ANTHROPOMORPHIC METHAPHORICAL MODELLING OF THE TARGET DOMAIN “BREXIT” IN BORIS JOHNSON’S POLITICAL JOURNALISM

Abstract

Political journalism constitutes one of the most prominent branches of journalism that involves manipulative influence reflected in language use, in particular, metaphors. This article addresses the problem of anthropomorphic metaphorical modeling of the target domain “Brexit” – the notion which became a global word within five years of being coined. Adopting George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s view of the metaphor seen as a way to understand one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain enables the authors to identify a cluster of frames associated with anthropomorphic metaphors mirroring the image of the concept “Brexit” in political journalism authored by Boris Johnson. Brexit as a political process and referendum, which took place in The United Kingdom in 2016, has the following structural elements: “Referendum”, “Great Britain”, “voter”, “European Union”, “political process” and “strategy”. Those elements become the target of the metaphorical modeling of Johnson’s political journalism. During research we managed to identify that the most numerous group of metaphors are those that belong to the source-domain “Human” and called anthropomorphic metaphors. The frames of the mentioned metaphorical modeling in question are as follows: “Psychological activity”, “Anatomical organs” and “Cultural background”. It is anthropomorphic metaphors related to the human race, its culture and society, and its physical environment that inspire bonding atmosphere and appeal to reader’s emotional sphere, patriotism, dignity and self-identification. The results of this study show that anthropomorphic metaphorical modeling is a significant and effective means of manipulative influence used by Johnson to create the desired socio-political picture in the readers’ minds with a view to influencing their opinion on Brexit, its pros, delay and consequences. Our research can serve as a basis for improving and optimizing the techniques of speech manipulation of political structures. Also, the results of this work can be used to increase the socio-political self-awareness of individuals through the development of a critical attitude to the texts of political journalism.