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Article published In:
Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 33:1 (2020) ► pp.27–54

The language of recovery

Metaphors in Obama’s and Rajoy’s political speeches

| IULMA – Universitat de València

The present study attempts to make a comparative analysis of two Spanish and American political speeches, which belong to two different debate traditions, in terms of the metaphors used. For that purpose, we analyze the Economy sections of the 2015 State of the Union Address in the US and in the 2015 State of the Nation Debate in Spain. The present study aims at answering the following research questions:

  1. What metaphors do President Obama and Prime Minister Rajoy use in the American and Spanish political speeches to convince their audiences of America’s and Spain’s economic victory?

  2. What are the similarities and differences between the representations depicted by metaphor use in the speeches as the politicians attempt to shape the economic recovery of America and Spain after recession?

To answer these questions, we use an analytical framework for the identification of conceptual metaphors and a theoretical framework for the use of conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). The results indicate that both politicians use metaphors in an attempt to reify the new economy in such a way that the economic policies used to fight crisis are justified, while the negative effects on citizens are not mentioned and, thus, are dismissed as unimportant. However, the politicians take different approaches to reification.

Keywords: metaphor, political discourse, parliamentary debate, political speech, persuasion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Parliamentary discourse: the State of the Union Address vs. the State of the Nation Address. Socio-political background of the speeches
  • 3.Metaphors in political discourse
  • 4.Economy metaphors
  • 5.Methodology
  • 6.Results and discussion of findings
    • 6.1Obama’s metaphorical expressions: Economy metaphors
    • 6.2Rajoy’s metaphorical expressions
      • 6.2.1Economy metaphors
      • 6.2.2Financial crisis metaphors
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.17055.cab
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