- a comparative analysis of conceptual metaphors in...
TRANSCRIPT
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Fire and Water
- a comparative analysis of conceptual metaphors in English
and Danish news articles about the credit crisis 2008.
By Maria Esager, CLM English Academic advisor: Birger Andersen
September 2011
Characters:
Front page illustration by David Dees, http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/deesA2.htm
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Contents 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 4
1.1. Method .............................................................................................................................. 5
1.2. Data ................................................................................................................................... 6
1.3. Limitations of this study ..................................................................................................... 7
2. Theories of metaphor ............................................................................................................... 8
2.1. Overview of different theories of metaphor ....................................................................... 8
2.1.1. The cognitive approach................................................................................................ 9
2.1.2. The theory of conceptual metaphor............................................................................. 9
2.1.2.1. What is a conceptual metaphor? ............................................................................ 10
2.1.2.2. How metaphor structures our thoughts .................................................................. 10
2.1.2.3. The structure of a metaphor ................................................................................... 11
2.1.2.4. Types of metaphor.................................................................................................. 12
2.1.2.5. Metaphor and other figures of speech .................................................................... 12
2.1.2.6. Classifying metaphors according to conventionality ................................................ 13
2.1.2.6.1. Literal and imaginative metaphorical expressions. ............................................... 14
2.1.3. Definition of metaphorical expression for the purpose of this study .......................... 14
2.2. The function of metaphor:................................................................................................ 15
2.3. Metaphor in different cultures and different languages .................................................... 16
2.3.1. The relationship between language, culture and thought .......................................... 17
2.3.2. Taxonomies of variation. ........................................................................................... 17
3. Method ................................................................................................................................... 19
3.1. The use of conceptual metaphor in journalistic texts ........................................................ 19
3.2. Conceptual metaphor in economics ................................................................................. 20
3.2.1. Other research – comparative analyses of differences in metaphor usage ................. 21
3.3. Model of analysis ............................................................................................................. 22
3.3.1. From metaphorical expression to conceptual metaphor ............................................ 24
3.3.1.1. On counting metaphorical expressions ................................................................... 25
4. Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 26
4.1. Description of data ........................................................................................................... 26
4.1.1. Selection of articles ................................................................................................... 26
4.1.2. Description of the four newspapers ........................................................................... 26
4.1.2.1. Dagbladet Børsen ................................................................................................... 27
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4.1.2.2. Morgenavisen Jyllandsposten ................................................................................. 27
4.1.2.3. The Economist ........................................................................................................ 27
4.1.2.4. Financial Times ....................................................................................................... 27
4.1.3. Description of articles ................................................................................................ 28
4.2. Findings ............................................................................................................................ 29
4.2.1. Overview of findings .................................................................................................. 29
4.2.2. ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP / DOWN ....................................................... 31
4.2.3. MONEY IS LIQUID ...................................................................................................... 32
4.2.4. THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING ............................................................................. 34
4.2.5. ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT ...... 36
4.2.6. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS SPORT .............................. 37
4.2.7. THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE.................................................................................... 38
4.2.8. THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING ................................................................................... 40
4.2.9. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY ........................................................................... 41
4.2.10. THE ECONOMY IS A CONTRACTING AND EXPANDING OBJECT .................................. 42
4.2.11. DESCRIBING ECONOMIC CRISIS ................................................................................ 44
4.2.12. Other metaphorical expressions .............................................................................. 46
4.3. Similarities and differences............................................................................................... 49
6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 52
7. Summary ................................................................................................................................ 54
8. Literature ................................................................................................................................ 56
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1. Introduction Metaphors are rhetorical figures used to express one thing in terms of another. Typically,
something more abstract or unfamiliar is described by using more familiar, concrete images.
Metaphor has often been regarded as a special language use characteristic of poetry and drama, but
in the ground-breaking work Metaphors We Live By (1980), Lakoff and Johnson showed that
metaphors are in fact a fundamental, structuring mechanism in the way we interact with and
perceive the world around us; a linguistic phenomenon so common and easily accessible that we
often do not notice that something is in fact a metaphor. Lakoff and Johnson‟s theory of
conceptual metaphor is based on cognitive linguistics, and it claims that cognition and language
cannot be separated, and that the way we think is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. Studies
have also shown metaphor to be common not only in everyday language, but also in language for
special purposes (LSP), and this study will focus on the use of metaphor in the field of economics.
A conceptual metaphor is a concept about the world that structures our perception of it in a
systematic way and manifests itself on a linguistic level in various metaphorical expressions. Take
for example expressions such as „swimming in money‟, „the company lacks liquidity‟ or „cash
flows‟. These are all linguistic metaphorical expressions of the same basic idea – the conceptual
metaphor MONEY IS LIQUID.
The field of economics is quite well researched when it comes to the conceptual metaphors
structuring it. Money – or really assets of any kind – are conceptualised as liquid. Economic events
are usually described in terms of up and down movements, and very negative events are often
described in terms of natural disaster („the subprime crisis erupted‟ (article 3)) or war („central
bankers [...] have plenty of monetary ammunition left‟ (article 6)). The economy is often regarded
as a living organism, either a plant or an animal or human, which gives rise to expressions like
„growing economy‟, and allows us to understand the cyclical nature of economic development. On
the other hand, the economy may also be conceptualized as a machine, which lends a more
scientific air to statements about the economy (Charteris-Black, Ennis 2001 p. 252) and highlights
the way the economy is controlled.
Some conceptual metaphors are grounded in basic physical experience and tend to vary very little
from language to language and from culture to culture. Others are more closely connected to a
specific time and place, based on more culture-specific phenomena such as sports, and these
conceptual metaphors may vary greatly. Cultures that are closely related share many of the same
ideas, and consequently also the same conceptual metaphors. Danish and English language and
culture are fairly closely related, and the field of economics is also conceptualized in much the
same way because the economic systems are very similar.
Metaphor usage can differ in several ways. A conceptual metaphor becomes visible through a
variety of metaphorical expressions, and if two languages use different conceptual metaphors, the
linguistic expression would of course also differ. If they share the same conceptual metaphor, there
would usually be many equivalent linguistic expressions; and even if there is no exact equivalent,
the expressions would be easily understood because of the common conceptual metaphor. A
conceptual metaphor may be more conventional and more productive in one language than in the
other, or the value-judgment could differ, in the way the conceptual metaphor THE GOVERNMENT
IS A MACHINE might indicate to some that the government is ruthless and inhumane, while others
would interpret the statement as the government functioning efficiently and smoothly (Boers,
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Littlemore 2003 p. 235). Differences could also arise from a greater preference in general for
metaphor in one language compared to the other.
Awareness of both similarities and differences is important to learners of a second language, who
may be able to draw on similar conceptual metaphors, as well as to translators and non-native
writers who will be better equipped to produce idiomatic texts.
Studies comparing conceptual metaphor in English and other European languages (Spanish
(Charteris-Black, Ennis 2001), German (Charteris-Black, Musolff 2003) and Romanian (Pecican
2007)) have shown that the conceptualization of economic phenomena is very similar. The major
conceptual metaphors are the same, and the differences consist of slight variations in preference or
frequency. The less used conceptual metaphors tend to vary more, some being completely absent
or very uncommon in one of the language. These three studies were all using news articles about a
particular situation: the credit crisis, a stock market crisis in 1997, and a debate on the Euro.
There are no studies comparing the use of conceptual metaphor in Danish and English; however,
there is no reason to believe these two languages would not be just as similar, which leads to the
following
problem statement:
My hypothesis is that the conceptual metaphors in English and Danish economic texts are, to a
large extent, the same, but that they may not have equivalent linguistic expressions. The aim of this
study is to determine to what degree the same conceptual metaphors are used in English and in
Danish, if some are more prevalent in one language than in the other, and to identify similarities
and differences in the way they are expressed linguistically.
In order to make this comparison, I will analyse news articles in Danish and English, identifying
which metaphorical expressions are used to describe the economy and determine which underlying
conceptual metaphors they are part of.
1.1. Method This is a qualitative study intended to provide an overview and a comparison of the conceptual
metaphors used in news articles about economics, in this case the 2008 credit crisis.
The study will begin with a presentation of the theoretical background, namely the theory of
conceptual metaphor as formulated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Lakoff and Turner (1989),
as well as theory on the function of metaphor in LSP in general and the field of economics
specifically (Goatly (1996), Richardt (2005)). Many theorists have considered the way metaphor
usage may vary from one language to another, and I will present a taxonomy developed by,
Gabrys, Solska and Deignan (1997), which is clear and systematic, but needs to be supplemented
in order to account for finer variations between languages that are as closely related as English and
Danish, and for this purpose I will also consider a less structured taxonomy by Boers (2003) and a
study by Kövecses (2003) that revealed some of the subtle differences in the use of the conceptual
metaphor in different cultures. The chapter will finish with the definition of metaphor that I will
use in this study. The definition is taken the metaphor identification procedure (MIP), which is
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developed by the pragglejaz group, a group of metaphor researchers based at Amsterdam
University1,
In chapter 3 the model of analysis will be presented. It is based on the way the field of economics
is already known to be conceptualized, so the chapter begins by going through the conceptual
metaphors found English economic discourse in previous studies. The principles for identifying
and grouping the metaphorical expressions and how they are evidence of underlying conceptual
metaphors are based on MIP and on a set of guidelines by Graham Low (2003).
Chapter 4 contains the comparative analysis of the use of conceptual metaphor in English and
Danish. The MIP prescribes a brief genre analysis, since any meaning relies on context in order to
be understood correctly. This genre analysis is followed by an account of the metaphorical
expressions describing the economy found in the articles, and how they reflect the underlying
conceptual metaphors. The findings and the analysis will be discussed in chapter 5.
1.2. Data The study will be based on an analysis of selected news articles from two English newspapers
(The Economist and Financial Times) and two Danish newspapers (Børsen and Morgenavisen
Jyllandsposten). All the articles deal with the credit crisis. There are eight English articles, four
from the Economist (5215 words) and four from Financial Times (5284), and 17 Danish articles,
eight from Jyllandsposten (5352 words) and nine from Børsen (5292 words). This is a very small
study and will only provide a cursory glimpse of the conceptual metaphors structuring the field.
The articles were all printed in September and October 2008, the height of the global credit crisis,
which had been escalating since 2007.2 These two months saw giant financial institutions going
bankrupt or being bailed out by governments. To stabilise economies all over the world, the
bailouts were followed by extensive government intervention in the form of relief schemes aimed
at the financial sector, and later on growth packages to stimulate the entire economy.
The crisis, dubbed the credit crunch, started in 2007 with the US subprime mortgage crisis. Loans
were given to house owners with low creditworthiness, and when interest rates rose dramatically
many became unable to pay them back. The sub-prime loans had been bundled with other loans,
bonds and assets into so-called collateralised debt obligations (CDO‟s) and sold on internationally,
which meant that the many defaulted loans were felt globally.
In Britain, Northern Rock, a retail bank, had been nationalised back in February 2008. On
September 17th, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, HBOS, was taken over by Lloyds TSB,
following a run on HBOS shares. On 29 September, another mortgage lender, Bradford and
Bingley was nationalised. October saw a £ 50 billion government rescue package for the banking
system as well as one of the biggest nationalisations in the UK injecting a total of £ 37 billion into
three banks: Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Lloyds TSB and HBOS.
1 The name Pragglejaz is derived from the first letter of the first names of the ten original members of the
group: Peter Crisp, Ray Gibbs, Alan Cienki, Graham Low, Gerard Steen, Lynne Cameron, Elena Semino,
Joe Grady, Alice Deignan, and Zoltan Kövecses. (VU University of Amsterdam) (App. 3) 2 Based on: BBC News: Timeline: Credit crunch to downturn (BBC News 2009) (App.4) and Jyske
Markets: Den globale finanskrise (Jyske Markets 2008.) (App.5)
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In Denmark, the media started taking notice of the crisis in the beginning of 2008, when Bank
Trelleborg ran into solvency problems and was taken over by Sydbank. In July, Roskilde Bank
was taken over by the Danish Central Bank, and in September there were several mergers, crashes
and smaller banks being taken over.3 The Danish Government intervened by adopting a guarantee
scheme for the financial sector, the Financial Stability Act (Lov om finansiel stabilitet) on October
10th.
The credit crisis had serious repercussions in both Britain and Denmark, although it would appear
that the crisis was less severe in Denmark, since mainly smaller banks actually failed; however, the
credit crisis was a global event and many of the articles focus on this international aspect. The
situation in the two countries was sufficiently similar to provide many parallel texts in the form of
news articles on the same topic, which is essential to the purpose of this study: comparing the use
of conceptual metaphor in English and in Danish. It is important that the articles all deal with the
sub-field of financial crisis because the frequency of different conceptual metaphors varies in
different contexts; ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS GAMBLING is commonly used when describing
investment (Gotti 2008 p. 62), and an article about a company or an industry would tend to borrow
terminology from this industry to describe its financial status. Such differences would make it
impossible to make a proper comparison of the use of conceptual metaphor. The studies mentioned
above have also used news articles from some type of crisis, and that makes it possible to relate (at
least to a certain extent) the results of this study to earlier findings.
1.3. Limitations of this study The corpus is limited in size, and using a larger corpus would provide more detailed and reliable
results. Since the study is limited to one specific genre, news articles on finance and economy, it
will reveal nothing about the use of metaphor in other genres, such as financial reports or texts on
economic theory.
This study only looks at the metaphors related to economy and the economic crisis, not the
metaphors used about politics or any other subject that the articles may also deal with, so it says
nothing reliable about the general frequency of metaphor. It will also only compare the differences
and similarities in use of metaphor, not a possible difference in preference for metaphor over other
forms of non-literal language use.
Finally, whether an expression is metaphorical or not is in some cases debatable. For this reason, a
metaphor study will be more reliable when more than one person identifies the metaphorical
expressions. This analysis is carried out by one person only, which may influence the quality
negatively.
3 Nykredit bought up Forstædernes Bank, and Handelsbanken bought Lokalbanken Nordsjælland.
Bonusbanken crashed and was taken over by Vestjysk Bank, who merged with Ringkjøbing Bank.
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2. Theories of metaphor This chapter will begin with a brief overview of different theories of metaphor, and will then focus
on the theory forming the basis of this study, the theory of conceptual metaphor, with the purpose
of arriving at a working definition of metaphor for the purpose of this study. The theory of
conceptual metaphor was introduced in 1980 with the groundbreaking work Metaphors We Live
By by American linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.
The second part of this chapter deals with the different functions of metaphor, particularly the role
it plays in LSP and in journalistic texts. The functions of metaphor in general are covered very
well by Andrew Goatly, in The Language of Metaphors (1997). To account for the function of
metaphor specifically in LSP texts, the work of Maurizio Gotti: Investigating Specialized
Discourse, (2008) and Susanne Richardt: Metaphor in Languages for Special Purposes (2005) will
be presented.
