Cover not available

Article published In: Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 12:2 (2025) ► pp.264–291

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Image-schematic complexes in political discourse conceptualizations

A corpus-based contrastive study

ORCiD logo with link | University of Niš
ORCiD logo with link | University of Niš
ORCiD logo with link | University of Niš
Published online: 10 November 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.24035.jov
Abstract
The paper focuses on image-schematic dynamic complexes as constituent elements of conceptual construction and meaning generation in language. More specifically, it studies the deployment of schematicity in the journalistic register of political discourse, viewed from a comparative-contrastive perspective. A two-component 400,000-word corpus of English and Serbian politico-economic newspaper articles is used for a quantitative analysis that examines schematicity, scalarity and the degree of affectiveness, and bias as a correlative of text topic and newspaper type. The results indicate that although the number of schemas involved need not be significant for an increase in figurativeness in political language, the marked variation in scalarity points to increased or attenuated affectiveness leading to biased reporting. This pertains particularly to the topic of war in tabloid newspapers. Moreover, such an increase/attenuation may be shown to operate in both English and Serbian newspaper articles.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework and previous research
    • 2.1Image schemas and their dynamic complexes
    • 2.2Image schemas and scalarity
    • 2.3Political discourse in the media
    • 2.4Cognitive perspective in the study of political discourse
  • 3.Materials and methods
    • 3.1Corpus description
    • 3.2The method and analytical procedure
  • 4.The results and discussion
    • 4.1Distribution of image schematic complexes in English and Serbian subcorpora
      • 4.1.1Instantiations of image schema complexes for motion conceptualizations in Serbian
      • 4.1.2Instantiations of image schema complexes for motion conceptualizations in English
    • 4.2Scalar valence in correlation with language, newspaper type, and topic
      • 4.2.1Scalar valence and language
      • 4.2.2Scalar valence and newspaper type
      • 4.2.3Scalar valence and topic
    • 4.3Schematic complexes in metaphorical and non-metaphorical contexts
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (56)
References
Barlow, M., & Kemmer, S. (Eds.). (2000). Usage-based models of language. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A study in experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bednarek, M. (2006). Evaluation in media discourse: Analysis of a newspaper corpus. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron, L. J., & Stelma, J. H. (2004). Metaphor clusters in discourse. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 107–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cienki, A. (1997). Some properties and groupings of image schemas. In M. H. Verspoor, K. D. Lee, E. Sweetser (Eds.), Lexical and syntactical constructions and the construction of meaning (pp. 3–15). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clausner, T. C., & Croft, W. (1999). Domains and image schemas. Cognitive Linguistics, 10(1), 1–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conboy, M. (2002). The press and popular culture. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Tabloid Britain: Constructing a community through language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evans, V., & Green, M. (2006). Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, N. (1995). Media discourse. London: E. Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Figar, V., & Veličković, M. (2022). The power of image schemas in structuring the political discourse of daily newspapers. In International Conference Language, Literature, Power. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš Serbia. [URL]
Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, Jr. R. W., Beitel, D. A., Harrington, M., & Sanders, P. E. (1994). Taking a stand on the meanings of stand: Bodily experience as motivation for polysemy. Journal of Semantics, 11(4), 231–251. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grady, J. E. (2005). Image schemas and perception: Refining a definition. In B. Hampe (Ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in cognitive linguistics (pp. 35–56). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2022). The use of the PATH and FORCE image schemas in Barack Obama’s counterterrorism discourse against ISIL. Critical Discourse Studies, 19(3): 274–289. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hardman, D. (2008). Political ideologies and identity in British newspaper discourse. Doctoral dissertation. Nottingham: University of Nottingham.
Hart, C., Rymes, B., Souto-Manning, M., Brown, C., & Luke, A. (2005). Analysing political discourse: Toward a cognitive approach. Critical Discourse Studies, 2(2), 189–194. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hart, C. (2011). Force-interactive patterns in immigration discourse: A cognitive linguistic approach to CDA. Discourse & Society, 22(3), 269–286. [URL].
(2015). Discourse. In E. Dąbrowska & D. Divjak (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 322–346). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hedblom, M. M., Kutz, O., & Neuhaus, F. (2015). Choosing the right path: Image schema theory as a foundation for concept invention. Journal of Artificial General Intelligence, 6(1), 21–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Image schemas in computational conceptual blending. Cognitive Systems Research, 391, 42–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hedblom, M. M., Kutz, O., Peñaloza, R., & Guizzardi, G. (2019). Image schema combinations and complex events. Künstliche Intelligenz, 33(3), 279–291. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). The philosophical significance of image schemas. In B. Hampe (Ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in cognitive linguistics (pp. 15–34). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). The meaning of the body: Aesthetics of human understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kelsey, D. (2019). News, discourse, and ideology. In K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), The handbook of journalism studies (2nd edition) (pp. 246–260). London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krzeszowski, T. P. (1993). The axiological parameter in preconceptional image schemata. In R. A. Geiger & B. Rudzka-Ostyn (Eds.), Conceptualizations and mental processing in language (pp. 307–330). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1990). The invariance hypothesis: Is abstract reason based on image-schemas?. Cognitive Linguistics, 1(1), 39–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1989). More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mandler, J. M. (1992). How to build a baby: II. Conceptual primitives. Psychological Review, 99(4), 587–604. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). The foundations of mind: Origins of conceptual thought. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). How to build a baby: III. Image schemas and the transition to verbal thought. In B. Hampe (Ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in cognitive linguistics (pp. 137–163). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). On the spatial foundations of the conceptual system and its enrichment. Cognitive Science, 36(3), 421–451. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mandler, J. M., & Cánovas, C. P. (2014). On defining image schemas. Language and Cognition, 6(4), 510–532. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín de la Rosa, V. (2023). Taking back control: The role of image schemas in the Brexit discourse. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 27(2), 276–296. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Musolff, A. (2016). Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and scenarios. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oakley, T. (2007). Image schemas. In D. Geeraerts & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 214–235). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Otieno, R. F., Owino, F. R., Attyan, J. M., & Ogone, J. O. (2017). Image schemas in political discourse in Kenya. European Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 5(2), 71–84.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petiy, N. (2023). Conceptual metaphors verbalizing war in Ukraine in media discourse. Věda a perspektivy, 2(21), 203–214. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1926). The language and thought of the child. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1928). The child’s conception of the world. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Popova, Y. (2005). Image schemas and verbal synaesthesia. In B. Hampe (Ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in cognitive linguistics (pp. 395–420). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pragglejaz Group (2007). MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stadler, M. W. (2020). The ontological nature of part-whole oscillations. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steen, G. J., Dorts, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2010). A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News as discourse. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Discourse and context: A sociocognitive approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue