Procedura identyfikacji i kategoryzacji wyrażeń metaforycznych w tekstach publicystycznych. Analiza porównawcza wyrażeń metaforycznych dotyczących lustracji

Abstract

Within the current paradigm of cognitive linguistics a metaphor is considered not only a linguistic device but rather a ‘figure of thought’. According to the Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT), developed by Lakoff and Johnson, metaphors are mental constructs, which shape our understanding of the world and play a central role in the construction of social and political reality. Lustracja, or the post-communist screening process, has developed into an excellent research field which allows for the testing of the CMT on a corpus of Polish press articles. For years, attitudes towards the historical past continued to be a key national issue, which divided Poles, Polish political parties and Polish media, including two of the largest national newspapers. Following the claims of the CMT, I assumed that metaphorical expressions used to present the screening process in these ideologically opposed newspapers revealed different images and different aspects of this political phenomenon. In this paper, I present and discuss the main dilemmas related to the metaphorical expression identification process, the vehicle domain analysis procedure, and the analysis of semantic role and axiological charge. I also present the results of a comparative analysis of metaphorical expressions published in both newspapers and discuss the major differences in the way the screening process is presented in metaphorical expressions identified in texts. Finally, even though the MIPVU procedure used in this study is not able to capture all examples of metaphorical language, in this paper I show how it can be successfully applied to the research on metaphorical language and political ideology.