The framing of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the writing of Thomas Friedman: a conceptual metaphor analysis

Abstract

This study presents a conceptual metaphor analysis of the Arab Israeli conflict in the discourse of the journalist Thomas Freidman during the time period of 2001 till 2010. The study utilizes Conceptual Metaphor Analysis and Frame analysis in analyzing the data. The research focuses on the rendering of the metaphors used to depict the conflict in the writer’s discourse. The principal tools used in the study are Lakoff and Johnson’s cognitive Conceptual Metaphor theory (1980) and the Critical metaphor Analysis theory developed by Charteris-Black (2004). Additionally, Frame Analysis theory (Entman 1993) is also applied to provide a more comprehensive picture of the data. The analysis concluded that the representation of the conflict and the entities involved in it in Freidman’s discourse, utilized the Clash of Civilizations paradigm as developed by Samuel Huntington (1997) as a main frame to present the conflict as part of the War on Terror that was taking place at the time. Findings also showed the writer’s perspective to be leaning towards the positive rendering of the Western side of the conflict including Israel to the disadvantage of the Arab side. It is recommended that further research should focus on the representation of the conflict in the discourse of major Arab and Israeli writers so a more comprehensible picture of the images rendered by media on either side can be arrived at.