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In:Metaphor, Nation and Discourse
Edited by Ljiljana Šarić and Mateusz-Milan Stanojević
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 82] 2019
► pp. 155–176

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Chapter 6
Metaphors of plant cultivation and flowing liquid in German colonialist discourse (1871–1914)

 | University of London
Published online: 20 May 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.82.07ras
Abstract
This chapter offers a critical analysis of two major metaphor groups, plant cultivation and flowing liquids, using theories of conceptual metaphor alongside Zinken and Musolff’s premise that metaphor understanding in the real world is “a matter of engagement in debate” rather than solely a speedy and unconscious cognitive operation (Zinken & Musolff 2009: 4). A qualitative analysis of representative texts produced between 1879 and 1913 will show how metaphors of cultivation and flowing reflect German pro-colonialist ideology at the turn of the twentieth century: Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden’s Ethiopien, Friedrich Fabri’s Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien, Friedrich Ratzel’s Politische Geographie and Der Lebensraum. Frieda von Bülow’s Tropenkoller, Robert Streit’s Ein Opfer der Hottentotten, and, to a certain extent, Leo Frobenius’s Und Afrika Sprach show some of the less positive aspects of colonialist cultivation and flowing.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1 Colonization as cultivation
      • 3.1.1Metaphor histories
      • 3.1.2Metaphors of cultivation in German colonialist discourse after 1871
    • 3.2Colonization as flowing
      • 3.2.1Metaphor histories
      • 3.2.2Metaphors of flowing in German colonialist discourse after 1871
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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