Metaphor studies as a bridge between linguistics and political science: theoretical implications and methodological challenges

Metaphor is a central component of human cognition and communication. While metaphors can be studied for their own sake from a linguistic perspective as a process of meaning extension at various levels (be it morphological, lexical or syntactical) or as a rhetorical device used in argumentation, metaphor studies have broadened their scope and touched upon many other scientific disciplines among the cognitive and social sciences. As a result, metaphors have become a central topic in many disciplines, including linguistics, philosophy, psychology, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, communication studies, political science, education science or translation studies. Among these disciplines, politics remains one prominent area where to find metaphors, as has been highlighted by many scholars (see among others Carver & Pikalo, 2008; Charteris-Black, 2011, 2013; Lakoff, 2002; Musolff, 2004, 2016). This can be explained by two main factors. On the one hand, most of our political concepts are metaphorical in nature (Lakoff, 2002, 2004). This means that our understanding of complex and abstract political concepts and processes relies on conceptual metaphors that ‘provide ways of simplifying complexities and making abstractions accessible’ (Semino, 2008:90). On the other hand, metaphors are central to the domain of politics because they have the potential to frame the debate (Lakoff, 2004) and indirectly convey hidden ideologies (Goatly, 2007). Using a particular metaphor to depict a given reality will activate a particular frame and highlight some aspects of this reality while hiding others. Through framing, ‘metaphor helps construct particular aspects of reality and reproduce (or subvert) dominant schemas’ (Koller, 2009: 121). This framing function of metaphors suggests that they influence or even determine the representations of a given reality in the receiver’s mind. This framing function of metaphors can be associated with their persuasive role in rhetoric (see Charteris-Black, 2011). In this talk I will report on the results of two sets of studies we have been conducting as part of an interdisciplinary project on the evolution of the discourse about Belgian federalism. The first set of studies (Perrez & Reuchamps, 2015b; Reuchamps et al., 2018) tackle the framing effect of metaphors and aim at understanding under which conditions metaphors might influence citizens’ representations and preferences about Belgian federalism. Among other things, I will highlight the methodological issues related to these types of behavioral experiments and discuss the mediating role of political knowledge on the framing effect of metaphors. The second set of studies propose semiotic analyses of metaphor use in different types of political corpora, including citizen discourse, institutional discourse and media discourse about Belgian federalism (see for instance Heyvaert, 2019; Perrez & Reuchamps, 2015a). In this part of the presentation, I will question the notion of political discourse itself (see Randour et al., 2020) and focus on the notion of variation in political metaphor use, e.g. understanding why particular metaphors emerge in particular political contexts (or which type of metaphors are produced by which of type political actors?) and how they evolve in one or several discourse communities.‬‬‬‬‬‬ Building on the results of these studies, I will also argue that Deliberate Metaphor Theory (Steen, 2008, 2017) provides an appropriate theoretical framework to account for the rhetorical potential of political metaphors.‬‬ By focusing on these two interrelated dimensions of metaphor use in political discourse, I will try and highlight the cross-fertilization potential of such interdisciplinary research, by showing what metaphor studies can gain, as well theoretically as methodologically, from privileged contact with political science, in the hope that this can be a source of inspiration for any kind of interdisciplinary enterprise

Introduction to Corpus Linguistics: Theoretical and methodological basics

Since the 1980’s and the rise of computer-assisted technologies, Corpus Linguistics (CL) has become a mainstream methodology in linguistics, making it possible to analyze ‘very extensive collections of transcribed utterances or written texts’ (McEnery & Hardie, 2012: i). This workshop will be devoted to main theoretical and methodological basics of Corpus Linguistics. It will be composed of three main parts. Firstly, we will address the process of corpus construction, with a focus on data collection, balance and representativeness. Secondly, we will discuss essential notions of CL, such as tokens, types, concordances, collocations, corpus annotation and the distinction between corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches. Finally, we will present various types of specialized corpora (for example, monolingual and bilingual corpora, learner corpora and political corpora) to give an overview of the research questions that can be addressed thanks to Corpus Linguistics in a variety of disciplines. This workshop will also include a hands-on session during which the participants will have the opportunity to apply the notions that have been discussed to their own corpus, using the free corpus processing softwares AntConc (http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/antconc, Anthony, 2019) and Unitex (https://unitexgramlab.org, Paumier, 2020)

Folle machine ou solide relation « living apart together » ?

