Scholarly record

PEDAGOGICAL AND MEDICAL METAPHOR IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

A. Chudinov, E. Budaev, A. Tsygankova, A. Suetina

Abstract

The introduction of the theory of conceptual metaphor (G. Lakoff, M. Johnson 1980) marked a new stage in metaphorology development, the distinctive feature of which is the use of the methods of cognitive science and discursive and corpus analyses. One of the top-ical issues of contemporary science is the study of metaphor in different kinds of discourse (political, media, medical, pedagogical, etc.) in different national and socio-cultural variants of the language. This research discusses functioning of metaphors in Russian political dis-course (target domain) originating from pedagogical and medical discourses (source do-main). The first model is “POLITICAL HISTORY is a SCHOOL”. According to this model this or that political event is treated as a kind of LESSON, which a TEACHER and a STUDENT take part in. The LESSON must be learnt not only by the immediate partici-pants (STUDENTS), but also by the observers. The second model is “POLITICAL HIS-TORY is a MEDICAL RECORD”. The typical frames of the medical metaphor are: DOC-TOR – PATIENT -MEDICINE –MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS AND TREATMENT. The material for this research has been collected from the articles published in the most popular print media of modern Russia (the sample includes more than 600 texts). The anal-ysis revealed that unfolding of metaphorical models belonging to a certain kind of discourse (pedagogical, medical, engineering, etc.) in a political text helps to achieve the necessary pragmatic effect. A good metaphor has a prominent heuristic potential: it forms the attitude to the problem, creates the necessary emotional background to make the right decision and gives solutions on the basis of analogy.

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