Each chapter of this book analyzes the rhetoric of speeches by major American and British politicians to show how metaphor is used to create political myths of monsters, villains and heroic leaders. Metaphors are shown to interact with other figures of speech to communicate subliminal meanings by drawing on the unconscious emotional association of words. An innovative study for students and researchers in discourse analysis, political communication, journalism and media studies.

Reflects a consensus that the investigation of words in the mind offers a unique opportunity to understand both human language ability and general human cognition. Brings together key perspectives on the fundamental nature of the representation and processing of words in the mind.

Texts and Practices provides an essential introduction to the theory and practice of Critical Discourse Analysis. Using insights from this challenging new method of linguistic analysis, the contributors to this book reveal the ways in which language can be used as a means of social control.

 

Our understanding of the nature and processing of figurative language is central to several important issues in cognitive science, including the relationship of language and thought, how we process language, and how we comprehend abstract meaning. Over the past fifteen years, traditional approaches to these issues have been challenged by experimental psychologists, linguists, and other cognitive scientists interested in the structures of the mind and the processes that operate on them.

Introducing Metaphor is an accessible introduction to the different ways in which metaphor permeates all areas of language, and other methods of communication, covering both theoretical and practical approaches to the analysis of texts.