TY - JOUR
T1 - Leonzini, L. (2017). Corpus-based research into multimodal disocurse: cross-national analysis of economics metaphors in the British and the Italian press. In ESP Across cultures, vol. 13, Edipuglia: Bari (open access). ISBN 978-88-7228-836-8
AU - Leonzini, Luisella
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Abstract
This paper investigates the use of verbal and visual metaphors in economic-media discourse
within the context of the euro crisis. The correlation between linguistic and pictorial metaphors
is studied and text-image intersemiotic relations are analysed. The research is based on a
cross-analysis of two corpora, respectively of English and Italian editorial articles published
between 2009 and 2012. In both corpora, metaphorical realizations frame the economic crisis
which hit the single currency and the euro zone in 2009 as a partial collapse and hint at a
possible return to stability in the form of a recovery. The aim of this paper is thus to analyse
the collapse/caduta and recovery/ripresa metaphors across languages in the press. The findings
reveal similarities in linguistic vehicle terms and groups identified in both corpora, even
though the quantitative congruence of metaphor occurrences highlights a marked difference
between the English and the Italian articles: data analysis indicates a higher frequency of
both the Collapse 1 and Recovery vehicle groups in the English corpus. Moreover, the frequency
patterns of image-text relations ascertained for the English corpus do not yield similar results
for the Italian corpus. Metaphorical interrelations in the verbal and visual modes are pivotal
in the English data, but they are only marginally realized in the Italian editorials. These
results indicate that metaphorical illustrations in the English editorials accompany either the
elaboration or the anchoring of the verbal metaphors, while the Italian press relies principally
on a linguistic (metaphorical) message to convey meaning. The visuals of the Italian corpus are
predominantly non-metaphorical images (i.e. graphs, tables), which either add or show data
from the text. To conclude, in terms of image-text relations, in the British editorials integration
between the visual and verbal metaphors is always achieved; conversely, in the Italian corpus
images are essentially realized as independent forms, thus reducing the degree of image-text
dominance in economic-media discourse.
AB - Abstract
This paper investigates the use of verbal and visual metaphors in economic-media discourse
within the context of the euro crisis. The correlation between linguistic and pictorial metaphors
is studied and text-image intersemiotic relations are analysed. The research is based on a
cross-analysis of two corpora, respectively of English and Italian editorial articles published
between 2009 and 2012. In both corpora, metaphorical realizations frame the economic crisis
which hit the single currency and the euro zone in 2009 as a partial collapse and hint at a
possible return to stability in the form of a recovery. The aim of this paper is thus to analyse
the collapse/caduta and recovery/ripresa metaphors across languages in the press. The findings
reveal similarities in linguistic vehicle terms and groups identified in both corpora, even
though the quantitative congruence of metaphor occurrences highlights a marked difference
between the English and the Italian articles: data analysis indicates a higher frequency of
both the Collapse 1 and Recovery vehicle groups in the English corpus. Moreover, the frequency
patterns of image-text relations ascertained for the English corpus do not yield similar results
for the Italian corpus. Metaphorical interrelations in the verbal and visual modes are pivotal
in the English data, but they are only marginally realized in the Italian editorials. These
results indicate that metaphorical illustrations in the English editorials accompany either the
elaboration or the anchoring of the verbal metaphors, while the Italian press relies principally
on a linguistic (metaphorical) message to convey meaning. The visuals of the Italian corpus are
predominantly non-metaphorical images (i.e. graphs, tables), which either add or show data
from the text. To conclude, in terms of image-text relations, in the British editorials integration
between the visual and verbal metaphors is always achieved; conversely, in the Italian corpus
images are essentially realized as independent forms, thus reducing the degree of image-text
dominance in economic-media discourse.
KW - metaphors
KW - metaphors
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/123074
U2 - http://dx.doi.org/10.4475/836
DO - http://dx.doi.org/10.4475/836
M3 - Article
SN - 1972-8247
VL - 2017
SP - 1
EP - 146
JO - ESP Across Cultures
JF - ESP Across Cultures
ER -