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Article published In: Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 17:1 (2026) ► pp.66–91

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Conceptual metaphors in Jordanian newspaper socio-political discourse during the Arab Spring

ORCiD logo with link | The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
ORCiD logo with link | The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
Published online: 14 April 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.23020.ham
Abstract
This study aims at identifying and analyzing the metaphors used to describe socio-political concepts in Jordanian Arabic newspapers in the context of the Jordanian protests during the Arab Spring. The analysis also includes the pragmatic functions that these metaphors serve in this context. To this end, a corpus of sociopolitical newspaper opinion articles published in 2011 and 2012 (i.e., the first wave of the Arab Spring) and 2018 and 2019 (i.e., the second wave of the Arab Spring) from two Jordanian daily mainstream newspapers, namely Ar-Rai and Al-Dustour is built from scratch. Metaphors are identified using Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP, Pragglejaz 2007). The results reveal that metaphors convey a number of pragmatic functions, namely, calming down the public protests and outcry and persuading the public to trust the government’s policy of carrying out reform and combating corruption. The study concludes that metaphors are highly affected by a range of socio-political and economic factors.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
  • 3.Literature review
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Metaphors used in socio-political discourse during the first wave of the AS
      • 5.1.1Journey metaphors
      • 5.1.2Disease metaphors
      • 5.1.3Nature metaphors
      • 5.1.4Warfare metaphors
      • 5.1.5Organism metaphors
      • 5.1.6Machine metaphors
      • 5.1.7Building metaphors
      • 5.1.8Game metaphors
      • 5.1.9Meal/ kitchen metaphors
      • 5.1.10Supernatural creatures metaphors
      • 5.1.11Fire metaphors
    • 5.2Metaphors used in socio-political discourse during the second wave of the AS
    • 5.4The source domains that exhibit differences during the first and the second wave of the AS
      • 5.4.1Journey metaphors
      • 5.4.2Disease metaphors
      • 5.4.3Nature metaphors
      • 5.4.4Machine metaphors
    • 5.5The pragmatic functions of metaphors in socio-political discourse during the first and the second waves of the AS
    • 5.6Implications of socio-political changes on metaphor use
  • 6.Conclusions and recommendations
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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