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The Language of Crisis
Metaphors, frames and discourses
In times of crisis, how do people conceptualise and communicate their experiences through different forms and channels? How can original research in cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis and crisis studies advance our understanding of the ways in which we interact with and communicate about crisis events? In answering these questions, this volume examines the unique functions, features and applications of the metaphors and frames that emerge from and give shape to crisis-related discourses. The chapters in this volume present original concepts, approaches, authentic data and findings of crisis discourses in a wide range of organisational, political and personal contexts that affect a diverse body of language users and communities. This book will appeal to a broad readership in linguistics, sociological studies, cognitive sciences, crisis studies as well as language and communication researchers and practitioners.
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 87] 2020. viii, 309 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 23 June 2020
Published online on 23 June 2020
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Notes on contributors | pp. vii–viii
- Introduction: Constructing and communicating crisis discourse from cognitive, discursive and sociocultural perspectivesMimi Huang | pp. 1–20
- Part I. Investigating the language of financial and organisational crisis
- Chapter 1. Crisis Marketing through conceptual ontology in metaphor in financial reporting: “Decision”, “change” … and Right to Information?Michael O’Mara-Shimek | pp. 23–50
- Chapter 2. From economic crisis to austerity policies through conceptual metaphor: A corpus-based comparison of metaphors of crisis and austerity in the Portuguese pressAugusto Soares da Silva | pp. 51–86
- Chapter 3. Responding to organisational misbehaviour: The influence of public frames in social mediaLise-Lotte Holmgreen | pp. 87–107
- Part II. Understanding discourses of political conflicts
- Chapter 4. Turning the heart into a neighbour: (Re)framing Kosovo in Serbian political discourseKatarina Rasulić | pp. 111–136
- Chapter 5. “Today, the long Arab winter has begun to thaw”: A corpus-assisted discourse study of conceptual metaphors in political speeches about the Arab revolutionsStefanie Ullmann | pp. 137–168
- Chapter 6. Metaphors for protest: The persuasive power of cross-domain mappings on demonstration posters against Stuttgart 21Gerrit Kotzur | pp. 169–196
- Part III. Studying personal crisis in psychotherapy and narrative
- Chapter 7. The ‘transformative’ power of metaphor: Assessing its unexplored potential at the crossroads between static and dynamic instancesFederica Ferrari | pp. 199–229
- Chapter 8. Co-constructing ‘crisis’ with metaphor: A quantitative approach to metaphor use in psychotherapy talkDennis Tay | pp. 231–254
- Chapter 9. Narrative modulation in the storytelling of breast cancer survivors’ transitional experiencesMimi Huang | pp. 255–280
- Chapter 10. Framing the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): Women’s experiences of changes in the bodyOlivia Knapton | pp. 281–304
- Index | pp. 305–309
“I must say that I am positively impressed and fascinated too by the studies presented in the book in which theories are put into practice for the well-being of people and social advancement. In terms of organization, the overall structure of the text is highly effective. The chapters follow a clear organizational template (abstracts, theory or approach, data analysis, findings and discussion). This is particularly useful for readers to compare and contrast different studies in order to increase their understanding. Overall, this book is inspirational, and it should serve as an excellent reference for students, teachers and researchers in the areas of cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and crisis studies.”
Wenjun Zhang, Jinhua Polytechnic, In Journal of Pragmatics 173 (2021).
“The book offers thought-provoking findings on how metaphors and frames are utilized by social agents in constructing crisis processes in a range of complex sociocultural situations. It will serve as an important reference for readers interested in crisis management and communication, discourse analysis, and cognitive linguistics.”
Jin Liu, Northeast Normal University and Zhengjun Lin, Beijing Foreign Studies University, in Discourse & Society 32(4) - 2021.
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2025. How do media talk about the COVID-19 pandemic?. In COVID-19 [Metaphor in Language, Cognition, and Communication, 11], ► pp. 10 ff.
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2022. Communicating science in crisis societies. In Science Communication in Times of Crisis [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 96], ► pp. 1 ff.
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