FAMILY BEYOND BORDERS

Abstract

The paper studies the way Lakoff’s STATE IS A PERSON metaphor and Mussolf’s family scenario are exploited in British and Bulgarian media texts. The models that are studied include marriage partners/ divorce, children-parents relations, misbehaving children, good children, poor relatives and stepmothers. The type of family relation used for presenting certain situation can change with a change in the political environment – for instance, a country can be presented as a marriage partner in one text, as a divorcee in another and as a (disobedient) child in a third text.

Keywords

• the state is a person metaphor
• metaphor scenarios
• family scenario