Finally, the last part deals with the way conceptual metaphor vary from one language or culture to
another and how these differences may be categorized. A widely used classification is developed
by Alice Deignan, which will be introduced and complemented with other classifications by Frank
Boers, and Zoltán Kövecses.
2.1. Overview of different theories of metaphor Put very generally, there are two main approaches in the study of metaphor: on one hand the
traditional approach, which encompasses many different theories but shares some fundamental
presumptions, and on the other hand the cognitive approach, which, despite being very recent, has
become the most influential theory of metaphor (Richardt 2005 p. 19).
The oldest known theory of metaphor dates back to Aristotle‟s very broad definition, that
metaphor is giving something a name that belongs to another thing ( Aristoteles 1992 p. 49). The
traditional approach focuses on metaphor as this anomalous use of language, and the following are
the most important views of metaphor within this approach:
The substitution theory describes metaphor as an expression, which can be paraphrased
(substituted) by a literal expression. The problem with this view is that a metaphor may evoke a
large number of connotations (think of for example „life is a game‟) and it would be difficult to
paraphrase them all; and to complicate matters more, a metaphor may even evoke different
connotations in different individuals.
According to the tension or controversion theory metaphor is used in order to create an effect on
the receiver. This effect is achieved by the receiver attempting to resolve the tension that is a result
of the semantic contradiction. The problem with this theory is that many metaphors are so
conventional that there is no contradiction to even notice.
The comparison view also regards metaphorical expression as something that stands instead of a
(much) longer literal expression, but the central point is the idea that metaphor is considered an
abbreviated comparison between two domains that are somewhat alike. The problem with this
view is that similarity is a symmetric relation, whereas, in reality, metaphor is often asymmetric,
for example saying that „surgeons are butchers‟ does not imply that „butchers are surgeons‟.
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Pragmatics has also played a role in the theory of metaphor. Searle‟s pragmatic approach of
reinterpretation from 1979 combines metaphor theory and speech act theory by assigning a
metaphorical statement both a semantic and a pragmatic meaning. The metaphorical expression is
taken to be defective on the semantic level and the receiver is then forced to find a way to make
the statement make sense, thereby arriving at a metaphorical interpretation. This approach inherits
some of the problem mentioned above, namely that a metaphorical expression may be substituted
by a literal expression, and implying that there are existing similarities (Richardt 2005 p. 22). This
theory is consistent with the cognitive approaches in that it relies not on truth value, but on shared
knowledge between speaker and receiver.
To sum up, the main problems with all of these approaches are that they fail to explain the creation
of similarity that metaphor is capable of, that many metaphorical expressions, such as „to defend a
position‟, are so conventional that they cannot be regarded as anomalous language use, and that,
from the perspective of cognitive science, metaphor is described as a decorative element without
cognitive importance (Richardt 2005 p. 20).
Although these approaches have largely been rejected now, they is important because they have
been so widely adopted, and many of the implicit ideas are assumed to be common sense (Deignan
2005 p. 3) and are still applied by some scholars not specialized in the study of metaphor.
2.1.1. The cognitive approach
Despite the novelty of Metaphors we live by, Lakoff and Johnson‟s theory is based on the work of
others before them, who saw the need for to account for the way metaphor is able to create
similarity between two domains, and the way metaphors are able to form the way we think. The
cognitive approach is in opposition to the traditional approach in many ways. It attributes
cognitive value to metaphor, meaning that metaphor is not considered to be just a matter of
language, but primarily a matter of thought.
The interaction theory is developed by Max Black in the sixties and seventies. As the name
indicates, the focus is on the fact that many metaphors are interactive, meaning they do not only
make the target domain seem more like the source domain, they also creates similarity the other
way around, so in saying „a battle is a game of chess‟, the battle is made to seem more like a game
of chess, but at the same time a game of chess is also made to seem more like a battle (Richardt
2005 p. 23). The theory of conceptual metaphor does not quite agree that metaphors are symmetric
in this way. Talking about the source domain may bring to mind the target domain, especially in
cases of a very conventional metaphorical mapping (Lakoff, Turner 1989 p. 131), but this is not
the same as two-way mapping (Lakoff, Turner 1989 p. 132). They also criticise the interaction
view for relegating metaphor to the field of pragmatics where the literal meaning of a statement is
the default one, and only if the literal interpretation not satisfactory does the receiver move on to
interpret the expression as metaphorical.
2.1.2. The theory of conceptual metaphor
As with the other theories within the cognitive approach, metaphor is considered more a matter of
thought than of language, and metaphors do not express existing similarities, they create them by
metaphorical mapping from a source domain to a target domain. Lakoff and Johnson claim
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metaphor to be omnipresent, accessible to everyone, conventional, and irreplaceable (Lakoff,
Turner 1989 p. xi).
Lakoff and Turner point out two fundamental, implicit presumptions in the traditional approach of
metaphor theory, which they consider to be incorrect. First, the traditional approaches are
grounded in objectivist theory, i.e. that there is an objective reality independent of our
understanding. This entails that any statement must be either true or false depending on whether it
conforms to this objective reality. In the theory of conceptual metaphor, meaning comes from our
mental and perceptual representation of the world, not the world itself (Richardt 2005 p. 46).
Secondly, Lakoff and Turner disagree with the presumption that language is semantically
autonomous, that is, meaningful completely on its own terms, not deriving meaning from any
conceptual relationships other than classical logic (Lakoff, Turner 1989 p. 111). Not everything is
understood vi metaphor, but with complex concepts, some aspects are understood without
metaphor, while other aspects are understood via metaphor (Lakoff, Turner 1989 p. 112).
Contrary to the traditional approach, the theory of conceptual metaphor does not consider literal
and metaphorical language as two separate categories, since such a distinction would rely on
precisely the two false presumptions mentioned above. Much of what is at first glance considered
literal language is in fact metaphorical, and even language use that is clearly metaphorical can be
extremely conventional. Metaphor is normal language use, involving the same processing
strategies as literal language use. The human mind fundamentally works in a metaphorical way, so
replacing a metaphorical expression with a literal one would be superfluous.
The most important criticism raised against the theory is that it is not based on empirical evidence
in the form of for example corpus studies but on selected examples, although this has been
remedied somewhat over the years (Richardt 2005 p. 44).
2.1.2.1. What is a conceptual metaphor?
Metaphors come in many shapes and sizes. A metaphorical expression can be just one word, or it
can be a phrase or a sentence. It is even possible to regard an entire story as a metaphor for life or
the world (Goatly 2011 p. 109). The following part will look into the structure and mechanics of
metaphor in order to arrive at a definition of metaphor that will be used in this study.
2.1.2.2. How metaphor structures our thoughts
A conceptual metaphor is a concept about the world. The theory of conceptual metaphor expands
the idea of metaphor by adding the conceptual level to the linguistic level of metaphor. This means
that metaphor consists of conceptual metaphors, which is cognitive in nature, and various
linguistic expressions of these conceptual metaphors (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 50).
A common example of how metaphor is more than a matter of language is TIME IS MONEY,
which allows us not only to use expressions such as „that flat tire cost me an hour‟ (Lakoff,
Johnson 2003 p. 8), but also treat our time as something precious that should not be wasted or
should at least be spent or even invested wisely. So metaphor not only rules the way we think of
the world, but also how we interact with it.
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Conceptual metaphors cannot always be observed directly, and they are not tied to specific
linguistic expressions. A common, well-known conceptual metaphor may find expression in both
conventional and unique metaphorical linguistic expressions. An unconventional conceptual
metaphor, on the other hand, would require an unconventional linguistic expression, at least to a
certain degree (Lakoff, Turner 1989 p. 50).
2.1.2.3. The structure of a metaphor
The way metaphor transfers meaning from one area to another is described as a source domain
being mapped onto a target domain. Metaphor is a relation between conceptual domains, so that
the way we talk about the source domain can be applied the target domain, based on systematic
correspondences between the two. That it is systematic means that multiple aspects of the source
domain – both appearances, functions, and relations – may be mapped onto the target domain.
Mapping is a process of creating meaning, but there are slight differences of opinion on the details
of how this happens. According to the invariance principle, held by Lakoff (as well as others), all
of the image-schematic structure of the source that is consistent with the target is mapped onto the
target (Kövecses 2003 p. 84). Kövecses claims that mappings are based on the “main meaning
focus” of a source domain, i.e. “[...] the central knowledge that pertains to a particular entity or
event within a speech community.” (Kövecses 2003 p. 82).
Since a conceptual metaphor is about two domains of thought and not just using one word instead
of another, the structure of a conceptual metaphor is complex. Kövecses lists ten interacting
components that make up a conceptual metaphor (Kovecses 2003 pp. 311-312):
1. Experiential basis – this is the motivation for choosing which source domain goes with
what target domain.
2. Source domain – the source domain must be sufficiently different from the target domain,
so that new meaning is in fact created, but at the same time the two domains share some
important characteristic
3. Target domain
4. Relationship between the source and the target – a source domain can apply to several
targets and a target domain can be attached to several sources. The source domain „war‟,
for example, is mapped onto target domains as different as love, medicine and business.
5. Metaphorical linguistic expressions – the result of particular pairings of source and target
domains.
6. Mappings – basic conceptual correspondences between source and target domains.
7. Entailments – additional mappings beyond the basic correspondences. They are also
known as inferences.
8. Blends – material that is new in relation to both source and target.
9. Non-linguistic realization – conceptual metaphors do not only materialize in language and
thought, but also in social reality, for example the way we treat time like money in
accordance with TIME IS MONEY.
10. Cultural models – conceptual units that are larger than a conceptual metaphor. Shared
social norms and implicit knowledge of the world (Richardt 2005 p. 48).
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The focus of this study will be on the metaphorical linguistic expressions (5) found in the articles
and how they are evidence of underlying conceptual metaphors.
2.1.2.4. Types of metaphor
Lakoff and Johnson distinguish between three types of conceptual metaphor:
- Orientational metaphors are grounded in the physical experience of our bodies and the way they
function in relation to our physical environment; most of them are spatial in character, such as up-
down, front-back, near-far, etc. Orientational metaphors organize entire systems of concepts in a
systematic way; for example up-down metaphors: HAPPY IS UP – SAD IS DOWN, HEALTH AND
LIFE IS UP – SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN, MORE IS UP – LESS IS DOWN, and many more
(Lakoff, Johnson 2003 pp. 15-17). Even if they are based on physical experience common to all
humans, these metaphors are also determined by culture; for example, in some cultures the future
is ahead, and in others it is behind us (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 14).
- Ontological metaphors are grounded in our experience with physical objects and substances
(Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 25). Thinking of a non-physical or abstract phenomenon as an object
allows us to identify, quantify and refer to it, and provides great explanatory power. Important
ontological metaphors are container metaphors, which structure the world in terms of inside-
outside, and metaphors where an object is specified to be a person (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 33),
for example INFLATION IS AN ADVERSARY, which comes out in expressions such as „if there‟s
much more inflation, we‟ll never survive‟ or „we need to combat inflation‟ (Lakoff, Johnson 2003
p. 26).
- Structural metaphors are concepts structured in terms of another concept, and are much more
detailed and specific than the previous two types, providing rich opportunities of highlighting and
masking different aspects of a concept, rather than just identifying or quantifying it. One example
of this type is ARGUMENT IS WAR.
2.1.2.5. Metaphor and other figures of speech
The distinction between metaphor and other types of figurative language can sometimes be
unclear.
Metaphor can be said to be a shortened simile (Gotti 2008 p. 58). A simile is an explicit
comparison, usually involving the word „like‟ or „as‟, i.e. „he is like a pig‟ (often with a
specification of the ground for comparison: „he eats like a pig‟). A true simile is figurative
language and can be turned into a metaphor if the „like‟ is left out, whereas a literal simile (e.g.
„we are like them‟) cannot be turned into a metaphor this way. Another way to see this is to regard
a simile as a metaphor with a marker (Goatly 2011 pp. 195-197). The MIP is not designed to count
simile as a metaphor, because it breaks the text down to single words whenever
possible(Pragglejaz Group 2007 p. 32). There are, however, many metaphorical expressions that
stretch over more words, and simile may therefore be counted as metaphorical in this study.
Metaphor and metonymy share some common ground, and distinguishing between them can in
some cases be problematic. Metaphor is a relation of analogy or resemblance, while metonymy is a
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relation of association. Metonymy can be just as systematic as metaphor, with metonymic
concepts such as THE PART FOR THE WHOLE, INSTITUTION FOR THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE
or PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT, and the ability to structure our thoughts, actions and attitudes by
highlighting specific aspects (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 pp. 38-39). Charteris-Black has even
suggested a superordinate category, a „conceptual key‟, which encompasses both conceptual
metaphor and conceptual metonymy, since these two cognitive processes often appear together
(Charteris-Black 2003 pp. 293-294). Even though metonymy and metaphor are closely connected,
metonymy is not the main focus and will not be accounted for in this study.
2.1.2.6. Classifying metaphors according to conventionality
Metaphors are traditionally classified according to how conventional they are, i.e. the degree to
which they have been lexicalised:
- New metaphors are metaphors that are spontaneously created and are perhaps only used
that one time.
- Clichés are metaphors and as such are recognized as non-literal language use, but they
are conventional.
- Dead (or frozen) metaphors are expressions that have been used so often that they are no
longer regarded as non-literal language.
These are not fixed categories, but rather a scale on which metaphors gradually slide, as
individuals may be more or less familiar with a metaphorical expression, which means that a
metaphor may not be equally dead to everyone. This classification also implies that new
metaphors require more thought processing to be understood than conventional metaphors, and
dead metaphors hardly require any extra processing at all.
A given metaphor is continually sliding on the scale, and that not all individuals are equally
familiar with a given metaphoric expression. This means that there may not be consensus on
whether an expression is metaphorical or not (Goatly 2011 pp. 107-108).
Lakoff and Johnson do not accept this classification as they do not accept the strict opposition of
literal and metaphorical language use where the last is unconventional language use, and they see
metaphor as a normal and effortless way of thinking and expressing those thoughts. They do
however accept that there is such a thing as dead metaphors. The word „pedigree‟ stems from Old
French „pied de grue‟, which means „foot of the crane‟. The expression is rooted in the similar
shape of a cranes foot and the branching of a family tree diagram. „Pedigree‟ is a dead metaphor
because the connection to the source domain is lost to modern speakers (Lakoff, Turner 1989 p.
129).
Lakoff and Johnson point out that some metaphorical expressions, which are regarded as
dead/frozen according to the classification above, are in fact very productive and „alive‟. Since the
degree of lexicalisation is not significant to the same degree, this classification is less relevant.
Instead, they distinguish between literal and imaginative metaphorical expressions.
