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Article published In: Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 4:2 (2014) ► pp.199–224

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Traditional and not so traditional metaphors of love in Spanish

A way to spread and create ideologies about romance and gender on the Internet

 | SUNY New Paltz
Published online: 22 September 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.4.2.03roj
Metaphors about love in online dating advertisements might seem to be an easy and inconsequential way to express people’s romantic expectations. Using Critical Metaphor Analysis methodology, this paper takes a closer look at a sample of love metaphors used by Spanish-speaking heterosexual ad posters, to show how they use the metaphors to create a discourse of traditional romance in a modern medium, the online dating world. These metaphors are powerful tools for conveying traditional ideologies about romance and relationships. Additionally, they provide ad posters with a useful rhetorical tool for portraying themselves as ideal romantic partners, ‘regular’ and/or ‘normal’ heterosexuals, who play according to the regulatory norms of their gender, allowing them to ‘sell’ themselves as better candidates for romance.
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