Cet article propose une analyse quantitative et qualitative de l’emploi des métaphores dans le discours politique citoyen. Basée sur des données issues de focus groups organisés à la fois dans les communautés francophones et néerlandophones de Belgique et portant sur la perception citoyenne du fédéralisme, notre étude suggère que les citoyens ont fréquemment recours aux métaphores quand ils parlent de processus politiques complexes, notamment pour expliciter leur(s) perceptions de ces processus. Parmi les domaines conceptuels mobilisés, il apparaît en outre que le domaine de la famille joue un rôle prépondérant dans les perceptions citoyennes du fédéralisme belge.This paper proposes a quantitative and qualitative corpus-based analysis of the use of metaphors in political discourse from the original perspective of citizen discourse. Our data were collected from focus group discussions respectively held in the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking parts of Belgium, which tackled the citizens’ perceptions of Belgian federalism. Our findings suggest that citizens do produce metaphors when talking about complex political processes and that these metaphors reveal different political visions. This research also suggests differences in saliency of the source domains in terms of which citizens make sense of Belgian federalism. In this regard, the family domain, and more especially the metaphor Belgian federalism is a love relationship appears to function as an important conceptual reference point for the citizens’ understanding of the political relations in the Belgian context.Este artículo propone un análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo del empleo de las metáforas en el discurso político ciudadano. Basado sobre datos sacados de focus groups organizados tanto en las comunidades francófonas como neerlandófonas de Bélgica y relacionadas con la percepción ciudadana del federalismo, nuestro estudio sugiere que los ciudadanos recurren frecuentemente a las metáforas cuando hablan de procesos políticos complejos, notamente para explicitar su(s) percepciones de estos mismos procesos. Entre los diferentes campos conceptuales mobilizados, aparece a demás que el espacio de la familia tiene una función dominante en las percepciones ciudadanas del federalismo belga

A crazy machine or a strong “living apart together” relationship?

Cet article propose une analyse quantitative et qualitative de l’emploi des métaphores dans le discours politique citoyen. Basée sur des données issues de focus groups organisés à la fois dans les communautés francophones et néerlandophones de Belgique et portant sur la perception citoyenne du fédéralisme, notre étude suggère que les citoyens ont fréquemment recours aux métaphores quand ils parlent de processus politiques complexes, notamment pour expliciter leur(s) perceptions de ces processus. Parmi les domaines conceptuels mobilisés, il apparaît en outre que le domaine de la famille joue un rôle prépondérant dans les perceptions citoyennes du fédéralisme belge.This paper proposes a quantitative and qualitative corpus-based analysis of the use of metaphors in political discourse from the original perspective of citizen discourse. Our data were collected from focus group discussions respectively held in the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking parts of Belgium, which tackled the citizens’ perceptions of Belgian federalism. Our findings suggest that citizens do produce metaphors when talking about complex political processes and that these metaphors reveal different political visions. This research also suggests differences in saliency of the source domains in terms of which citizens make sense of Belgian federalism. In this regard, the family domain, and more especially the metaphor Belgian federalism is a love relationship appears to function as an important conceptual reference point for the citizens’ understanding of the political relations in the Belgian context.Este artículo propone un análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo del empleo de las metáforas en el discurso político ciudadano. Basado sobre datos sacados de focus groups organizados tanto en las comunidades francófonas como neerlandófonas de Bélgica y relacionadas con la percepción ciudadana del federalismo, nuestro estudio sugiere que los ciudadanos recurren frecuentemente a las metáforas cuando hablan de procesos políticos complejos, notamente para explicitar su(s) percepciones de estos mismos procesos. Entre los diferentes campos conceptuales mobilizados, aparece a demás que el espacio de la familia tiene una función dominante en las percepciones ciudadanas del federalismo belga

