Combining critical discourse analysis and the cognitive theory of metaphor, the study analyses hard news on Ebola from two American newspapers of a liberal political orientation, The New York Times and The New York Daily News, to investigate metaphoric representations of the disease and portrayals of its victims. It is revealed that both newspapers heavily rely on a single conceptual metaphor of EBOLA AS WAR, with only two alternative metaphors of EBOLA AS AN ANIMATE/HUMAN BEING and EBOLA AS A NATURAL CATASTROPHE employed. All three metaphoric themes assign the role of a culprit solely to the virus, which stands in contrast to non-metaphoric discursive allocations of blame for the situation in Africa, assigning responsibility mainly to man-made factors. African victims tend to be impersonalized and portrayed as voiceless and agentless, rarely occupying the role of a “fighter” in the military metaphoric representation of the disease, which runs counter to the findings of recent studies detecting a change towards a more positive image of Africa in the media. Both newspapers fail to represent infected ordinary Africans as sovereign agents, hindering readers from reflexively identifying with them.

This paper investigates cognitive and social functions that metaphor fulfils in newspaper discourse on natural catastrophes, aiming to reveal multi-functionality of figurative language. The analysis shows that natural phenomena are metaphorically constructed as ANIMALS, MONSTERS and WAR. These metaphor themes function as a conceptual tool and an effective ideological weapon. They simplify reality, hide politico-economic and social conditions, bipolarize the world, dramatize stories by appealing to readers' emotions, and create feelings of community and belonging. The analysis draws upon critical discourse analysis and the cognitive theory of metaphor, as introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The corpus used in the analysis consists of articles on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and 2005 Hurricane Katrina, which are compiled from The Globe and Mail (2004;, a Canadian national daily newspaper, and The New York Times (2004;, an American national daily newspaper.

Employing the appraisal theory and the system of transitivity, the study explores representations of nature and the human-nature relationship in ecotourism advertisements on the website Responsible Travel. It is revealed that a number of empowering discursive devices with regard to nature are employed in the data, including the allocation of the agentive role in constructive processes to inanimate natural elements, the adoption of the activation of tokens and the activation of experiences, and celebratory portrayals of nature as an aesthetically pleasing artwork and a spectacle of supernatural qualities. Yet, it is argued that the celebration and the empowerment of nature in the ecotourism advertisements tend to take place at the expense of the reproduction of the human-nature dichotomy, portraying nature as the Other.

The study compares representations of teachers in the Czech broadsheet Mladá frontaand the British broadsheet The Daily Telegraph, aiming to reveal their possible impacton the level of public respect towards teachers. The methodology employed is criticaldiscourse analysis, combining an investigation of semantic macrostructures and recurrenttransitivity patterns. It is revealed that both newspapers call attention to problems regardingthe teaching profession, advocating social change and higher job prestige. The socialsignificance of a teacher is enhanced in both newspapers by allocating a teacher not onlythe role of a transmitter of knowledge but also a moral guide concerned with social issues.The main difference between the two broadsheets is that The Daily Telegraph foregroundsteachers’ wrongdoings, while Mladá fronta highlights teachers’ accomplishments. Thisseems to be mainly due to the inclusion of a section with regional content in the Czechbroadsheet.

Keywords an important site for the establishment of the organization's identity and its organization's positive social image. Oil companies are among the business organizations that face an increasing challenge to maintain their positive image due to many negative impacts of their and distribution of oil and gas to high emissions of carbon dioxide by burning