14
2.1.2.6.1. Literal and imaginative metaphorical expressions.
The basis for Lakoff and Johnson‟s distinction between literal metaphoric expressions on one
hand, and imaginative (also called non-literal or figurative) metaphoric expressions on the other, is
that metaphorical structuring is only partial. A conceptual metaphor has „used‟ parts and „unused‟
parts (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 pp. 52-53). Metaphorical expressions that are instances of the used
part of a conceptual metaphor fall within normal literal language, so that „he constructed a theory‟
is an instance of THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS, whereas expressions based on unused parts of a
conceptual metaphor are „figurative‟ or „imaginative‟ language, e.g. „his theories are covered with
gargoyles‟. This is still an instance of THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS, and imaginative metaphors are
still part of the conceptualization, but they lie „outside of the used part of a metaphorical concept
that structures our normal conceptual system‟ (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 53). Imaginative
metaphors can also be extensions of the used part of a metaphor, or they can be instances of
entirely novel metaphor (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 53).
Literal metaphors correspond more or less to the aforementioned dead or frozen metaphors, but
Lakoff and Johnson define them differently: literal metaphors are established, systematic and form
part of a conceptualization. Literal metaphors are not considered dead; on the contrary, they are
alive since they are „metaphors we live by‟.
There are metaphorical expressions that are unsystematic and isolated in that they do not interact
with other metaphors. According to Lakoff and Johnson, „if any metaphorical expressions deserve
to be called “dead”, it is these‟ (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 55), because they are not important to our
conceptualization and they are not very productive. In the context of this study however, it is
noteworthy that Lakoff and Johnson admit that they can be extended in subcultures, and „their
unused portions serve as the basis for (relatively uninteresting) novel metaphors‟ (Lakoff, Johnson
2003 p. 55).
2.1.3. Definition of metaphorical expression for the purpose of this study
The definition of a metaphorical expression varies somewhat and many definitions rely heavily on
the intuition of the analyst. In this study, the definition of what is a metaphorical expression and
what is not needs to be very exact in order to be able to properly compare the use of metaphor in
the two languages.
MIP, the Metaphor Identification Procedure is devised by the pragglejaz group, and it is an attempt
to create a method that is explicit, reliable and flexible (Pragglejaz Group 2007 p. 2). According to
MIP, the process of identifying an expression as metaphorical is as follows (Pragglejaz Group
2007 p. 3): the first step is to read through the text in order to get a general understanding of the
meaning. The next is to determine the lexical units. Most words are a lexical unit on their own, but
phrasal verbs, proper names, and some idioms may not be decomposed without losing their
meaning, and as mentioned earlier, a metaphorical expression may be longer than one word. The
third step is to determine the meaning of each lexical unit in its context, and then determine if the
lexical unit has a more basic contemporary meaning in other contexts. More basic meanings tend
to be either more concrete, related to bodily actions, more precise (as opposed to vague), or
historically older. The metaphorical meaning of an expression may well be more common than the
15
more basic meaning. If a lexical unit does have a more basic meaning in other contexts, the last
step is to decide if the meaning in the given context contrasts with the basic meaning, but can be
understood in comparison with it. If this is the case, the lexical unit is metaphorical.
To sum up, what defines a metaphorical expression is that it has a more basic contemporary
meaning in other contexts, and that it contrasts with this basic meaning while still drawing
meaning from it.
This definition is flexible as well as very concrete and workable – many other definitions leaves
much up to the instinct of the analyst and often rely on distinguishing between conventional use
and normal use, which Lakoff and Johnson have shown to be meaningless when dealing with
conceptual metaphors since metaphorical language use is in fact quite conventional.
The method corresponds well with Lakoff and Johnson‟s very limited definition of dead
metaphors: even though an expression is conventionalized, it can still be productive and form part
of the system that is a conceptual metaphor. There does, however, need to be a widespread and
knowable comparison and contrast (Pragglejaz Group 2007 p. 30) between the contextual meaning
and the basic meaning in order for the metaphorical mapping to take place. If the meaning shift is
unrecognizable without resorting to an etymological dictionary, the metaphor is dead. The
pragglejaz group does recognise that there is no absolutely clear line between metaphor and other
kinds of language use. Goatly puts it this way: an expression is not either metaphorical or not, but
rather placed on a sliding scale. Metaphor is relative, depending on the time (because word
meaning changes over time), and depending on individuals‟ experience of language and their
awareness of metaphor (Goatly 2011 p. 108).
The definition and method is not a way to make absolutely certain that an expression is a metaphor
or not, but the steps of the method is explicit, which makes it easy to pinpoint and discuss exactly
why an expression is or is not a metaphor.
2.2. The function of metaphor: The following classification of functions of metaphor is based on Goatly (Goatly 2011 pp. 154-
177) and elaborated and refined by Richardt (Richardt 2005 pp. 28-29). Some of the functions,
„decoration and disguise‟ and „enhancing memorability, foregrounding and informativeness‟
appear in more than one category. The categories are to be regarded as prototypes rather than
clear-cut boxes that each metaphor will fit into (Richardt 2005 p. 28).
A: Information processing function
Filling lexical gaps
Explanation and modeling
Reconceptualization
Call for problem-solving
Enhancing memorability, foregrounding and informativeness
B: Expressive function
Expressing emotional attitude
Decoration and disguise
Humor and games
16
Fiction
C: Manipulative function
Reconceptualization
Argument by analogy
Ideology
Decoration and disguise
Cultivating intimacy
Call for action
D: Textual function (ensuring that what is said is relevant and relates to cotext/context)
Textual structuring
Fiction
Enhancing memorability, foregrounding and informativeness
Metaphors in LSP mostly fall into the first category, the information processing function, but the
manipulative function is also present and functions may overlap (Richardt 2005 p. 29).
The role metaphor plays in filling lexical gaps has always been recognized as important, and this is
particularly relevant in order to describe new ideas and phenomena in a dynamic field such as
economics. Apart from simply filling a lexical gap, a conceptual metaphor also brings along
structure, relations, etc. from the source domain, making it ideal for providing explanations. It
makes it a very efficient way of communicating; there is, however, room for misinterpretation on
the part of the receiver, or manipulation on the part of the sender.
In mapping structure and relations from the source domain to the target domain, metaphor can also
play a role in problem solving. Since, in the process of mapping one domain onto another, our
understanding of the more familiar source domain is transferred to the target domain, solutions
from the more source domain may also be applied to unsolved problems in the target domain.
In journalistic texts like the ones in this study, the function of „enhancing memorability,
foregrounding and informativeness‟ is also especially important, since conveying somewhat
complex information to an audience that are not necessarily specialists can be done very efficiently
with the use of metaphor. The more unusual metaphorical expressions often serve the purpose of
capturing and holding the interest of the reader, and they fall under the function of „decoration and
disguise‟.
2.3. Metaphor in different cultures and different languages Language is linked to culture, most obviously in the case of national states and their national
language; but in fact any group of people who share a culture – be it subculture, minority culture
or even a professional community – tend to form discourse communities characterized by different
degrees of specialized language use. This means that the use of metaphor can vary as well, and this
chapter will look into how this variation may be accounted for.
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2.3.1. The relationship between language, culture and thought
Different theorists place different significance on these three closely related factors. At one end of
the spectrum, some believe that language determines thought and culture, the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis being the most extreme standpoint in this direction. At the other end, some, like Alice
Deignan, believe that culture and thought changes fast while language lags behind and
metaphorical expressions are often incomplete cultural reliquary (Deignan 2003 p. 255). In other
words, language differences are not necessarily evidence of cultural differences. Lakoff and
Johnson‟s position is that all experience is cultural (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 57), in the sense that
no observation or experience is neutral since we cannot escape culture as a point of departure –
new observations are always based on existing concepts about the world.
Raising language learners‟ awareness of the differences and similarities in use of metaphor is an
important part of the purpose of comparative studies of conceptual metaphor. Learning the
conceptual metaphors of other languages does not necessarily change the way we think about the
world, and being aware of the conceptual metaphors of a foreign language is not much different
from knowing competing conceptual metaphors in one‟s own language.
The conclusion is that since language, thought and culture are closely interrelated, a comparison of
linguistic expressions may also be a comparison of cultures, but the relation is too vague to decide
if language shapes culture more than culture shapes language.
It is to be expected that languages and cultures that are quite closely related (etymologically, etc.)
will also share the same conceptualization, since they perceive the world in much the same way.
Danish and English are both Germanic languages; they also have the same economic system, and
the Anglo-Saxon culture has been dominating the modern Western world‟s economy, so it follows
that the conceptualization of economy is more alike than if one were to compare the languages of a
market economy with that of a socialist economy. Both concepts and linguistic expressions have
been transferred from English to Danish, either as borrowing or through direct translation.
The following chapter will present different ways of accounting for how metaphor usage varies
across languages.
2.3.2. Taxonomies of variation.
One of the more common classifications of the differences between languages in terms of
metaphor use is found in Teaching English metaphors using cross-linguistic awareness raising
activities (1997) by Gabrys, Solska and Deignan. They work from a didactic perspective and
proposes the following classification (Gabrys, Solska & Deignan 1997 pp. 354-355):
1. Same conceptual metaphor and equivalent linguistic expression
2. Same conceptual metaphor but different linguistic expression
3. Different conceptual metaphor and consequentially also different linguistic expression
4. Words and expressions with similar literal meaning but with different metaphorical
meaning
This classification is operational, but may fail to capture the finer nuances of variation between
languages that are as closely related linguistically and culturally as Danish and English are,
18
something that is also noted by Charteris-Black and Ennis in their comparative study (Charteris-
Black, Ennis 2001 p. 262).
Frank Boers distinguishes between three ways in which metaphor use can vary across languages:
the first type is where „two languages display the same source-target mapping, but with markedly
different degrees of productivity or conventionality‟ (Boers, Littlemore 2003 p. 234). The second
type consists of differences in the value-judgments associated with either the source domain, the
target domain or the appropriateness of the metaphor, for example describing the government as a
machine could evoke associations of efficiency and smooth running in one culture and
associations of impersonal and inhumane in another (Boers, Littlemore 2003 p. 235). This
difference is rooted in culture, not necessarily in language. The third possibility is differences in
the degree of pervasiveness of metaphor as such – a language may show more or less preference
for the use of metaphor compared to other figures of speech (Boers, Littlemore 2003 p. 236).
Ennis has extended the classification of Gabrys, Solska and Deignan with a fifth possibility to
cover precisely this situation.
Kövecses has conducted a small study of the way expressions can reveal subtle differences in the
cultural-ideological background, even where two languages share the same conceptual metaphor
and it is expressed in largely overlapping metaphorical expressions (Kovecses 2003 p. 315).
Comparing metaphorical expressions of the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY in English
and Hungarian showed that Hungarian favoured passive relationships and relative passivity on the
part of the people involved in the relationship, where English favoured active agents and deliberate
action on the part of these agents (Kovecses 2003 p. 317). The conclusion is that this reveals a
more fatalistic attitude to life in the case of Hungarians (Kovecses 2003 p. 318).
My study is not sufficiently detailed to be able to account with any certainty for details as subtle as
in Kövecses‟ study, but depending on the findings in the newspaper articles, all three ways of
categorizing variation will be taken into consideration in the analysis.
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3. Method This chapter will start out with an account for the role conceptual metaphor may play in
journalistic texts. This part will be based on the taxonomy of function presented in chapter 2.2.
My analysis will be based on the way conceptual metaphors have already been found to structure
the field of economics, and the point of departure will be Richardt‟s (2005) extensive mapping of
the structure; however, I will expand and adjust her model by taking into consideration the
findings of a few studies that are very similar to this one, except they compare English to other
languages than Danish. The model of analysis that will be used in this study will be presented in
chapter 3.3.
The last part of this chapter will be a description of the method of analysis by which I arrive at an
identification of conceptual metaphors based on the metaphoric expressions found in the news
articles. A crucial aspect of this study is how to determine the relation between the individual
metaphorical expressions found in the news articles and the underlying conceptual metaphors.
Low (2003) has discussed the problems of identifying conceptual metaphors and set out some
guidelines for this process, and they will be presented in chapter 3.3.1.
3.1. The use of conceptual metaphor in journalistic texts The primary purpose of a news article is to inform a broad audience about events and facts that are
of general interest and relevance. Depending on the paper and its audience, subject may be more or
less specialized and more or less complex.
In Goatly / Richardt‟s taxonomy of the functions of metaphor, this function of communicating
knowledge corresponds to metaphor being used to aid the information processing function.
Metaphor is an efficient way of facilitating understanding in the communication of often complex
matters to a broad or uninitiated audience by describing one thing, complex and/or unknown, in
terms of another, simpler or more familiar.
It is relevant to note that a news article is not necessarily neutral and objective in its description of
events. Since there are often competing conceptual metaphors structuring a field, they can be
exploited as a rhetorical device in order to frame the understanding of a situation. Describing an
economic crisis in terms of war rather than illness puts the matter in a markedly different light.
This means that the expressive or even the manipulative function may also be present in a news
article.
The second function of a news article is that it needs to capture and keep the attention of the
reader. Especially the more unusual metaphorical expressions can be used to this end and are often
found in the headlines. This means that the expressive function of metaphor is relevant as well:
decoration and disguise, as well as the information processing function: enhancing memorability,
foregrounding and informativeness.
Finally, metaphors are important for the cohesion in a text, often constituting a semantic field,
underlining a common theme throughout an article. This aspect is relevant because, when
comparing the frequency of different conceptual metaphors, one or two conceptual metaphor may
dominate the article even if they are not common in general – or in other words, if there is one,
there will be more.
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3.2. Conceptual metaphor in economics Compared to other fields, economics is a discipline that has been examined quite thoroughly from
a metaphor-perspective. It is a complex and abstract subject matter that nevertheless concerns most
people to some degree, making it a subject where metaphor is very useful, both to close lexical
gaps, communicate new information efficiently to for example a layperson, and using metaphor
can makes ideas more persuasive.
The following figures show the metaphorical structuring of the field of economics as it is mapped
out by Richardt (2005):
21
This diagram shows a wide range of the conceptual metaphors structuring the field of economics
in English. It is not exhaustive, which would hardly be possible, but all the important conceptual
metaphors are present, except THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING, which is only present here as
THE ECONOMY IS A PATIENT. It does not show all of the complex layering and different
interactions, just as it does not show how some of the conceptual metaphors are more pervasive
than others (Richardt 2005 p. 144).
The conceptual metaphors in Richardt‟s model are common and are generally accepted, however,
other researchers have found other conceptual metaphors and different levels, particularly of THE
ECONOMY IS A PATIENT.
3.2.1. Other research – comparative analyses of differences in metaphor usage
There has been no research into the difference between Danish and English with regards to the use
of conceptual metaphor, but there are many studies of other language pairs: a study of metaphor in
English and Spanish newspapers during a stock market crash in 1997 (Charteris-Black, Ennis
2001) showed that the conceptualization of economic phenomena are quite similar. In both
languages, the economy was primarily conceptualized as an organism, market movements as
physical movement and sharp downward market movements as natural disasters. The differences
were a preference in Spanish for metaphors related to psychological states, and a preference in
English for nautically based metaphors. There was also one conceptual metaphor found only in
English, not in Spanish: ECONOMIC DISASTERS ARE NUCLEAR DISASTERS.
