METAPHORICAL PRESENTATION OF FUTURE IN THE AMERICAN ELECTION DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article deals with the metaphorical actualization of the temporal concept future in the American election discourse. Any election campaign is closely connected with the vision of future and as the concept of time is extremely complex, this complexity calls for metaphorical understanding. In this study such metaphors as future is a path, future is a journey, future is war, future is a recovery, future is a vehicle, future is a house, and future is a human being are singled out and analysed. It is stated that the metaphors express positive or negative attitude of the speakers depending on their intention and purpose of communication. The election discourse is characterized by a high level of manipulation which gives the possibility to assume that the use of certain strategies is a necessary part of manipulation in election discourse. So, special attention is paid to the activation of temporal metaphors within a strategy employed by the candidates. Such strategies as positive self-presentation and negative other presentation are considered and discussed in the study. The conceptual temporal metaphors of future are exploited by the politicians with the aim to forming a certain public view on political events in general and the course of the election in particular. Thus, the current research goes beyond the identification of metaphors in the election discourse. It goes a step further to interpret the way metaphors interact within the context and their function within communicative strategies employed by candidates. The analysis of the metaphors with the future target domain shows that the politicians use these conceptual metaphors to foresee the future by developing plans, trying to form the right vision of future and make the life of the society better. In most cases the image of the future is metaphorised positively via the metaphors of path, journey, medicine, house, and human being within the strategy of positive self-presentation. Some metaphorical expressions from the source domains of war and path reveal negative aspects of the future within the opponent negative presentation strategy.