Ontological Metaphor in Economic News Reports: A Pragmatic Approach

Abstract

With the development of the world of economy, economic reports in journals, magazines or news websites have become an essential part of daily life. Economic news demonstrates rigid and abstract concepts and meanings. It is a truism that clarity is as important as accuracy. However, writers of such news should not stick only to formal language. Their words would sound boring. To keep the audience interested, figurative language is manipulated. One rhetorical device frequently used in this genre is metaphor. It sheds some colorings on the rigid language of finance and economics. Thus, it deserves an investigatory research work. This paper sets itself the task of exploring one particular kind of metaphor, i.e. ontological metaphor. It aims at pragmatically exploring its kinds that can be possibly utilized in economic news reports. This involves specifying the most prevalent kind of ontological metaphor. It is hypothesized that in such a kind of news, ontological metaphorical uses show different manifestations like metonymy, personification or hyperbole. However, it is assumed that metonymy is the most prevailing one. The data chosen for the analysis are randomly taken from different economic websites and are analyzed by means of a model developed by this study. The analysis is quantitatively supported by a statistical analysis conducted via the percentage equation. The most significant findings of the analyses vindicate the two hypotheses set above. This paper is hoped to be valuable to pragmaticians and economic news writers or journalists who should be aware of such rhetorical devices to make use of them.