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Beyond the law

Symbolic violence through metaphors in abortion news discourse

ORCiD logo with link | Shanghai International Studies UniversityShanghai
ORCiD logo with link | Shanghai International Studies UniversityShanghai
Published online: 1 April 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24133.zhu
Abstract
Abortion has been socially stigmatised through power imbalances and social inequalities. Despite the importance of metaphors in conceptualising and reinforcing ideologies, there has been no systematic analysis of their role in abortion discourse from a critical perspective. Utilising the semantic annotation tool Wmatrix5, we draw on Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence to conduct a detailed critical metaphor analysis (CMA) within a specific discursive context: news media coverage of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. We identify metaphors typical of key themes in abortion discourse and critically examine their function in shaping political opinions and influencing actions around this legal event. Our analysis suggests that, supported by corpus-based methods, CMA can be a valuable approach to large-scale news discourse analysis, meriting further investigation in socially stigmatised topics.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Abortion in discourse studies
    • 2.2Abortion in critical metaphor analysis
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Metaphors in six themes
      • Abortion
      • Court
      • Roe
      • Women
      • Democratic and republican
    • 4.2Symbolic violence in metaphors
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
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