Cognitive-discursive analysis of multimodal metaphors and blends present in a Brazilian political blogs

Abstract

This work intends to analyze from a cognitive and discursive point of view the use of multimodal metaphors and blends about politics in Brazilian political blogs. It is interested in evaluating the way in which different semiotic systems coexist in the construction of constitutive processes of this digital genre with special reference to verbal and imaginary resources. It is meant to enhance knowledge about the beliefs, values and political ideologies that characterize the discourses on democracy. Moreover, it allows us to evaluate how the development of information and communication technologies has crafted new forms of discussion and political participation by enabling new cognitive and discursive strategies. The use of metaphors and blends, while constitutive of the way human beings think, act and communicate, can be accounted for as recurrent framings in political blogs from a cognitive-discursive approach. Hence, that political blogs can be dealt with as semiotic mental spaces that emerge from the interaction between subjects and new digital media, producing meaning through the conceptual integration of different semiotic resources. This interaction engenders metaphorical and blending processes as representations of how these subjects, as citizens, experience the public space and act politically through discourse by taking stances, debating and sometimes manipulating opinions.