The processes of animation and de-animation in conceptualizing socio-political events

Abstract

The philosophical idea of anthropocentrism viewing human beings as the most significant entities has been put forward in various metaphor studies within cognitive linguistics. As Talmy (2002) claims, people choose to animate a very large part of their reality and this happens due to embodiment, as Lakoff (1987), and Lakoff and Johnson (1999) argue. Anthropocentricity can also be explained by Croft’s Extended Animacy Hierarchy system (2002) in terms of human beings outranking animate and inanimate entities, strongly implying that inanimate entities tend to be perceived as inferior. However, this paper argues that anthropocentrism is bidirectional, since not only do we ascribe human or animate qualities to inanimate objects or phenomena, but we also tend to “de-animate” human beings by attributing inanimate qualities to them. This paper further explores the idea of anthropocentricity by focusing on the metaphorical conceptualization of issues concerning the euro adoption in 2015 and the refugee crisis in 2015–2016, two real-life phenomena that have significantly affected social life in Lithuania. The paper thus aims to investigate how animation of the euro and de-animation of refugees is metaphorically conceptualized in the Lithuanian media and what rhetorical implications arise from this. The research is conducted within the framework of Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black, 2005/2011, 2014; Musolff, 2004; Hart 2010, etc.), which suggests that metaphors are used as an argumentative tool seeking to manipulate the audience. The paper therefore argues that the animation of the euro and “de-animation” of refugees carry serious rhetorical implications and reveal the attitudes of society towards the phenomena analyzed.

Cross-linguistic Metaphorical Representation of the #MeToo Movement: Communicating Attitudes

“…The plant metaphor also contributes to raising people's awareness, as the #MeToo movement is seen as a bud and this implies that the movement did not manifest in an open form, but the metaphor of a plant coming into flower, despite being delicate and frail, entails visibility and awareness. The findings of other studies (Hart, 2010, Cibulskienė, 2018 show that when social problems, for example, immigration, are presented via metaphors of natural phenomena such as waves, storm, or fire, they typically acquire pejorative connotations implying threat. Interestingly, when the # MeToo movement is presented via the same metaphors of natural phenomena, it is viewed positively and entails awareness and tackling the vexing problem.…”