22
A study of German and British newspaper articles‟ treatment of the Euro (Charteris-Black,
Musolff 2003) showed that UP-DOWN metaphors are the same, as were THE EURO IS A LIVING
ORGANISM metaphors. In this last category however, fight metaphors were much more common
in English than in German, instead, German focused on physical and medical imaging.
A study comparing the use of conceptual metaphor in English and Romanian again found that the
underlying conceptual metaphors were basically the same, and that there was a higher preference
for fight related metaphors in English where Romanian preferred metaphors relating to the health
and psychological state of a living organism. There was also a category relating to superstition and
premonition in Romanian, which was absent in English (Pecican 2007).
The models of conceptual metaphors differ somewhat from Richardt‟s, and they show how a slight
difference in subject matter translates into important differences in the use of conceptual metaphor.
The studies deal specifically with a crisis as well as economics, and they have adjusted their
categories to reflect this. Most models attempt to reflect the layering or hierarchy of conceptual
metaphor to some degree.
3.3. Model of analysis Combining Richardt‟s model with the findings in the above-mentioned studies and taking into
account the metaphorical expressions found in this study, I have set up a model to sort the
metaphorical expressions into.
A model of the conceptual metaphors structuring a field should aim at being specific enough to
bring out a meaningful level of detail – if it is too broad, then too many expressions may be
grouped together without giving a precise and informative representation. On the other hand, it
should not be so complex and specific that too much meaning is lost in details. Conceptual
metaphors have different levels – a good example is THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING, which
is a superordinate to for example THE ECONOMY IS A PLANT and THE ECONOMY IS A
PATIENT. Some metaphorical expressions, like „the market died‟, belong on the superordinate
level, and would be difficult to account for if the model only allows sorting into one of the
subordinate levels.
The conceptual metaphors are simply listed – it is difficult to make a complete graphic
representation of all the relations between these conceptual metaphors, so instead I have opted to
describe these relations in the analysis. To a certain extent the list is open and flexible, since
further subordinate levels may be specified in the analysis if the metaphorical expressions found in
the articles warrant it.
ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP / DOWN
AMOUNTS ARE LIQUID IN A CONTAINER
MONEY IS LIQUID
THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING + ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FARMING
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT and ECONOMIC CRISIS IS
ILLNESS
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR / SPORT
THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE
23
THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING - ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS CONTRUCTION -
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS COLLAPSE
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY
THE ECONOMY IS AN EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING OBJECT
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS BAD WEATHER / (NATURAL) DISASTER
Other
The first three are fairly straightforward conceptual metaphors ECONOMIC CHANGE IS
MOVEMENT UP/DOWN, MONEY IS LIQUID and the combination of the two: AMOUNTS ARE
LIQUID IN A CONTAINER.
The next conceptual metaphors are more complex and show more systematicity. The first, THE
ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING is very broad, and in the analysis it will be discussed how it
relates to especially ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL
TREATMENT. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FARMING is a logical extension of describing the
economy as a plant, which is why it is placed alongside THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING.
The next two conceptual metaphors are so closely linked to THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING,
that they might have been categorised together, however ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL
TREATMENT and ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS are so common and well-developed in their
own right that I have decided to analyse them separately.
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS SPORT are very similar because the
aspect of economics they highlight is competition, and some metaphorical expressions may be
categorised under either of these two. Also, sport is to some extent conceptualised in terms of
battle, which contributes to the overlap between these two. These conceptual metaphors have built-
in ways of describing economic success or crisis, namely as winning or losing.
The conceptual metaphor THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE branches out in the same way to
describe economic crisis as malfunction or breakdown.
THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING entails describing economic activity as construction and economic
crisis as a collapse.
The conceptual metaphor ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY lends itself to describing
economic crisis as obstacles on the journey, but it is not used to describe the economy as such. I
consider it to be a subcategory of one of the most well-known conceptual metaphors, LIFE IS A
JOURNEY.
The conceptual metaphor THE ECONOMY IS AN EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING OBJECT is
not described in any of the other studies, however in Pecican‟s study, some of the type of
metaphorical expressions categorised here have been placed under „movement up and down in
size‟ (Pecican 2007). This conceptual metaphor is therefore almost solely based on the
metaphorical expressions found in these articles.
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS BAD WEATHER / (NATURAL) DISASTER do not have corresponding ways of
describing the economy or economic activity. There is a significant overlap between bad weather and
natural disaster – some types of bad weather are natural disasters, after all, and that is the reason
these two conceptual metaphors will be analysed together. „Natural‟ is in parenthesis, because
24
using simply „disaster‟ is a bit too general, and I do not wish to complicate the analysis by
excluding the few expressions that describe economic crisis as a nuclear disaster.
Finally, all metaphorical expressions describing the economy, economic activity and economic
crisis that do not reflect one of the conceptual metaphors above, will be categorised under „other‟
As my hypothesis is that the conceptual metaphors found in the field of economics will be
approximately the same in Danish as in English, the same model will be used and it will be
possible to find any difference in frequency of metaphorical expressions under each conceptual
metaphor. The category „other‟ should allow me to see the instances of conceptual metaphors that
are not already known or accounted for.
3.3.1. From metaphorical expression to conceptual metaphor
Since not all metaphorical expressions form part of a conceptual metaphor, the way of determining
which conceptual metaphors are expressed in a text needs to be accounted for; in other words, how
do I deduce from the metaphorical expressions that they are evidence of a conceptual metaphor
and what that conceptual metaphor is? Graham Low proposes a set of guideline on how to get
from metaphoric expression to conceptual metaphor (Low 2003 p. 252). The guidelines are made
in the specific context of metaphorical models of thinking, that are proposed without reliable
methodology, and not all points are equally relevant.
The first four points concern the sample analysed for evidence of conceptual metaphor, which
should be described, justified and sources of bias should be acknowledged. These points will be
covered in chapter 4.1.
The fifth point deals with the process of identifying metaphorical expressions and conceptual
metaphors. It prescribes explicit specification of the process used to identify metaphor, which I
will do by following the MIP. It also prescribes a discussion of the way metaphorical expressions
are categorized, for example whether they must be categorized and how, and the extent of
reliability should also be specified
In this study, only metaphorical expressions related to economy, economic activity or the
economic crisis will be categorized. There are of course other metaphorical expressions related to
politics, to arguments and other topics of the articles. Some of these metaphorical expressions fall
in a grey area between economics and for example politics. Most metaphorical expressions are
expected to fall within the well-known conceptual metaphors structuring the field of economics,
but there will be a category named „other‟ to catch those that do not fall inside one of these. The
categorisation of individual metaphorical expressions will be commented on throughout the
analysis.
As this study aims at uncovering the differences and similarities between two languages, each
metaphorical expression is only classified once under the conceptual metaphor that is most
appropriate. This means that some of the complexity of the interacting conceptual metaphors is
lost, and the conceptual metaphors that overlap and interact easily with others (for example
ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP / DOWN and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY)
are not accurately counted, because some of the metaphorical expressions are categorized only
once, even though they might in fact belong under both conceptual metaphors. However in the
25
analysis I will comment on the metaphorical expressions that are ambiguous and could have been
classified differently.
Finally Low warns to distinguish between data that is a criteria for a conceptual metaphor and data
that is simply consistent with the conceptual metaphor, and of specifying a conceptual metaphor, if
the data does not justify it.
3.3.1.1. On counting metaphorical expressions
When determining the frequency of metaphorical expressions, the following principles will be
followed:
In journalistic texts the inverted pyramid of information is usually applied, and a given
metaphorical expression will often be repeated in the title or the caption, the text, maybe also in a
quote, especially if it an unusual or colourful expression. The repetition has more to do with the
way information is presented and with the textual coherence of the article than with the
pervasiveness of the metaphor. Therefore, in each article, such an expression will only be counted
once.
There can be an overlapping, for example between MONEY IS LIQUID and ECONOMIC CRISIS IS
BAD WEATHER or ECONOMIC CRISIS IS (NATURAL) DISASTER in metaphorical expressions that
involve for example „tsunami‟. In these cases both conceptual metaphors really do apply, which
may very well be intended on the part of the journalist. These metaphorical expressions have only
been classified under one conceptual metaphor; however they will be addressed more thoroughly
in the analysis. Some metaphorical expressions are so general (for example „hole‟) that they have
been categorised under „other‟.
Several target domains draw on the same source domains, as is the case with the domain of war,
which is the source domain for both economic activity and for illness and medicine, which itself is
a source domain for the economy. Since the domain of war/battle is the original source-domain for
the medicine-metaphors, they are categorized under war (if there is no other indication). It should
however be kept in mind that these two fields are closely related.
In some cases an expression brings together two or more conceptual metaphors, for example: „they
are now spraying taxpayers‟ money at the financial crisis like firemen with hoses‟, which reflects
both CRISIS IS FIRE and MONEY IS LIQUID. In these cases, the expression will be counted twice,
and where this expression is listed under for example MONEY IS LIQUID, the parts about fire will
be crossed out.
Finally, one of the principles in MIP is „if in doubt, leave it out‟. If an expression may be
categorized under more than two different conceptual metaphors, it is categorized under „other‟
26
4. Analysis This chapter will begin with a description of the four newspapers and the articles. After that, the
findings will be presented and analysed, beginning with an overview of the distribution of
metaphorical expressions in the four newspapers and in the articles. After that, the conceptual
metaphors and the expressions that reflect them will be described in more detail, and finally the
way they are used in English and Danish will be compared and the similarities and differences will
be discussed.
4.1. Description of data
4.1.1. Selection of articles
The articles all date from the September and October 2008, and they are selected for analysis
because they deal specifically with the credit crisis. The registered metaphorical expressions are
also limited to the ones that describe the economy, money, economic activity or economic crisis,
not the ones related to other topics the articles may deal with, such as politics.
The topic of the article – how an individual bank is faring, what the position of the government is,
or who is to blame for the crisis – affects the application of conceptual metaphor. An article
dealing with a troubled bank would tend to use more metaphorical expressions from the domain of
war (Articles 3) than an article about placing the blame for the credit crisis, which might use
metaphorical expressions from the source domain of court trials (Article 6). The selected articles
cover a variety of subjects in both languages and from all four newspapers in order to even out
these tendencies. Similarly, an article dealing with the problems in the American automobile
industry or the Danish shipping industry will tend to use machine or journey metaphors and
maritime metaphors respectively. Therefore, in order not to skew the results, I have avoided
articles dealing with specific companies outside of the financial sector.
The articles are all written mass communication, relatively formal, with the primary
communicative purpose of informing a very broad target audience that for the most part is
interested, since the specialty of these newspapers (or sections of them) is economy and finance,
but not necessarily specialists in the field.
4.1.2. Description of the four newspapers
The articles are taken from newspapers that are the most important sources of business news in
Denmark and the UK respectively. Neither of the newspapers delivers news only on paper; they all
have complementing websites, The Economist publishes books, Børsen has its own TV studio (TV
Børsen) and they all offer a variety of activities to their subscribers primarily conferences, but also
recreational activities.
Out of the four, Jyllandsposten stands out as being the most general news provider; however the
articles selected for this study all come from the business and finance section. The Economist
stands out in several ways, as it is published only once a week, it is the most openly opinionated
publication, and it is well known for its characteristic language style – the result of a very explicit
language policy.
27
4.1.2.1. Dagbladet Børsen
Usually referred to as Børsen (which is also the name of the Danish stock exchange), this is a
specialized newspaper focusing on business and finance, although it also covers politics, culture
and macroeconomics. It is published Monday through Friday. Børsen‟s professed target audience
is people who have a significant amount of money at their disposal both privately and
professionally (Børsen) (App.6). In the second half of 2008, the paper was read by 226,000 people
(tns Gallup 2009) (App. 7).
4.1.2.2. Morgenavisen Jyllandsposten
Jyllandsposten, or just JP, is the most read Danish newspaper. It is published daily and covers
general news and also has a large business section, which is where all the articles for this study
were found. The majority of the readers are modern, individualistic people aged 30 to 60, earning a
relatively high salary (Morgenavisen Jyllandsposten) (App.8).
In the last six months of 2008, Jyllandsposten had 507,000 readers on weekdays and 674,000 on
Sundays (tns Gallup 2009) (App. 7).
4.1.2.3. The Economist
Although in the format of a news magazine, the Economist calls itself a newspaper. It is published
weekly, offering analyses and opinions and covering world news, business and politics. The
newspaper‟s headquarter is in London, but it has a strong international orientation: of the
circulation of over 1.4 million, less than one fifth is in Britain and more than half is in America.
A former editor of The Economist has described it as “a Friday viewspaper, where the readers,
with higher than average incomes, better than average minds but with less than average time, can
test their opinions against ours. We try to tell the world about the world, to persuade the expert and
reach the amateur, with an injection of opinion and argument.” (The Economist) (App. 9)
The articles in the Economist usually have no by-line. One reason for this is to achieve a uniform
expression and give the effect of one single sender; another, more practical reason is that several
people often work together on an article. A uniform writing style is enforced: „[…] The Economist
believes in plain language. Walter Bagehot, our most famous 19th-century editor, tried "to be
conversational, to put things in the most direct and picturesque manner, as people would talk to
each other in common speech, to remember and use expressive colloquialisms". That remains the
style of the paper today.‟ (The Economist) (App. 9)
4.1.2.4. Financial Times
The Financial Times is a business newspaper based in London, and it is a leading authority in the
business world. It is published daily and has a global circulation (both on paper and digital) is
close to 600,000. (The Financial Times) (App. 10).
28
4.1.3. Description of articles
The selected articles deal with the credit crisis in general, but since different conceptual metaphors
are predominant when talking about different topics, I will provide an overview of the topics of the
articles in this study:
Overview of article topics:
English articles:
1: Russian banking sector and the credit crisis.
2: Property lending in Britain
3: Banks raising capital
4: The credit crisis hits South Korea
5: The credit crisis’ effect on European economies
6: The state of the global economy, focusing on the role of central banks
7: Deleveraging in the US
8: Government intervention in the UK
Danish articles
9: AIG’s liquidity problems may have global repercussions.
10: Amagerbanken need liquidity and tempts potential clients with high interest accounts.
11: The recent development of interest rates.
12: Bank advises the Danish government to not tighten financial politics
13: The positive effects of governments bailing out banks
14: The Danish National Bank defends the Danish currency
15: The credit crisis keeps private equity funds from investing more this year
16: Banks predict long-lasting crisis
17: Interest rates are falling – the money market is thawing out
18: European banks are collapsing or being rescued by governments
19: Danish banks prepares for the credit crisis being harder than expected
20: Panic as crisis hits Asian economies
21: Real estate losses cause panic in Danish banks
22: EU has no rescue plan in place in case large banks fail.
23: Central banks provide liquidity to help the financial market
24: The development of financial systems over the last 30 years and the reasons for this crisis.
25: Sovereign wealth funds are gaining influence
The articles deal with general aspects of the credit crisis and the banking sector. The selected
articles represent a balanced mix of topics, and the topics are evenly covered in both English and
in Danish. Articles that are dealing with more specific subjects (such as the stock market or
specific companies outside of the financial sector) have been avoided in this study. The length of
the articles varies from 2459 words (article 6) to 246 words (article 23). Generally, the articles
from The Economist are the longest, and the articles from Børsen the shortest.
