Abstract
The present paper, drawing upon Charteris-Black’s (2004) Critical Metaphor Analysis Approach, analysed metaphors of Health in 25 business speeches delivered by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the year 2000 to understand how Dr Mahathir perceived and conveyed economic ideologies from a medical doctor’s point of view. The findings reveal that ‹economic challenges are diseases› and ‹believing in market ideologies is a mental disease› are the two main conceptual metaphors behind Dr Mahathir’s Health metaphors with different purposes, functions, and ideological stances across the national and international audience. It is argued that Health metaphors are used with the main purpose of persuading international solidarity and unity among developing and Southeast Asian countries, and the main function of creating a sense of alarm among the audience (international audience) as well as the main purpose of persuading people’s trust in and support of the government’s policies, and the main function of creating an image of the government as a reliable authority (national audience).
Highlights
Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the fourth prime minister of Malaysia (1981-2003)
Considering Dr Mahathir’s educational background, this study focused on metaphors of Health as a missing feature in the literature on Dr Mahathir’s discourse in order to understand (a) how his viewpoint as a medical doctor has influenced his perception of economic issues; and (b) the functions and purposes of health metaphors in his speeches
It should be noted that Malaysia is a country without winter season; Health metaphors remained high throughout the whole year
Summary
Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the fourth prime minister of Malaysia (1981-2003) He held the post for 22 years making him the longest-serving prime minister of Malaysia and one of the longest-serving prime ministers in the world. He was one of the influential characters who played a major role in revolutionizing and determining future economic policies of Malaysia. Even some political analysts and commentators have assigned his success in achieving national and international support for his ideologies and policies to his discourse style, making his discourse a valuable and rich source of study. Studying political leaders’ discourse provides a rich source of information regarding the public opinion, cultural background, social values, and the ideal image of a political leader in a country. Studying political leaders’ discourse provides an insight into their ‘ideologies’ including: identifying the ideologies behind their discourse and the way(s) these ideologies are perceived and conveyed to the audience (Van Dijk, 2006)
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