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Metaphor in media discourse: Representations of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Americans' in American and Arab news media

Kort, Samia

Metaphor in media discourse: Representations of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Americans' in American and Arab news media Thumbnail


Authors

Samia Kort



Abstract

The present study explores the representations of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Americans’ in American and in Arab news media discourse between 2001 and 2011 through an evaluation of the metaphors used to describe each group. The study chiefly argues that metaphors in Arab and American news media discourse are used for rhetorical and ideological motives.

The main research aims of this study are to find out what metaphors used to represent Arabs and Americans occur in the New York Times (the NYT) on the one hand, and in the Al Jazeera English and the Arab News (the ANM) on the other hand, whether there are similarities or differences between metaphors in each news media source, and to explain the purposes underlying the choice of these metaphors.

The study is based on the experientialist cognitive linguistic Conceptual Metaphor Theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and the rhetorically, cognitively and corpus oriented approach to metaphor Critical Metaphor Analysis developed by Charteris-Black (2004). The main corpus approach that this study uses is Metaphor Pattern Analysis proposed by Stefanowitsch (2006) for the collection of metaphor data. The corpus used consists of news articles about Arabs and Americans extracted from the online editions of the NYT, and the ANM between 2001 and 2011.

Findings on the metaphors used to describe Americans and Arabs in the NYT demonstrate that the use of metaphors describing Americans is noticeably but not always motivated by the ideological purpose of representing them as a unique and exceptional nation thus supporting the Myth of American Exceptionalism. It is additionally argued that the use of metaphors referring to Arabs can be explained partly by the rhetorical ideological goal of associating them with danger, violence and threat. In ANM, findings revealed that a number of metaphors describing Americans have underlying rhetorical and ideological motives similar to those in the NYT. The image of Americans as a unique nation is reiterated in the ANM. As regards the use of metaphors occurring in collocation with Arabs in the ANM, the findings demonstrated that they are partially motivated by an underlying belief that associates them with powerlessness, passivity and incapability. Furthermore, and despite the importance of rhetorical ideological purposes, the findings also show that metaphors used do not always necessarily convey positive evaluations of the self or negative evaluations of the other.

In addition to its contribution to our understanding of the dominant representations of Americans and Arabs in two inherently different news media sources, the thesis has proposed adjustments to Critical Metaphor Analysis as relevant to this project, and has also contributed to research in critical discourse analysis.

Citation

Kort, S. (in press). Metaphor in media discourse: Representations of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Americans' in American and Arab news media. (Thesis). University of the West of England. Retrieved from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/883748

Thesis Type Thesis
Acceptance Date Jul 31, 2017
Publicly Available Date Jun 7, 2019
Journal Ph.D. Thesis: Metaphor in Media Discourse: Representations of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Americans’ in American and Arab News Media
Peer Reviewed Not Peer Reviewed
Keywords Critical Metaphor Analysis, Arabs, Americans, News media, the NYT, Al-Jazeera English
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/883748
Award Date Jul 31, 2018

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