29
4.2. Findings First I will give an overview of the frequency of metaphorical expressions describing the economy
in each language in order to determine if, overall, there is a higher preference for using metaphor
in one language compared to the other, and to give a first impression of the degree of similarity in
use of each conceptual metaphor.
This overview will be followed by a detailed account of each of the conceptual metaphors and the
metaphorical expressions reflecting it. The expressions will be presented with the most common
metaphorical expressions listed first with the number of instances written after it. If an expression
is not followed by a number, it means that there is only one instance found in the articles. Some
expression could be categorised under more than one conceptual metaphor. Each is only
categorised once, but the other conceptual metaphor that it could also reflect is noted in
parenthesis.
Finally, the differences and similarities will be presented and discussed, and, although it is outside
the scope of this study to find reasons for the similarities and differences, I will suggest some
possible explanations.
4.2.1. Overview of findings
There is evidence of many conceptual metaphors in the news articles, and not all of them have to
do with economics or the credit crisis. In article 6, metaphorical expressions with „court of law‟ as
source domain are used to structure the argument of the article, and generally ARGUMENT IS A
BATTLE is quite common, both because an article argues a certain point and because the articles
quote or repeat the arguments of bank managers, ministers, experts etc.
Conceptual metaphor
Danish articles
(10,543 words)
English articles
(10,485 words)
ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT
UP/DOWN
96 (22.2 %)
141 (22.6 %)
MONEY IS LIQUID
24 (5.5 %)
25 (4 %)
AMOUNTS ARE LIQUID IN A CONTAINER
4 (0.9 %)
11 (1.8 %)
THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FARMING
66 (15.2 %)
2 (0.5 %)
56 (9 %)
1 (0.2 %)
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL
TREATMENT and
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS
16 (3.7%)
19 (3 %)
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR or SPORT
50 (11.5 %)
43 (6.9 %)
30
THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE
25 (5.8 %)
25 (4 %)
THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING
26 (6 %)
22 (3.5 %)
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY
36 (8.3 %)
51 (8.2%)
THE ECONOMY IS AN EXPANDING AND
CONTRACTING OBJECT
31 (7.2 %)
110 (17.6 %)
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS BAD WEATHER or
(NATURAL) DISASTER
26 (6 %)
20 (3.2 %)
Other
(including ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FIRE,
GOOD IS LIGHT/BAD IS DARK and
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS GAMBLING)
31 (7.2 %)
100 (16 %)
Total
Total: 433
(4.11 % of words)
Total: 624
(5.95 % of words)
In the Danish articles there are a total of 433 metaphorical expressions, showing that metaphor is
less frequently used than in the English, where there are a total of 624 metaphorical expressions
describing the economy, economic activity, money and economic crisis. This translates into
economic metaphorical expressions making up 4.11 % of the Danish text and 5.95 % of the
English text. A similar difference was found in Pecican‟s study of English and Romanian, where
metaphorical expressions made up 4.16 % of the Romanian and 6.03 % of the English text
(Pecican 2007 pp. 78 and 80), indicating that English is the language with an unusually high
preference for metaphor.
This overview also shows which conceptual metaphors are used most often. The frequency is
given both as the number of metaphorical expressions and as the percentage of expressions
reflecting each conceptual metaphor.
In both languages the metaphorical expressions reflecting the conceptual metaphor ECONOMIC
CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP / DOWN are the most frequent. Looking at the percentage
distribution of the metaphorical expressions, the conceptual metaphors describing the economy in
terms of movement up and down, illness and medical treatment, money as liquid, and economic
activity as a journey are practically equal in size:
Danish English
ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT
UP/DOWN
22.2 % 22.6 %
31
MONEY IS LIQUID 5.5 % 4 %
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL
TREATMENT and ECONOMIC CRISIS IS
ILLNESS
3.7 % 3 %
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY 8.3 % 8.2 %
Those are well-documented conceptual metaphors. On the other hand, the conceptual metaphors
that show the largest difference in use are the fairly undocumented THE ECONOMY IS AN OBJECT
THAT EXPANDS AND CONTRACTS, and the category „other‟, which is much larger in English:
Danish English
THE ECONOMY IS AN OBJECT THAT
EXPANDS AND CONTRACTS
7.2 % 17.6 %
Other 7.2 % 16 %
THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING 15.2 % 9 %
It makes sense that the category „Other‟ should be larger in English than in Danish when, overall,
metaphor is more common in the English articles, and this category contains a large variety of
metaphorical expressions not part of a conceptual metaphor – or at least not of the major
metaphors structuring the field of economics. The large difference in the frequency of
metaphorical expressions that reflect THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING is, however, surprising.
The conceptual metaphors AMOUNTS ARE LIQUID IN A CONTAINER and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
IS FARMING appear so rarely that it would require a larger study to ascertain whether the
difference observed here are valid.
4.2.2. ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP / DOWN
This conceptual metaphor is orientational and it is part of the much larger conceptual system
grounded in the human experience of having a body and being affected by gravity. In economics,
most graphs are also an expression of this conceptual metaphor. The metaphorical expressions
found in the articles express movement up and down as well as higher or lower position.
Other studies have grouped this type of metaphorical expressions in „movement up and down‟,
with the subcategories „mountainside‟, „water/seas‟, „flying/air‟ and size‟ (Pecican 2007), or they
have categorised market movements as movement in water, on the ground, or in the air (Charteris-
Black, Ennis 2001 p. 257 and p. 260). In this study, I have not made such a distinction because it
tends to blur the lines unnecessarily between this conceptual metaphor and others, particularly
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY.
This conceptual metaphor mixes with several of the other conceptual metaphors, notably MONEY
IS LIQUID, which gives us AMOUNTS ARE LIQUID IN A CONTAINER. It also mixes with
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY, with expressions such as „soar‟, „slide‟ and „climb‟ that
could in fact be part of either conceptual metaphor.
ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP / DOWN
- falde (V): 15, fald (N): 8 - fall (V): 22, fall (N): 6, freefall: 1
32
- høj: 12 (compounds included)
- stige: 7, stigning: 4
- lav: 8
- nedtur: 8
- sænke: 6
- dykke (V): 1, dyk (N): 1, styrtdyk/styrtdykke: 3
- hæve: 4
- forhøjelse: 4
- hop: 3
- nedsættelse: 3
- nedgang: 3
- løfte: 2 - over 4 %
- svimlende beløb
- røget i vejret
- vender pilen nedad
- high: 9, heighten: 1, height of the housing boom: 1
- rise: 19, raise: 6
- low:10, lower (V): 3, low (N): 2
- downturn: 6
- slump: 6
- tumble (N) / tumble (V): 5
- plunge (V): 3
- surge (N): 2
- drop (V): 3, drop (N): 2
- push [prices/rates etc] down: 3, bring down: 2, drive
down: 1
- writedowns: 3, written down: 1 - decline: 3
- pick up: 3
- deep:2
- the property market had already peaked
- equity tranches, fees and margins all rocketed.
- lending flows are close to their peak.
- a commodity-price spike
- a quantum leap in non-performing loans
- not only did markets slide
- sink
- risk spreads have soared - their debt jumped
- the default rate […] may climb to 10%. (/JOURNEY)
- a downward spiral
- share prices look rock bottom
- the financial crisis was deepening
- on the back of a rise in consumer credit
- vicious downward spiral
- prices move down sharply
Danish - total: 96 English - total: 141
There are more metaphorical expressions describing the economy in terms of up or down in
English compared to Danish, but they constitute almost the same percentage of the metaphorical
expressions in both languages: 22.2% in Danish and 22.6 % in English, making this conceptual
metaphor the largest one structuring the field of economics.
The most common expressions are almost equally frequent „fald‟/‟fall‟ (Danish: 23, English: 29),
and „høj‟/‟high‟: (Danish 12, English 11). This conceptual metaphor illustrates that the more
frequent use of metaphor in English manifest itself mainly as a larger variety of the less common
metaphorical expressions. Many of these are more expressive variations of the more common
ones, for example „rocket‟ and „spike‟ for „rise‟, or the more anthropomorphic expressions such as
„jump‟ and „climb‟.
Overall, this conceptual metaphor is very similar in Danish and in English.
4.2.3. MONEY IS LIQUID
Money is to be understood in the very broad sense, including both shares, currencies, and even
credit (since credit can also „dry up‟). It is an ontological metaphor, meaning that the intangible,
abstract concept is given a „body‟. This is the one of most important conceptual metaphor relating
33
to economics, even though it is far from the most frequent. The reason it is important is that it
combines with practically every other conceptual metaphors structuring the field.
MONEY IS LIQUID
- likviditet: 8, likvider: 1
- optøning: 3, fastfrosne: 1
- pengestrøm/strøm af penge: 3, flyde frit: 1
- løbe tør
- insolvent
- skvulper
- har pumpet 45 mia. dollars ind i økonomien
- sprøjter de mange milliarder ud
- åbne for sluserne
- vandtætte skotter
- liquidity: 10, liquid (A):1
- flow (V): 3, flow (N): 1
- pump into: 2
- freeze: 2
- domestic liquidity too is ebbing
- wave of capital infusions
- tapping institutional investor
- an issue of solvency
- as credit markets […] all but dried up
- They are now spraying taxpayers’ money at the
financial crisis like firemen with hoses.
Danish - total: 24 English - total: 25
The English articles have 25 instances of MONEY IS LIQUID, and the Danish have 24. This
conceptual metaphor accounts for 5.5 % of the Danish and 4 % of the English metaphorical
expressions. The most frequent in English is „liquidity‟ (10) and in Danish the equivalent
„likviditet‟ (8). A difference in productivity might have been expected since in the central term
„liquidity‟ / „likviditet‟, the source domain is much more accessible in English (liquid) than in
Danish (væske), but this does not seem to be the case.
This conceptual metaphor mixes well with most other conceptual metaphors in the field. The
interaction with ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP/DOWN is covered in the previous
section. Also, most of the metaphorical expressions reflecting ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS
MEDICAL TREATMENT have to do with infusion or injecting liquid (4 out of 7). The metaphorical
expressions reflecting ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY remarkably often describe travelling
by boat or through water (13 Danish and 1 English). When describing the crisis, the LIQUID
metaphor mixes to create accidents at sea (drowning, sinking) or natural disasters involving water
(tsunamis, flooding) or the opposite (drought). MONEY IS LIQUID even mixes with THE
ECONOMY IS A MACHINE, where liquidity is used to grease the wheels (article 23). The only
conceptual metaphors rarely interacting with MONEY IS LIQUID are the ones related to
competition – ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS SPORT – and THE
ECONOMY IS A BUILDING.
Amounts may be conceptualised as liquid in a container, thus merging the two conceptual
metaphors just presented above in order to describe amounts as rising or falling levels of liquid.
AMOUNTS ARE LIQUID IN A CONTAINER
- niveau: 2
- ligge iblandt: 1, ligge på: 2
- level: 7
- stands at: 2
- down to: 2
Danish – total: 4 English – total: 11
34
In these articles, this conceptual metaphor is more common in English than in Danish, but there
are too few instances to say for certain how common it is in the two languages.
4.2.4. THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING
A living being can be a human, an animal, or a plant, but in most of the metaphorical expressions
this is not specified. Instead, the central meaning focus is the cycle of life and death – growing,
developing, being healthy or sick, and dying. This is an ontological, anthropomorphic conceptual
metaphor. It is closely connected to several other conceptual metaphors: ECONOMIC CRISIS IS
ILLNESS and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT are subcategories of THE
ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING, and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR is also closely connected to
this anthropomorphic view of the economy; firstly because it takes two living parties to fight,
secondly because „war‟ as a source domain also structures the field of illness and medicine.
Illness, injury and death are built-in ways of describing economic crisis within this conceptual
metaphor, and these metaphorical expressions have not been separated, except for those that reflect
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT. Still, since
they are so closely related, it can be debated whether they should be separated at all.
THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING competes with THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE and THE
ECONOMY IS A BUILDING. Choosing this particular metaphor over the others underlines that the
economy develops organically, and that cycles of growth, decline, and death are natural. It also
allows us to understand the economy as person (or animal or plant for that matter) that can fall ill,
but if someone possesses the right knowledge, the economy may be diagnosed and treated
accordingly.
Some of the expressions reflecting THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING could apply to both
humans, animals, and plants; for example „growth‟. In the English articles there are a few
expressions that only apply to plants, and they have been separated from the rest. THE ECONOMY
IS A PLANT ties in with a few expressions that describe economic activity as farming, and they have been
put separately as well.
THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING
- vækst: 35, vokse: 6 (compounds included)
- sund: 2
- sårbar: 2
- dødt: 1, finanskrisen koster virksomheder livet: 1
- bukke under: 2
- tiger: 2
- udviklede sig: 1, udviklet: 1
- giftige lån
- bankerne er ved at blive slugt af større konkurrenter - Højkonjunkturen gav så meget fedt på sidebenene,
at bankerne voksede ud af deres garderobe.
- rentesatser […] lever deres eget liv
- overleve
- blodrøde tal
- Danmark halter […] bagefter (/JOURNEY)
- grow:13, growth: 11
- healthy: 2
- vulnerable: 2, vulnerability: 1
- pain: 1, painful: 1, painfully: 1
- shed (V): 2
- binge (V): 1, binge (N): 1.
- appetite : 2
- survival
- dead - shocks: 2
- calmed the frenzy
- alleviate financial panic
- financially stressed American economy
- depression: 1, depress: 1
- distressed debt
35
- økonomisk muskelkraft
- sparke nyt liv i de kriseramte finansmarkeder
- den globale finanssektors enorme organisme.
Subtotal: 63
- offering […] relief: 1
- toxic loans
- it [=the American economy] tends also to revive
more speedily.
- to hurt [an economy]
Subtotal: 52
THE ECONOMY IS A PLANT
ø - construction is wilting
- branching out
- credit portfolios rooted in US subprime mortgages
- stems from
Subtotal: 4
Danish – total: 66 English – total: 56
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FARMING
- har pløjet milliarder ind i de nødlidende
amerikanske finanshuse
- at høste gevinsten
- Banks rake in 12 per cent
Danish - total: 2 English - total: 1
There are a total of 66 instances of THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING in the Danish articles and
56 in the English articles. This conceptual metaphor accounts for 9 % of the metaphorical
expressions in English and 15.2 % of the Danish metaphorical expressions, so THE ECONOMY IS
A LIVING BEING is used more in Danish than in English. Most of the difference can be blamed on
the higher frequency of „vækst‟/‟vokse‟ in Danish (41 instances) compared to „growth‟/‟grow‟ in
English (24 instances). If we ignore the metaphorical expressions of growth, we are left with more
equal numbers – 25 metaphorical expressions in Danish and 32 in English.
