Metaphors in U.S. Same-sex marriage discourse: a corpus-based study

Abstract

This research aims to investigate metaphorical patterns in the US legalization of same-sex marriage discourse to shed light on how metaphor is employed to conceptualize same-sex marriage controversies. To this end, a specialized corpus which contains 254 news articles published in 2015 was compiled. The metaphorical expressions in the corpus were analyzed with both “Conceptual Metaphor Theory” (CMT) and “Conceptual Blending Theory” (CBT) to cover not simply the pedestrian uses of metaphors, but also the wild and creative expressions. Specifically, while conventional metaphors were analyzed following the CMT traditions, novel metaphors were analyzed through the lens of blending. The results of this study show that the same-sex marriage controversy is construed primarily by 8 types of metaphors, namely the COMPETITION MF, the Location ESM, ontological, Building/Construction, Religion and the Supernatural, Crime, Light and Darkness, and Disease/Illness metaphors. The supporters of same-sex marriage utilize the COMPETITION MF to highlight social inequity and struggles the LGBT people are facing and empower one another, whereas the opponents use this type of metaphors to construe themselves as a protector of righteousness and construct the opposing side as a violent, harmful group of people. While the Location ESM is absent from the discourse of the opponents of same-sex marriage, it is employed by the supporters to highlight the struggle and efforts toward achieving worthwhile goals. Ontological metaphors function mostly as building blocks for more complex metaphorical expressions. The Building/Construction and the Religion and the Supernatural metaphors are mainly an extension of ontological metaphors. And the Crime, Light and Darkness, and Disease/Illness metaphors are utilized to add negative viewpoints toward the target concepts.