Presidential metaphors during the 2019 Chilean social outbreak

Abstract

In October 2019, a series of protests took place throughout Chile. The aim of this paper is to describe the metaphors emitted by the president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, in his speeches made between October 18 and 25, in the context of Chile's “Social Outbreak”. The metaphors were identified and analyzed from the approach of the dynamics of discourse applied to the metaphor. Metaphors related to: Social Agenda, States of Emergency, Manifestations and Needs of the Population were identified. It is observed that the President during the first week of the social outbreak sees the protests as obstacles in the “pathway” of the country's development; here the “war against a powerful enemy” stands out as the great obstacle to be defeated and where he must guide the population towards development through the Social Agenda, protecting what is “built” throughout Chilean history.