Multimodal Foreigner Talk: An Exploratory Study in Classroom Interactions

peer reviewedForeigner talk (FT) is a specific type of communicative adaptation in which native speakers (NS) adapt their language use when interacting with non-native speakers (NNS). Whereas it has convincingly been shown that FT manifested itself at various levels of linguistic analysis (a.o. Long 1981; Roche 1998; Rodriguez-Cuadrado, Baus & Costa 2018; Woolridge 2001), recent research in the domain of gesture studies has suggested that simplification strategies could also be observed in hyperforms of bodily behavior, such as big or slow gestures and sustained eye gaze (a.o. Adams 1998, Gullberg 2011). This multimodal realization of foreigner talk has also been confirmed by Authors (2021) who observed that NS interacting with NNS produced hand gestures that were larger, performed faster, and that covered a larger trajectory. In this context, the present exploratory study aims at analyzing the multimodal realization of FT in classroom interactions. More specifically, we investigate to what extent NS teachers adapt their bodily behavior when addressing NNS students. To do so, we are using a within design comparing similar NS teachers respectively engaged in interactions with NNS students (experimental group) and NS students (control group). Based on the existing literature (cf. Tellier and Stam 2010, Azaoui 2013, Authors, 2021), we expect that non-verbal FT would be characterized by an increase in gesture rate, gesture duration, hold rate and duration, gesture size, gesture trajectory, and gesture velocity. We are analyzing our data using OpenPose annotations to derive kinematic data on the spatial and temporal dimensions of gesture production (cf. Authors, 2021). These analyses will make it possible to observe to what extent FT manifests itself in formal features of non-verbal communication in the context of classroom interactions

Motion in speech and gesture in a CLIL context

peer reviewedThe typological differences between verb-framed and satellite-framed languages observed by Talmy (2000) have been shown to be reflected in co-speech gestures as well (Brown & Chen, 2013; Kita & Özyürek, 2003; McNeill, 2005; McNeill & Duncan, 2000). Such gestures should therefore be taken into account when studying L2 learners’ thinking for speaking patterns (Stam, 2018). More specifically, studies show different correlations between the types of language and (i) the realization of manner fog gestures and (ii) the synchronization between gestures and speech (Kita & Özyürek, 2003; McNeill & Duncan, 2000). Against this background, our study aims at determining how motion events are expressed in speech and co-speech gestures by French speakers (FS), Dutch speakers (DS), and CLIL French-speaking learners of Dutch (CLIL-FSLD). We conducted an elicitation experiment in which participants recounted scenes from a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon. Fifteen FS, fifteen DS, and fifteen CLIL-FSLD with a pre-intermediate level completed the task. Using Kopecka's (2006) taxonomy, we identified the semantic components (manner and path) encoded in the verbs and satellites. Gestures were classified as iconic, beat, metaphoric, deictic, or pragmatic (McNeill, 1992; Kendon, 2004). Iconic and deictic gestures were further analyzed regarding the aspects of motion they convey (e.g. manner, path, ground) and their type (only for iconic gestures: enacting, representing, drawing, or molding (Müller, 2014)). Finally, we looked at the synchronization between speech and gestures following Stam (2006). So far, 418 utterances and 534 gestures have been analyzed and our results show that FS tend to use PathVERBS+PathSATELLITES+PathGESTURES in both their L1 and L2 descriptions, whereas DS prefer using MannerVERBS+PathSATELLITES+PathGESTURES. Second, CLIL-FSLD align path gestures with verbs more often than in the case of FS and DS. Finally, CLIL-FSLD produce more manner fog and non-substantive gestures. These tendencies suggest that CLIL-FSLD rely more on gesture than L1 speakers and that they tend to replicate the thinking for speaking pattern of FS