Metaphorical Conceptualization of SPORT Through TERRITORY as a Vehicle

Abstract

WAR as a vehicle and Sport Is War as a conceptual metaphor (CM) seem inadequate to account metaphorically for SPORT. To cater for an inclusive vehicle/CM, we selected WIN and LOSS lexicon from the news coverage of Brazil’s football team loss to Germany and tested them through the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Then, the data were studied through the 3 stages of metaphor research. In the identification stage, the metaphorical use of the WIN and LOSS lexicon was determined through metaphor identification procedure. In the interpretation stage, the metaphors were revealed to be recontextualized from discourses like war, earthquakes, floods, landslides, and the like. Then, on the basis of a generic source for such discourses, TERRITORY as a vehicle and A Sport Field Is a Territory as a CM were proposed. Finally, in the explanation stage, the ideological implications of the proposed vehicle/CM were argued on the discourse reproduction of Brazil’s problems.