Metaphors for the Concept of 'Democracy' in Newspaper Articles: A Corpus-Based Critical Metaphor Analysis

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the metaphoric conceptualizations of the concept 'democracy' within the cognitive linguistic framework, and to propose a cultural-cognitive model related to this concept. TS Columns Corpus that is made up of newspaper articles was employed to construct the database of the study. The lemma {demokrasi} was searched in the corpus, and randomly selected 1500 examples were included in the study. In the identification, interpretation and explanation process of the metaphors Critical Metaphor Analysis proposed by Charteris-Black (34) was employed. The source domains - A PHYSICAL OBJECT, STRUGGLE, TARGET, A LIVING BEING, CONTAINER, CONSTRUCTION, MACHINE and INSTRUMENT - were identified in the analysis, and their quantitative distribution was calculated. The conceptual mappings for the first four source domains with the highest frequency of use were analyzed in detail in the study. The metaphors identified in the study give information on how democracy, as a social and political phenomenon, is conceptualized in Turkish, and on different aspects of the content of this concept. The findings of this study reveal the functions of metaphor in shaping the perceptions of people about what kind of a democracy they are governed with.

Keywords

• Demokrasi
• Eleştirel Metafor Çözümlemesi
• Derlem
• Bilişsel Dilbilim
• Gazete Köşe Yazıları