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The use of metaphors in political discourse: the speeches of George W. Bush Sandra FADDA ABSTRACT: With the theoretical framework provided by Halliday’s (1985) study on how meaning is expressed via metaphorical modes of expression, and Lakoff’s (1991) study on metaphors in politics, this paper analyzes the ways in which political discourse is metaphorized, especially in relation to topics referred to foreign affairs and international policy, thus sometimes constituting a difference between war and peace. The corpus of the study is made up of six speeches delivered by President Bush between 9/11 and 4 th July, 2002. Metaphors pervade political discourse. In the discourse of the American president after 9/11, metaphors are not used as mere stylistic features. The meanings about role relations put forth by interpersonal metaphors (e.g., “Every nation […] now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists”) and the representation of reality through ideational metaphors (e.g., “we [America] are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world”) signify the position of the United States in the world. In other words, metaphors help construct the country’s reality (paradoxically, by hiding some realities) by structuring systems of knowledge and belief, as well as ways of thinking and acting. Through them, President Bush constructs America as the hegemonic power and defines its role as one of compelling global intervention. The findings show that selections of process type and transitivity functions, as well as choices in mood and modality demonstrate that there seem to be no significant changes in the ways reality is represented and probably even in the ways reality is conceived. The texts give indications of ideas, beliefs and ideologies which need to be confronted with other sources of data from reality. The results of such confrontation reveal that there appears to be continuity as well as perpetuation of the position and role of the United States in the international context, in spite of the new world order set up by the end of the Cold War. Implications will be drawn regarding both the strengths of a Systemic Functional view of language in applications to analysis of discourse, and the insights about textual mechanisms that examination of political discourse can yield. KEY-WORDS: metaphors, ideology, political discourse, critical discourse analysis.
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