Apart from „growth‟, there are still significant differences between the metaphorical expressions.
In English, eight expressions are from the source domain of psychology: „shock‟, „frenzy‟, „panic‟,
„stressed‟, „depression‟ and „distressed‟. Admittedly, several of these, e.g. „stress‟ and „depression‟
originally came from other fields, but it can be argued that today the psychological meaning of
these terms is just as familiar, and may even be the first that springs to mind when they occur in an
economic context, especially since the economy is conceptualised as a living being to such a high
degree.
One other study has divided the expressions reflecting THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING into
„physical states‟ and „psychological states‟ (Charteris-Black, Ennis 2001) The metaphorical
expressions reflecting THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING found in this study cannot quite be
divided into only these two subcategories, which is why only THE ECONOMY IS A PLANT is
36
specified. It could, however, be argued that these expressions could have been categorised under
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS.
To sum up, THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING is equally common in English and in Danish,
apart from the higher frequency of „grow‟/„growth‟ in Danish, which I will return to in chapter
4.2.10., and that there is a higher preference in English for describing the economy in terms of
psychological states. This study is too small to say anything about the relative frequency of plant-
and farming-metaphors in English and in Danish.
4.2.5. ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT
These two conceptual metaphors are so closely related that some studies group all these
expressions under THE ECONOMY IS A PATIENT, or THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY IS A STATE
OF PHYSICAL HEALTH or A STATE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH (Charteris-Black, Ennis 2001 p.
256 and p. 259). In that sense, these would be ontological metaphors, but illness and medical
treatment as a source domain is so complex that it provides more than just the means to measure
and count economic activity and crisis, so they could also be considered structural metaphors.
The domain of medicine is to a large extent conceptualized in terms of war or physical conflict, as
seen in expressions such as „immunforsvar‟ and „battling cancer‟; however, in this study
metaphorical expressions based on war are all categorised under ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR
since that is the original source domain. It should, however, be kept in mind that since the two
domains are so closely associated, some of the expressions categorised under ECONOMIC
ACTIVITY IS WAR may also be understood as belonging to one of these conceptual metaphors.
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT
- kapitalindsprøjtning
- Ebh Bank får kunstigt åndedræt
- dulme den eskalerende finanskrise
- berolige de flossede nerver på finansmarkedet
Subtotal: 4
- a capital injection of state money
- to inject up to £50 billion - capital infusions
Subtotal: 3
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS
- bedring: 2
- finanshuset Nomura, der led dramatisk
- ”roskildesygen”
- […] er pengepolitikken blevet forholdsvis impotent
- Tungsindet hærger økonomien
- immunitet
- at slå feberen ned på finansmarkederne
- gået i koma
- […] er Asien også på vej mod hospitalet
- slippe gennem krisen uden alt for store skrammer
- de blødende amerikanske institutioner.
Subtotal: 12
- suffers: 6
- a mild case: 1
- recover: 2, recovery: 2
- hurt (V): 2
- a monetary malaise
- to contract a disease
- a symptom of generalised price pressure
Subtotal: 16
37
Danish - total: 16 English - total: 19
These conceptual metaphors are used slightly more in English than in Danish, accounting for 3.7
% of the Danish metaphorical expressions and 3 % of the English. The main difference between
usages is the frequent use of „suffer‟ in English.
There is a large overlap between the expressions reflecting the superordinate THE ECONOMY IS A
LIVING BEING and the expressions reflecting ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS and ECONOMIC
ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT, and expressions that are not strictly related to illness or
medicine have been categorised under the superordinate conceptual metaphor, for example
„blodrøde tal‟ and „healthy‟.
4.2.6. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS SPORT
These conceptual metaphors are both about competition, and the domain of sports is very much
conceptualised in terms of war or battle, which means that it is not always possible to be certain
whether a reference to sports, to war, or just to competition in general was intended. In some ways
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR/SPORT can be considered a subcategory of THE ECONOMY IS A
LIVING BEING because actions and different economic agents such as banks, politicians or even
the more abstract concepts like inflation and interest rates are often assigned roles in a conflict,
either as antagonists, protectors, or victims. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR and ECONOMIC
ACTIVITY IS SPORT are structural metaphors, mapping complex source domains onto a complex
target domain.
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR
- tabe: 4, tab: 8
- ramt: 7
- kæmpe: 3, kamp: 1
- angreb (N): 1
- forsvar: 2, forsvare: 1
- flugt: 2
- kræve ofre: 2
- jagten på cool cash
- at hejse det hvide flag
- trussel - Vi skal ikke sparke til økonomien
- at holde væksten i skak
- blodet flød i børsgaderne
- der er ganske enkelt ikke flere skud tilbage i
bøssen - Statsfonde fra Asien og Mellemøsten ligner de store vindere
- den økonomiske krise […] er ved at skubbe de 15
eurolande ud på randen af en truende recession
- losses (N): 5
- struggle (V): 4
- strike: 3
- aggressive: 2
- beleaguered: 2
- desert (V): 2
- wiped out: 2
- the impact of the credit crunch
- they take a bigger hit than if no derivative contract
were in place - with bank shares especially hard-hit,
- […] as credit crisis hits
- entrenched: 2
- battered capital bases
- wounded economy - hunting down dollars.
- banks may be attractive targets
- dominated by cash purchases
- battle wounds - Korea's foreign exchange trove of $240bn could be
deployed.
- clawed back lost competitiveness
- monetary ammunition
- beat off
- the damage inflicted on their balance-sheets
38
Subtotal: 40
- stave off the worst
Subtotal: 38
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS SPORT
- spilleregler: 2
- Det samlede hold centralbankers
- kapitalfonde må vente på sidelinjen
- den pessimistiske ende af feltet
- En af de helt store jokere
- vandt første runde i kampen
- de største deltagere - førende
Subtotal: 9
- players: 2
- It seeks to tackle the three concerns
- „the great white hope of Russian banking‟
- the government is the only entity left in the game
Subtotal: 5
Danish - total: 49 English - total: 43
Both expressions conceptualising economic activity as war and as sport are slightly more frequent
in Danish, and these conceptual metaphors accounts for 11.5 % of the Danish and 6.9 % of the
English metaphorical expressions. Even though there are fewer expressions in English, the English
expressions are slightly more varied, where in Danish „tabe/tab‟ and „ramt‟ alone account for 19
out of the 40 expressions reflecting ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR. The variation in English is
due to the fact that there are several equivalents of „ramt‟: strike‟ „impact‟, and „hit‟, and together
with „losses‟, they only account for 12 out of the 38 English instances.
4.2.7. THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE
This conceptual metaphor competes with THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING, but it is far less
frequent, and it overlaps with ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY and to some extent with
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FIRE.
It is an ontological metaphor where the economy is conceptualised as an object, but since a
machine can be very complex and most of us have less understanding of a machine than for
example our bodies, this conceptual metaphor maps a very complex source domain onto an
equally, though less tangible, target domain. What is gained by this mapping is a way to describe
the economy as something that works in a rational, orderly way, and if it fails to do so, we are able
to make adjustments or repairs that will make it work properly again. In other words, it conveys a
sense of control over the economy. Not surprisingly, this conceptual metaphor is frequently used
to describe the actions of decision makers such politicians and central bankers.
THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE
- opbremsning: 3, bremse: 2 (/JOURNEY)
- mekanisme: 3
- tandhjul: 2
- at få det hele til at køre rundt
- vækstdynamoer
- er under pres
- går ned i gear
- fuel (V): 8
- leverage: 1, de-leverage: 2, deleveraging: 3,
leveraged: 1
- the gearing effect
- firms are less geared
- put a brake on the trend
- Germany can‟t decouple.
39
- gearede investeringer
- gearet til fuld kraft frem
- en cyklisk finansiel krise med et indbygget
momentum
- hvordan en fælles redningsplan skal skrues sammen
- ECB udvider viften af instrumenter,
- de pengepolitiske værktøjer (/BUILDING)
- drosle ned
- mistet styringen
- Det her er drevet af tillid
- at skrue op for renterne (/UP/DOWN)
- at holde de økonomiske hjul i gang.
- a “decoupled” world economy
- Consumer spending, the motor of the economy
- tighter credit feeds directly into less investment and
job losses
- the British government has looked asleep at the
switches
- the government has pulled out almost all the stops
- economic overheating
Danish Total: 25 English - total: 25
This conceptual metaphor shows up equally frequently in Danish and in English, but as there are
more metaphorical expressions in the English articles, THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE only makes
up 4 % of the English metaphorical expression against 5.8 % of the Danish metaphorical
expressions.
Five of the Danish expressions might have been categorised under ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A
JOURNEY. This overlap is not surprising since a journey often involves mechanical means of
transportation, like cars, trains, etc., however there is no explanation other than coincidence for the
lack of overlap in English.
The English expressions are less varied then the Danish ones. Seventeen of the English
expressions are either „fuel‟ or different forms of „leverage‟ or „gearing‟, where there is only one
corresponding expression in Danish:
Danish English
- ø
- gearede investeringer: 1
- fuel (V): 8
- leverage: 1, de-leverage: 2,
deleveraging: 3, leveraged: 1
- the gearing effect: 1
- firms are less geared:1
In English there are eight instances of „fuel‟, seven instances of variations of „leverage‟ as well as
the two instances „geared‟ and „gearing effect‟. A Danish equivalent „fuel‟ does not occur at all,
and there is only one instance of the equivalent to leverage. If Danes do not „fuel‟ the economy,
what do they do instead? Equivalent such as „sætte gang i‟ or „holde gang i‟ does occur four times
in the Danish set of articles, so this appears to be a case of Gabrys, Solska and Deignan‟s 2. type:
same conceptual metaphor – different linguistic expression.
In the case of „leverage‟ (and its variations), however, the equivalents „kapitalstruktur‟ or
„gældsætningsgrad‟ do not occur in the Danish articles. The high frequency cannot be explained as
one or two of the English articles being specifically about this subject, since the expressions are
distributed quite evenly throughout the articles.4 In Boers‟ classification, this could be a case of a
4 Two in article 3, two in article 4, one in article 6 and two in article 7.
40
metaphorical expression being much more pervasive in English than in Danish, but a larger study
could also show that the difference is merely a coincidence.
4.2.8. THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING
This is an ontological metaphor where the economy is described as a physical object. The focus is
primarily on the enclosed space, the foundation, and on the solidity of the construction, which is
mirrored in the expressions describing economic problems or crisis as instability and collapse.
This narrow focus shows that only a very limited part of the source domain is used.
THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING
- værktøjskasse: 2 (/MACHINE)
- ”grundlæggende problemer" i pengepolitikken
- at lægge et for rigidt vækstloft hen over bankerne
- Singapore er med sin åbne, eksportorienterede
økonomi
- stabiliteten i den finansielle sektor
- den mere vakkelvorne del af kunderne
- futures, optioner, swaps og andre særdeles sindrige
konstruktioner
- det statsøkonomiske fundament er for spinkelt
Subtotal: 9
-solid: 2
-solidity: 2
- niche markets
- the 3% ceiling.
- structural weaknesses of the biggest euro-area
economies.
- wall of money
- some sort of floor will be put under commodity
prices
- The underlying problem
- the won will stabilise
Subtotal: 11
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS CONSTRUCTION
-stabilisere/stabilisering: 3+1
-opbygning: 1
Subtotal: 5
- built up: 2
- shore up: 2
- stabilize
- repair: 2 (/MACHINE)
- to buttress the capital
- to support their businesses
Subtotal: 9
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS COLLAPSE
- kollaps: 4, kollapse: 1
- sammenbrud / bryde sammen: 2
- vaklende: 2 - vælte: 2 - kunder, som […] er mast under en økonomisk ruin
Subtotal: 12
- collapse: 2
Subtotal: 2
Danish - total: 26 English - total: 22
Overall, this conceptual metaphor appears to be slightly less common in English than in Danish
with 26 metaphorical expression in the Danish articles (6 %), and 22 in the English articles (3.5
%). However, the difference is primarily due to the metaphorical expressions reflecting
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS COLLAPSE, which Danish has a stronger preference for (12 Danish and 2
41
English). It also seems that ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS CONSTRUCTION may be better developed
in English than in Danish, since there are a variety of expressions („shore up‟, „buttress‟ and
„support‟) where in Danish the same expression („stabilisere‟ / „stabilisering‟) is used repeatedly.
According to Gabrys, Solska and Deignan‟s taxonomy, this belongs under type 1: same conceptual
metaphor and equivalent linguistic expressions; and using Boers‟ classification, ECONOMIC
CRISIS IS COLLAPSE is more pervasive in Danish than in English.
4.2.9. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY
This is a structural metaphor mapping a large and complex source domain that includes a
beginning, goals, moving forwards easily or with difficulty, using means of transportation, etc.,
onto the equally complex target domain of economic activity. One of the most common and well-
known conceptual metaphors is LIFE IS A JOURNEY, and as mentioned earlier, I consider
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY a subcategory of this larger one – although the beginning
and the end are more vague, the activities in between seem to be conceptualised much the same
way life is. This means that there are many metaphorical expressions with journey as source
domain that are not counted here because they are not about economics.
As already mentioned, this conceptual metaphor interacts with THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE,
and MONEY IS LIQUID. It is also closely connected with ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT
UP/DOWN, since expressions like „soar‟, „jump‟ and „climb‟ might also have been classified here.
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY
- vende: 3
- stå over for: 3
- styrer mod: 2
- på vej ind i en regulær recession - ryge ind i
- centralbankerne forsøger at gå én vej
- så følger markederne ikke med
- at møde rentestigninger
- dømt stilstand
- dansk økonomi kommer fra et stærkt udgangspunkt
- vi nærmer os mere normale tilstande
- at skubbe gang i pengemarkederne (/MACHINE)
- trafikken af nye penge til systemet
- i februar måtte Northern Rock også trække
nødbremsen - trække verdensøkonomien tilbage på sporet.
- hastige vækstjagt
- havner i krise
- forhindrede endnu en blød landing
-emerging: 15
-slow (V): 4
-slowdown: 2
-accelerate: 3 - face (V): 4
- consumer finance and mortgage lending take off
- The one factor holding back the real estate markets
- came to a crashing halt
- holding back the market
- but could also bring the economy to a standstill
- capital flows […]are susceptible to swift changes
of direction
- escape
- The economy is instead decelerating sharply
- The financial groups […] ran into difficulties - Struggling to keep moving
- A September index of manufacturing slowed at its
sharpest pace for seven years.
- go into recession
- they, along with other financial regulators, were
asleep at the wheel
- domestic credit takes off
- America stumbled
- economic speed limit
- help define the direction of global finance.
- further rate cuts almost certainly lie ahead - stalling
42
- [growth] had been driven by the City
- sluggish disposable income
- running into trouble.
- gå ned: 4
- [i krisens] kølvand: 3 - den europæiske økonomi er mere underdrejet end
for tre måneder siden
- Den nye, finansstyrede kapitalisme sejlede reelt
stilsikkert igennem it-boblens eksplosion i 2000
- ride med på den finansielle revolutions bølge
- En ny, statsdrevet kapitalisme havde allerede inden finanskrisen vind i sejlene, og den er ikke just løjet af
under de seneste ugers uro.
