Novel Metaphor in Polarising Discourse

Abstract

This research is a mixed-method study in which quantitative data is analysed in order to inform and enrich a stage of qualitative analysis. As such, in forming my research objectives, I have followed the recommendations on designing mixed-research objectives given in Tashakkori and Creswell (2007). General objectives: 1. To apply a pragmatic theory of metaphor (pragmatic IT) to political discourse 2. To investigate the use of active metaphorical utterances by potential populists 3. To investigate the use of active metaphorical utterances to communicate ideology These general objectives provoked more specific objectives: 1. To design and compile corpora which would facilitate the investigation of metaphorically used language by populists in the EU Parliament, 2014- 2019, and during the presidential election campaign in the USA, 2016 2. To develop a corpus methodology which would provide qualitative data that could inform pragmatic qualitative analysis 3. To develop a theoretical framework which would facilitate the analysis of ideological content as part of speaker’s meaning 4. To evaluate the discourse of potential populists against their non-populist peers, in order to verify to what extent they can be considered populist 5. To manually annotate a corpus using pragmatic IT’s identification criteria for active metaphorical utterances 6. To quantitatively compare populist and non-populist uses of active metaphorical utterances in my corpora 7. To qualitatively compare populist and non-populist uses of active metaphorical utterances for ideological purposes 8. To discuss possible interpretations of the quantitative data in light of the qualitative findings, and thereby generate hypotheses for future research.