Images of the Lisbon Treaty Debate in the British Press: A Corpus-based Approach to Metaphor Analysis

In this book, Chiara Nasti analyses the distribution of metaphor scenarios and patterns in the public discourse on the European Lisbon Treaty. Her study on a specialized corpus reveals differences and/or similarities in the argumentation and attitudes of the main UK broadsheet and tabloid newspapers. She summarizes the main theories and identification procedures for metaphor investigation, commenting on some developments in the field of metaphor studies. Following Charteris-Black’s Critical Metaphor Analysis, she starts from the premise that metaphors need to be explored in the context where they occur. Her analysis in fact reveals that context investigation is useful to better understand the complexity of metaphors - their pragmatic and cognitive function - and their role in the political debate. Moreover, the analysis reveals as well that metaphors are useful tools for identifying stereotyped roles of the participants in the ratification process; and they are also functional, used to explore both political and journalistic attitudes towards the debate on the Lisbon Treaty.Her book addresses readers from various academic backgrounds who are interested in linguistics, cognitive linguistics and, in particular, the application of corpus linguistics to metaphor investigation. It will also be of interest to academic students dealing with the debate over the Lisbon Treaty.