Through the prism of metaphor: A case study of the US and UK political discourse on the Ukraine conflict

Abstract

Much has been said about the role of metaphor in constructing the meaning of political discourse. The seminal work of G. Lakoff showed how a particular choice of metaphors allowed political agents to take a stand on important issues and achieve their rhetorical goals. This paper focuses on the identification of the most productive means for semantic configuration of the metaphors used by British and American media given the ideological perspectivization of North-American politics towards recent conflicts in Ukraine. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and conceptual metaphor theory, this paper argues that the metaphorical system offered by Lakoff is insufficient for conceptualizing the US policy regarding the Ukraine conflict, and claims that the choice of cognitive construals is governed by the context in which they are used and by the perspective adopted.