Abstract
From early 20th century headlines to presidential tweets, immigration is described frequently in terms of waves, floods, and tides. Although usage of this inundation metaphor has been widely documented, its potential influence on immigration attitudes has not been assessed empirically. Building from conceptual metaphor theory’s claim that abstract ideas can be grounded in simpler, concrete concepts, we hypothesized that using the inundation metaphor to understand immigration contributes to support for a U.S.—Mexico border wall as a figurative means to block immigrants. Accordingly, social media posts supporting a border wall contained more inundation-metaphoric expressions than messages opposing a wall and messages opposing immigration without reference to a wall (Study 1; N = 4,067). Converging experimental tests show, when controlling for political attitudes, exposure to the inundation metaphor increases support for a border wall (Studies 2a and 2b; N = 737). These findings add to the growing body of evidence that political cognition and policy attitudes are partly motivated by metaphoric comparisons to concrete ideas that are irrelevant in a literal sense.
Highlights
From early 20th century headlines to presidential tweets, immigration is described frequently in terms of waves, floods, and tides
As the metaphoric terms included in the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) dictionary have literal meanings which can be used outside of the context of immigration, tweets that the LIWC analysis indicated contained an inundation metaphor were inspected to ensure that the term was used metaphorically
As no tweets tagged with #NoWall contained an inundation metaphor, and there was no variability in this condition, we focused on inundation-metaphoric expressions in the #BuildTheWall and #DeportThemAll conditions
Summary
From early 20th century headlines to presidential tweets, immigration is described frequently in terms of waves, floods, and tides. Usage of this inundation metaphor has been widely documented, its potential influence on immigration attitudes has not been assessed empirically. Converging experimental tests show, when controlling for political attitudes, exposure to the inundation metaphor increases support for a border wall (Studies 2a and 2b; N = 737). These findings add to the growing body of evidence that political cognition and policy attitudes are partly motivated by metaphoric comparisons to concrete ideas that are irrelevant in a literal sens
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
