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Article published In: Aspects of Metaphor
Edited by Maria Theodoropoulou
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 23:1] 2025
► pp. 90–130

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football club is family

Metaphor and the reconstruction of collective identity

 | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Published online: 21 June 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00188.the
Abstract
This is a corpus-based study with data from football fans’ comments on Facebook, which seeks to explore the contribution of metaphor to the construction of collective identity. The main question it addresses is the following: in as much as collectivity is constructed by typical means, e.g., the use of the first person plural and analogous expressions, what is it that a metaphor attributes to an already constructed collectivity? Furthermore, as the shared love of the team is considered to be the basis of a football fans’ group formation, this study also explores the role of emotion in the emergence of metaphor.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The language of football: Metaphor, emotion and collective identity
  • 3.Research questions and methodology
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Relationships among the members of the Football Club
      • 4.1.1Brother(s)
        • 4.1.1.1The deceased brothers
      • 4.1.2Kids
      • 4.1.3Other kinship terms
    • 4.2Home
    • 4.3football club is family
      • 4.3.1Family as cooperation
      • 4.3.2Family as interconnection
  • 5.football club is family: Reconstructing collective identity
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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