- […] inden der søsættes et stort finanspolitisk
indgreb
- holde sig oven vande
- remain in the doldrums.
Danish - total: 36 English - total: 51
There are more instances of this conceptual metaphor in English than in Danish, but they account
for an almost equal part of the metaphorical expressions: 8.3 % of the Danish and 8.2% of English.
The linguistic expressions are extremely varied, suggesting a conceptual metaphor that is very
„alive‟ and productive.
English has been found to use many metaphors with a nautical source domain compared to
Spanish, and it is speculated that the reason for this preference is historical – the British Empire
was based on maritime dominance (Charteris-Black, Ennis 2001 p. 262). In these articles,
however, there is only one expression derived specifically from the domain of travelling by sea in
the English articles – „the doldrums‟, an area of the Pacific Ocean with very little wind, and 13
Danish expressions. This pattern will also be seen in ECONOMIC CRISIS IS BAD WEATHER or
(NATURAL) DISASTER, where disasters involving water are much more frequent in Danish than in
English. Based on this, Danish has a high preference for the maritime source domain when
describing economics, even though it may not be as extreme as the frequency in these indicates.
Unlike the other conceptual metaphors described above, this one does not lend itself to a
description of the economy as such, but there are plenty of possibilities for describing various
aspects of an economic crisis: facing or running into obstacles, slowing down, falling asleep at the
wheel, or ending the journey in unfortunate ways by going down or coming to a crashing halt.
4.2.10. THE ECONOMY IS A CONTRACTING AND EXPANDING OBJECT
This conceptual metaphor has not been mentioned in other studies, except Pecican‟s (Pecican 2007
p. 79). Charteris-Black and Ennis have placed some of these expressions under THE BEHAVIOUR
OF THE MARKETS IS THE BEHAVIOUR OF GAS, a subcategory of DOWNWARD MARKET
MOVEMENTS ARE NATURAL DISASTERS (Charteris-Black, Ennis 2001 p. 258). Many of the
expressions have to do with tightening and loosening, shrinking and expanding, and Richardt
places these under the MACHINE metaphor (e.g. „tightening the fanbelt‟ (Richardt 2005)), however
„tightening‟ in economics will often make the economy slow down and shrink, and „loosening‟
will increase economic activity and corresponds with expansionary financial politics. Tightening a
fanbelt would have the opposite effect.
43
This conceptual metaphor is somewhat related to THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING as both are a
container of sorts – in a building the walls, ceiling, and floor are limits, and in THE ECONOMY IS A
CONTRACTING AND EXPANDING OBJECT the restriction is also in focus, but in contrast with
THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING, this conceptual metaphor is about the dynamic movement of
these limits.
The fact that this conceptual metaphor is not seen in other studies means that when I first started
categorising these metaphorical expressions, they were all placed under „other‟, and only when it
became apparent how frequent they were, did I collect them under this conceptual metaphor. The
reason for choosing to group all these expressions together is that it is the simplest way to account
for these them: it is a basic ontological metaphor, identifying an abstract entity, the economy, as a
more tangible object, although it is not a specific object (Lakoff, Johnson 2003 p. 25). It allows me
to account for a very large group of metaphorical expressions as reflecting one simple concept.
The metaphorical expressions listed below describe contracting and expanding in three different
ways: how it may be caused by the inner forces of the economy (i.e. „inflation‟, „deflation‟,
„shrink‟), how it may be caused by external forces (i.e. „squeeze‟, „crunch‟, „loosen the reins‟), and
how these movements result in tension („spændinger‟, „have their hands tied‟, etc) or release of
tension („burst‟).
This conceptual metaphor also has a built-in way of describing crisis, and there is some overlap
with ECONOMIC CRISIS IS (NATURAL) DISASTER, where „explosion‟ and „implosion‟ that are
categorised, although they might also have been put here.
THE ECONOMY IS A CONTRACTING AND EXPANDING OBJECT
- pres/presse/presset: 5+ 1+1
- stram: 2, stramme (V): 4
- boble: 2
- i klemme: 2
- trængt: 2
- spændinger [i markedet]: 2
- give los: 2
- skæv: 1, skævhed: 1 - pumpet [markedet] op:
- arbejdsmarkedet er blevet mere fleksibelt.
- Siden 1980 er de bånd, der bandt bankerne, blevet
løsnet
- lånemarkedet er givet frit
- pengemarkedet løsner sig op
- konkurrenceforvridning
- inflation: 21, inflate: 1, disinflation: 1,
disinflationary: 1
- deflation:13, deflationary: 2
- tighten: 10, tight: 2
- bubble (compounds included): 12
- credit crunch: 6
- shrink: 6
- liquidity squeeze: 2, credit squeeze : 1 - flexible: 1, flexibility: 2
- burst: 3
- bust: 2
- pressure (N): 2
- restrict: 2
- economic slack: 2
- between a rock and a hard place: 2
- hard-pressed
- contraction
- expand
- the emerging markets‟ resilience
-currency rigidity - stringent capital adequacy ratios.
- cash reserves leave us a margin of manoeuvre
- [Korea] is in a bind
- the French really have their hands tied
- the shares of Royal Bank of Scotland,
overextended by an ambitious acquisition last year
- rigid product and labour markets
44
- inhibit such flexibility.
- reining back on new lending
- loosen the monetary reins
- to loosen fiscal policy
- ample room to boost spending.
Danish - total: 31 English - total: 110
There are more than three times as many instances of this conceptual metaphor in English
compared to Danish, the largest difference between the uses of a conceptual metaphor seen in this
study. The Danish expressions account for 7.2 % of the metaphorical expressions and the English
account for 17.6 %.
The most obvious difference is the absence of the Danish word „inflation‟. It actually only occurs
once in the Danish articles, but I have not counted it as metaphorical because I estimate that the
source domain meaning would be unknown to most Danes. The meaning of the English term on
the other hand is much more easily accessible to English speakers through everyday expressions
such as „deflated tyre‟ or „inflated ego‟. It does not mean that the concept of inflation does not
exist to Danes, but that it is expressed differently. In the articles there are other Danish expressions
for „inflation‟, „disinflation‟ and „deflation‟: „stigende priser‟ (2), „faldende priser‟ (2), „højere
priser‟ (1), and „lavere priser‟ (1). These six instances are counted under ECONOMIC CHANGE IS
MOVEMENT UP/DOWN, where they are the four most common expressions. Still, the six instances
are not much compared to the 33 instances in the English articles.
Under THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING, „grow‟/‟growth‟ was much more common in Danish
than in English, and since „grow‟/‟growth‟ is very compatible with this conceptual metaphor, it is
likely that it is used to describe some of the same phenomena, for example „bubble‟, which (if we
ignore the implicated fragility) could be described as „rapid growth‟.
The credit crisis was dubbed „the credit crunch‟ in English, and it is hard to say whether it became
a popular term because it fit into the already large conceptual metaphor, or if it functioned as a sort
of „gateway‟ for more of this type of metaphorical expressions. The Danish equivalent
„kreditklemme‟ does not occur at all in these articles and generally seems to be much more rare.
4.2.11. DESCRIBING ECONOMIC CRISIS
Each of the abovementioned conceptual metaphors has its own built-in way of describing a crisis,
but there are also conceptual metaphors describing crisis only. The expressions here only describe
economic crisis, but the source domains lend themselves to the description of any kind of crisis.
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS BAD WEATHER and ECONOMIC CRISIS IS (NATURAL) DISASTER are
structural metaphors, and they often trigger quite colourful and dramatic metaphorical expressions,
which journalists use to attract and keep the attention of the readers, for example the first line of
article 20: „Det globale finanskaos ramte fredag Asien som en finansiel tsunami‟ (‟Friday, the
global fiancial chaos hit Asia like a financial tsunami‟ (my translation)).
These metaphorical expressions tend to describe an economic crisis in terms of an accident or
disaster that is more physical in nature than the complex and abstract problems in economics, for
example bad weather, natural disaster, or fire. It masks the fact that the economic problem may be
someone‟s fault, and highlights how enormous and seemingly uncontrollable the global economy
45
is. This conceptual metaphor competes with the aspects of THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE, that
describe crisis as malfunction.
Bad weather and disasters blend into each other, since storms cause waves and floods, earthquakes
cause tsunamis, and water can cause erosion. Instead of attempting to separate them, they are listed
together, divided into three groups of metaphorical expressions with the source domains weather,
water, and other disasters. This is not the only possible way of grouping them, but it has the
advantage of allowing for few, but clearly distinguishable groups.
ECONOMIC CRISIS IS BAD WEATHER or (NATURAL) DISASTER
Weather
- løje af: 3
- brat omslag
- vi bliver ramt af en brat konjunkturomslag
- klimaet for at drive bank
- siden er bankkrisen taget til i styrke
- blæst omkuld
- turbulens: 2
Subtotal: 10
- calmed the storm
- once calm returns (/LIVING BEING)
- a torrid day on October 7th
- the climate has changed
- barometer of economic activity
- turbulence
- in America, the centre of the storm
Subtotal: 7
Water
- tsunami: 2 - ramt af subprimebølgerne
- globale bølger
- at bygge diger imod konkursbølgen
- at dæmme op for presset på kronen
- Ethvert håb […] blev ubønhørligt skyllet væk
- De negative rekorder flød gennem medierne som
vraggods på det oprørte hav
- […] væltede ind over markederne
- at udløse den stormflod af mistillid og kundeflugt
- […] Japan som hidtil har balanceret på toppen af
bølgen, men nu blev suget med ned i malstrømmen.
Subtotal: 11
- flood of capital: 2 - The global credit crisis is washing up on Asia's
shores.
- the credit drought
Subtotal: 3
Other disaster
- nedsmelte/nedsmeltning. 3
- it-boblens eksplosion
- et lokomotiv, der var på vej lige imod dem
Subtotal: 5
- aftermath: 2
- erode: 2
- the sub-prime crisis erupted
- fault-lines exist
- to avoid an Icelandic-style implosion
- The financial meltdown
- to sound the alarm
Subtotal: 9
Danish - total: 26 English - total: 19
46
Overall, metaphorical expressions describing the crisis in terms of bad weather and disasters are
more frequent in Danish than in English, and account for 6 % of the Danish and 3.2 % of the
English metaphorical expressions. Most of this difference is due to the preference in Danish for
expressions involving water (11 Danish instances and 3 English), a tendency that was also seen in
the many Danish maritime expressions under ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY. The high
frequency of metaphorical expressions involving water also testifies to the importance of MONEY
IS LIQUID, even if there is an odd inconsistency in the preference for describing a crisis involving
lack of liquidity with expressions involving disastrous amounts of water.
4.2.12. Other metaphorical expressions
I have collected the metaphorical expressions that describe the economy, economic activity or
economic crisis, but without fitting into any of the categories above and placed them in the
category „other‟. Most, such as „bail-out‟, are singular and do not show any systematicity that
could be evidence of underlying conceptual metaphor, but a few groupings can be picked out:
There are many expressions describing economic crisis as fire, and they might have been
categorised with the above-mentioned disasters. However, it seems more correct to regard these
expressions as one end of a scale where economic activity is described in terms of heat and fire,
and the more activity there is, the hotter it gets, for example „rekindle investor confidence‟. Like
with fire, there is the idea that economic events can become too hot and get out of control, as seen
in „Europe is starting to feel the heat‟ (article 5) and „“Eventually they will put the fire out,” […] “The
question is how much gets burned between now and then.”‟ (article 7).
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FIRE
- Den internationale finanskrise er for alvor blusset
op
- stoke: 2
- rekindle investor confidence
- Europe is starting to feel the heat
- put the fire out
- how much gets burned
- America‟s mortgage mess fed the financial crisis
- They are now spraying taxpayers’ money at the
financial crisis like firemen with hoses.
Danish – total: 1 English – total: 8
There is only one instance of this conceptual metaphor in the Danish articles, and even though
these nine expressions are not enough to reliably say that this conceptual metaphor is used more in
English, it is supported by the higher preference in English for „fuel‟ under THE ECONOMY IS A
MACHINE. The six expressions under MONEY IS LIQUID that describe lack of economic activity:
„freeze‟, „optøning‟ and ‟fastfrosne‟ also supports this conceptual metaphor.
The expression „America‟s mortgage mess fed the financial crisis‟ is categorised here, even though the
most basic meaning has to do with food and it might have been placed alongside „appetite‟ and
„binge‟ under THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING. However, in this context the crisis is not
conceptualized as a living being that can be fed. The expression is more consistent with describing
47
crisis as fire – like the metaphors based on the domains of war and medicine, it is another case of
layered conceptual metaphors.
There are also evidence of conceptual metaphors that are not specific to economics, for example
GOOD IS LIGHT and BAD IS DARK:
GOOD IS LIGHT / BAD IS DARK
- ser sort på fremtiden
- skimte lys forud i finanskrisen
- den dystre melding
- »Alle, der gennem de seneste uger har sagt, at
der var lys for enden af tunnelen, må være blevet overraskede over at konstatere, at det var
et lokomotiv, der var på vej lige imod dem,«
- gloomier: 2
- darken: 2
- the economic outlook is bleak
Danish - total: 4 English - total: 5
There are only 5 English and 4 Danish expressions, which is too few to say anything about a
difference in preference.
Another conceptual metaphor that is found in these articles is ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS
GAMBLING. Again, in these articles there are not enough instances to say anything about whether it is
more common in one of the languages.
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS GAMBLING
- ejendomsspil: 2
- spillet fallit på finansmarkederne - satsning på opbygningen af en international
finanssektor
- to bet on economic growth
Danish - total: 4 English - total: 1
It is possible that some of these conceptualisations play a more important role in other areas of
economics than the crisis situation described in these articles, for example the gambling metaphor
in stock markets, or the farming metaphor in texts on the running of an individual company.
Other
- dumpe: 3 - få gang i økonomien
- At have en stat i ryggen kan give adgang til
billigere lån
- en halvkraftig afbøjning af økonomien i løbet af 2009
- finansknudepunkt
- De finansielle troldmænd tog tænkehatten på og skabte et væld af nye varer
- Japanske banker og finanshuse har i den
- cut (V): 10, cut (N): 7, slash (V): 2, be whittled back: 1 - boom (N): 8, boom (V): 1
- bail-out (N): 6, bailed out: 2
- development: 3, developed: 2 - fix their currencies: 2
- debt burden - weighed down by excessive debts
- prop up exports
- ugly
48
seneste tid forvandlet en del af deres likvider til
aktiekapital
- På denne miserable fredag blev Nomura
straffet lige så hårdt som alle andre - Europas skrøbelige situation
- sparke gang i væksten
- Dét kortsluttede den finansielle revolution - HSH Nordbank, […] har netop trukket stikket
ud for størstedelen af den pengestrøm
- to økonomiske naturkræfter: Liberalisering og
teknologisk udvikling - De nye konger
- Kronen er samspilsramt
- lange bevægelser i valutakurserne - vel vil den monetære seismograf stadig give
udslag, når den amerikanske centralbank
gungrer - den finansielle krise har været meget hård - cool
- ejendomsmarkedet skælver.
