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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 23:4 (2024) ► pp.588–616

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Polarising metaphors in the Venezuelan Presidential Crisis

ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
ORCiD logo with link | Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Published online: 30 November 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.22169.pet
Abstract
The 23rd of January 2019 marked the beginning of the Venezuelan Presidential Crisis, a unique socio-political conflict that confronted Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela, to the self-proclaimed leader Juan Guaidó. This paper explores the divisive power of conceptual metaphors in this context through the analysis of polarising metaphors, namely, metaphors that conceptualise ‘Us’ positively and/or ‘Them’ negatively. More specifically, from a corpus-based critical socio-cognitive perspective (. 2016. Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and Scenarios. London: Bloomsbury Academic. [URL]; . 2020. “From Economic Crisis to Austerity Policies through Conceptual Metaphor. A Corpus-Based Comparison of Metaphors of Crisis and Austerity in the Portuguese Press.” In The Language of Crisis. Metaphors, Frames and Discourses, edited by Mimi Huang and Lise-Lotte Holmgreen, 51–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 2011. Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. 2nd ed. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), this study looks at the main polarising metaphors of Maduro and Guaidó’s political discourses and examines their role in the discursive construction of ideological polarisation, social identities, and legitimacy using a target-based approach (Stefanowitsch, Anatol, and Stefan Th. Gries, eds. 2006. Corpus-Based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. [URL]. ). The results show that both leaders strategically use polarising metaphors, especially those of CONFRONTATION, HUMAN BEING and JOURNEY, to reproduce their ideologies, reinforce their social identities, and legitimise their political positions.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Metaphors and polarisation in discourse
  • 3.Polarising metaphors: A proposal
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Data
    • 4.2Procedure
  • 5.Results and Discussion
    • 5.1Intragroup dimension
    • 5.2Intergroup dimension
  • 6.Conclusion and future directions
  • Declaration of conflicting interests
  • Notes
  • References
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