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The Corporation as Person and Psychopath: Multimodal Metaphor, Rhetoric and Resistance

Abstract

This article conducts a detailed analysis of multimodal metaphor in the documentary film The Corporation, with particular focus on the metaphor the corporation is a person. The metaphors that make up the film are analysed within the immediate context of the rhetorical structure of the film, the discursive context of the use of the corporation is a person metaphor by corporations to gain power, and the background context of the corporation is a person as a ubiquitous conceptual metaphor in everyday cognition. The metaphors in the film are then compared with other multimodal metaphors from two protest videos. The article can be thought of as Positive Discourse Analysis, in that the use of metaphors in the film and videos is held up as an example of how multimodal media can be used to resist hegemonic discourses that harm people and the environment. A practical aim of the analysis is to reveal the detailed workings of the metaphors in order to provide resources that can be drawn on in the construction of effective materials for challenging hegemonic constructions of the corporation in the future

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