (2000) evaluation model and Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Theory. Results show that, although cross-cultural expression of metaphors differs at times, all politicians use them to win election, rather than due to ideological reasons. Moreover, metaphor and evaluation are often realized by the same linguistic expressions.
Keywords: Appraisal Theory, argumentative strategies, Critical Discourse Analysis, cross-cultural, evaluation, metaphor, persuasion, political discourse, pre-electoral debate
Published online: 31 March 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.262.09die
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