- hvem der næste gang vælter som en
dominobrik - Hvorfor endte stærke finanshuse som
paralyseret råvildt i forlygternes lyshav, mens
finanskrisen bare tordnede frem imod dem
- forcing more asset sales
- supply of credit
- nudging rates
- protect
- putting its [the government‟s] full weight behind
the banks
- painted a dire picture
- Britain‟s economy was vulnerable
- propped up the banking system.
- banks' exposure to commercial property
- “sterilise” the effect of buying foreign currency
- the anchor country - those that shadow its currency.
- to link their currencies to the dollar
- the dollar, which in turn was tied to gold.
- the onset of a severe crisis
- lack of transparency
- replenishing their battered capital bases
- the hole in bank balance sheets
- investors‟ appetite is wearing thin
- scrap the sales
- bottom fishing for CDOs
- a scramble for dollars. - as the pendulum has swung back again.
- hauls in the most dollars
- with global credit markets clammed up
- The current account balance has teetered into the
red.
- to galvanise growth
- currency swings
- into the breach
- the culprits were higher oil and food prices
- the “totally remarkable performance” of the
economy
- directly touch the French economy. - scope for counter-cyclical fiscal measures
- Central bankers helped cause today‟s mess.
Will they be able to clean it up?
- the “shadow” banking system
- dodgiest loans
- borrowing costs […] have barely budged
Danish – total: 22 English – total: 86
„Cut‟ and its more expressive versions „slash‟ and „whittle‟ are the most common of the
metaphorical expressions categorised under „other‟. If ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR was
changed to something broader involving „physical violence‟, „cut‟ might have been placed there.
The Danish equivalent „skære‟ exists, but there are no instances in these articles, where „sænke‟
(categorised under ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP/DOWN) is preferred instead. This is
the closest example of Gabrys, Solska and Deignan‟s 3. type: different conceptual metaphor and
concequently different linguistic expression; however the difference is due to a strong preference,
not that either conceptual metaphor is unknown in one language.
There are many expressions that reflect conceptual metaphors not considered in this study, for
example A PROBLEM IS A PHYSICAL BURDEN: „debt burden‟ and „weighed down by excessive
49
debts‟, and in Danish there are a couple of expressions with electricity as the source domain: ‟Dét
kortsluttede den finansielle revolution‟ and ‟HSH Nordbank, […] har netop trukket stikket ud for
størstedelen af den pengestrøm‟. Since they are so few and are not connected to the other
conceptual metaphor described, they will not be discussed further.
4.3. Similarities and differences To briefly sum up the similarities and differences in metaphor usage found in this study, we see
that the major conceptual metaphors structuring the field of economics in English and Danish are
the same.
The conceptual metaphors ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP / DOWN, MONEY IS LIQUID,
THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE, and ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS / ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS
MEDICAL TREATMENT are all very similar in Danish and English, although machine-metaphors
are more varied in Danish.
Relatively speaking, i.e. percentage-wise, ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY is equally
frequent in both languages, but that means that there are more instances in English. Danish has a
strong preference for expressions from the domain of sailing.
The following conceptual metaphors are more frequent in Danish than in English: THE ECONOMY IS A
LIVING BEING is more, mostly due to the high frequency of „vækst‟ and „vokse‟. English has a
preference for describing the state of the economy using terminology from the domain of
psychology. THE ECONOMY IS A BUILDING is more common in Danish, primarily due to a
preference for describing economic crisis as collapse. ECONOMIC CRISIS IS BAD WEATHER or
(NATURAL) DISASTER is more common, primarily due to a higher number of Danish expressions
involving water. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR or SPORT is slightly more frequent in Danish, but
more varied in English.
THE ECONOMY IS A CONTRACTING AND EXPANDING OBJECT is much more common in
English, mostly due to the high frequency of a few terms: the variations of „inflation‟ and
„deflation‟, „tight‟, and „bubble‟. There are also far more English expressions categorised under
„other‟ than Danish. The differences are primarily more instances of ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS
FIRE, and the individual metaphors „cut‟, „bail-out‟ and „boom‟.
Using Gabrys, Solska and Deignan‟s taxonomy, the vast majority of metaphor describing the field
of economy in these articles is of the first type: Same conceptual metaphor and equivalent
linguistic expression. A few are of the second type, same conceptual metaphor but different
linguistic expression, for example „fuel‟.
This study does not turn up any examples of the third type, different conceptual metaphor and
consequentially also different linguistic expression, even though there are some conceptual
metaphors that are so rare, that there is only one or no instances at all in one of languages, as seen
in ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FARMING and THE ECONOMY IS A PLANT. The study is not large
enough to say anything accurate about the frequency of these rarely used conceptual metaphors. There are
also preferences for using one conceptual metaphor, for example „growth‟ from THE ECONOMY IS A
LIVING BEING in Danish, where English may prefer expressions from THE ECONOMY IS AN
EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING OBJECT, but these are cases of preference, not complete absence of
a conceptual metaphor in one language.
50
This study has not turned up any examples of the fourth type, words and expressions with similar
literal meaning but with different metaphorical meaning.
Much of the difference in metaphor usage is more subtle, and in order to better describe this,
Boer‟s three types of variation are more useful than Gabrys, Solska and Deignan‟s taxonomy.
The first type where the source-target mapping is the same, but with markedly different degrees of
productivity or conventionality. The clearest case of this kind of difference is THE ECONOMY IS A
CONTRACTING AND EXPANDING OBJECT, which is much more productive in English than in Danish.
Zooming in on details, there is a multitude of differences: in English, „suffer‟ and „cut‟ are more
conventional, „leverage‟, ‟gearing‟ and their variations are more conventional as well more
productive, and there are eight instances of „fuel‟ in English and no metaphorical equivalent in
Danish. It is also likely that ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS FIRE is more conventional in English.
In Danish, ECONOMIC CRISIS IS COLLAPSE is more pervasive, as are maritime journey-metaphors
and metaphorical expressions describing economic crisis as disasters involving water.
Some (parts of) conceptual metaphors also displays a larger variety of expressions in one language,
indicating that the conceptual metaphor may be more productive. The metaphorical expressions
reflecting ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS CONCTRUCTION are
more varied in English than in Danish.
The second type of variation is differences in value-judgments concerning the source or target
domain or the mapping, and there does not appear to be any differences of this kind.
The third possibility is differences in the degree of pervasiveness of metaphor as such – a language
may show more or less preference for the use of metaphor compared to other figures of speech.
This study shows that metaphor is used more frequently in English than in Danish, but since the
study is limited in size, limited to a homogenous set of parallel text, and limited to metaphorical
expressions describing only economy, economic activity and economic crisis, it is possible that the
use of metaphor described here does not reflect the use of metaphor in either language.
It is beyond the scope of this study to determine the reason for these differences, but there are two
suggestions.
English and Danish are similar in many ways. They both belong to the west-Germanic language
family, and Danish is heavily influenced by British and especially American language and culture
in many areas, especially economics. Within economics, most new Danish terminology comes
from English, so Danish terminology is characterised by many direct translations and borrowed
words from English. This study also shows a high degree of similarity in the way conceptual
metaphor structure the field of economics.
There are also a few differences in metaphor usage, and some may derive from historical and
cultural differences, such as the Danish preference for maritime metaphorical expressions, but it is
difficult to see how they may explain the difference observed in THE ECONOMY IS AN
EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING OBJECT. White offers lexical priming as an explanation for
the remarkable productivity of „growth‟ as a metaphor (White 2003 p. 146). Lexical priming is the
fact that the use of one lexical item triggers the use of a related item. Once an expression is
established and becomes conventional it may function as a „gateway‟ for more expressions within
the same conceptual metaphor. This is a very likely explanation for why THE ECONOMY IS AN
51
EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING OBJECT is so productive in English and not in Danish – it is
dominated by the easily accessible metaphorical expressions „inflation‟, and a popular expression
such as „credit crunch‟ stimulates the productivity further.
52
6. Conclusion My hypothesis was that the use of conceptual metaphor in the field of economics was very similar
in English and Danish because the two languages are closely related and share the same ideas and
systems within the field of economics. The hypothesis is based on the significant similarity that
has been found in other studies comparing English to other European languages, however, there
are no existing studies comparing Danish and English.
In order to test this hypothesis, I have analysed the metaphorical expressions describing the
economy, economic activity and economic crisis found in English and Danish news articles. In
order to make a valid comparison the articles needed to be parallel texts, treating the same subject
matter, and this is assured by selecting articles from two major newspapers specialising in
reporting on finance and economics in each language. The articles all describe the 2008 credit
crisis and are all published in September and October of 2008. They were selected based on
content, with the aim of collecting similar sets of texts.
The metaphorical expressions were extracted using the pragglejaz group‟s MIP, Metaphor
Identification Procedure, in order to arrive at a reliable result without basing the identification on
intuition. The metaphorical expressions were sorted into a model of conceptual metaphors
structuring the field of economics. This model is based on conceptual metaphors that other studies
have already shown to be structuring this field, as well as the on the metaphorical expressions
found in the articles.
The analysis showed that the conceptual metaphors structuring the field of economics in Danish
and in English are very similar. Well-documented, frequently used conceptual metaphors are
almost equally common in Danish and in English: THE ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP
/ DOWN, MONEY IS LIQUID, THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE, and ECONOMIC CRISIS IS
ILLNESS / ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT are all very similar.
Overall, ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY is also equally frequent in both languages, but
looking at the individual metaphorical expressions reveals that Danish has a much stronger
preference for metaphors from the domain of sailing than English does.
Most of rest of the conceptual metaphors found in this study are used slightly more in Danish than
in English, except THE ECONOMY IS A CONTRACTING AND EXPANDING OBJECT, which is
much more common in English, primarily due to the high frequency of a very few terms: the
variations of „inflation‟ and „deflation‟, „tight‟, and „bubble‟.
Most of the differences between the uses of conceptual metaphors are more subtle. Some are richer
and turn up a larger variety of metaphorical expressions, which is the case with THE ECONOMY IS
A MACHINE in Danish, and ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS WAR or SPORT in English.
There are also definite preferences in case of some metaphorical expressions. There are many
more instances of expressions involving „growth‟ Danish than in English, the preference for
maritime metaphors is also seen in a preference for describing economic crisis in terms of disasters
English, on the other hand, shows a high frequency of metaphorical expressions drawing on the
source domain of psychology within the framework of THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING, and
perhaps a higher preference for describing economic activity in terms of heat and fire. Metaphor is
generally more frequent in the English articles than in the Danish, and this is most likely the
53
reason for the fact that there are about four times as many metaphorical expressions left in the
category „other‟.
The accuracy of this study is assured by following the MIP and by stating explicitly if a
metaphorical expression is ambiguous or when categorising of a metaphorical expression is
problematic. It is a qualitative study, and as such it cannot provide an absolute truth about the
difference between the uses of conceptual metaphor in English and in Danish, but by describing in
detail the metaphorical structure of this sub-field of economics and especially the relations
between the conceptual metaphors, this study should give insight into the way this small subfield
is conceptualised metaphorically.
The hypothesis that the conceptual metaphors used in Danish and English are very similar is
proven partly true, since the major conceptual metaphors are very alike, and since there are no
conceptual metaphors in one language that are not found in the other language. There are
differences in minor conceptual metaphors, and there are differences with regard to preference of
linguistic expressions within the shared conceptual metaphors – some more significant than
expected, like the greater pervasiveness of THE ECONOMY IS AN EXPANDING AND
CONTRACTING OBJECT in English, and some minor, like the preference for fire-metaphors in
English and for maritime metaphors in Danish.
54
7. Summary Studies comparing the way conceptual metaphors structure the field of economics in different
European languages compared to English have shown that there are only small differences
between the conceptual metaphors structuring this field. Based on the hypothesis that the
conceptual metaphors structuring the field of economic are also very similar in Danish and in
English, this study aims at describing and comparing the way conceptual metaphors structure the
field of economic in these two languages.
In order to test this hypothesis, a small corpus of news articles from two English newspapers
(Financial Times and the Economist) and two Danish newspapers (Morgenavisen Jyllandsposten
and Børsen) were selected, all published in September and October of 2008, and all treating the
same subject matter, namely the international credit crisis.
This study is founded in the theory of conceptual metaphor as formulated by Lakoff and Johnson,
and the metaphorical expressions are identified according to the MIP (Metaphor Identification
Procedure), developed by the Pragglejaz Group. The comparison is based on taxonomies by
Gabrys, Solska and Deignan, and by Boers.
The metaphorical expressions found in the news articles are sorted into a model of the based on
conceptual metaphors that other studies have already shown to be structuring this field, as well as
the on the metaphorical expressions found in the articles.
The analysis showed that the conceptual metaphors structuring the field of economics in Danish
and in English are very similar. THE ECONOMIC CHANGE IS MOVEMENT UP / DOWN, MONEY
IS LIQUID, THE ECONOMY IS A MACHINE, and ECONOMIC CRISIS IS ILLNESS / ECONOMIC
ACTIVITY IS MEDICAL TREATMENT are all very alike.
Most of the differences are very subtle, consisting of variation in preferences. There are many
more instances of expressions involving „growth‟ Danish than in English, there is a preference in
Danish for maritime metaphors, which is also seen both in ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS A JOURNEY
and in a preference for describing economic crisis in terms of disasters involving water. In English
there is a preference for drawing on the source domain of psychology within the framework of
THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING BEING and perhaps for describing economic activity in terms of heat
and fire.
Overall, metaphor is slightly more frequent in English than Danish, and many conceptual
metaphors show a larger variety of expressions in English, and this higher frequency is most likely
also the reason there are about four times as many metaphorical expressions left in the category
„other‟. The conceptual metaphor THE ECONOMY IS A CONTRACTING AND EXPANDING
OBJECT is much more common in English, primarily due to the high frequency of a very few
terms: the variations of „inflation‟ and „deflation‟, „tight‟, and „bubble‟,
This is a qualitative study, and cannot provide an absolute truth about the difference between the
uses of conceptual metaphor in English and in Danish, but by describing in detail the metaphorical
structure of this sub-field of economics and especially the relations between the conceptual
metaphors, this study should give insight into the way this small subfield is conceptualised
metaphorically.
55
The hypothesis that the conceptual metaphors used in Danish and English are very similar is
proven partly true. The major conceptual metaphors are very alike, and the conceptual metaphors
found are all present in both languages. There are differences in minor conceptual metaphors, and
there are differences with regard to preference of linguistic expressions within the shared
conceptual metaphors. The most significant differences are the greater pervasiveness of THE
ECONOMY IS AN EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING OBJECT in English, which was not
expected, and the tendency in Danish to prefer maritime metaphors.
(3246 characters)
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