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Article published In: Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 12:1 (2022) ► pp.138–158

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Contested paths

Analyzing unfolding metaphor usage in a debate between Dawkins and Lennox

 | Hokkaido Bunkyo University
 | Fuji Women’s University
Published online: 7 February 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.20004.ric
Abstract
Recent studies of metaphor usage (e.g., Cameron, L. J. (2011). Metaphor and reconciliation: the discourse dynamics of empathy in post-conflict conversations. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Semino, E., Deignan, A., & Littlemore, J. (2013). Metaphor, genre, and recontexualization. Metaphor and Symbol, 28(1), 41–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) have shifted focus from relatively static mappings between source and target domains towards an emphasis on how metaphors are appropriated and recontextualized across different genres to convey new meanings and serve new functions. More recently, this emphasis has begun to be applied to the study of metaphor usage in religious discourse (Pihlaja, S. (2014). Antagonism on YouTube: Metaphor in online discourse. Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; (2017). An investigation of the blocking and development of empathy in discussions between Muslim and Christian believers. Metaphor and the Social World, 7(1), 46–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Richardson, P., Mueller, C. M., & Pihlaja, S. (2021). Cognitive Linguistics and religious language: An introduction. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The current article investigates how metaphors of movement are used in conjunction with metonymy, force dynamics, and conceptual blending to create particular rhetorical effects in a debate between the atheist Richard Dawkins and the Christian apologist John Lennox. It demonstrates how previous figurative language is expanded and reconfigured during the course of the debate in an attempt to establish situated, dominant conceptualizations.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Method and data
    • 3.1The data
    • 3.2Identifying metaphor, metonymy, force-dynamic relationships and blends
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Metaphor usage in the debate
    • 4.2Science as a person pushing forward
    • 4.3Science as a person waiting
    • 4.4Religion as the driving force of science
    • 4.5Atheism as being taken to the wrong location
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
References (40)
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Cited by one other publication

Pihlaja, Stephen
2024. Narrative and Religion in the Superdiverse City, DOI logo

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