Nasti, Chiara (2010) Images of the Lisbon Treaty Debate in the British Press. A Corpus-based Approach to Metaphor Analysis. [Tesi di dottorato] (Unpublished)

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Metaphors play an important role in understanding social and political realities and in particular they are very useful to their user to present complex and abstract situations in terms of more simple and familiar ones. According to Lakoff and Johnson (2003) metaphors are not merely linguistic structures but they shape our thinking and define our social and political reality. Many scholars (Musolff et all. 2001, Musolff 1996, Schäffner 1996) have also shown how metaphors are fundamental in interpreting and understanding the complex dynamics of the political debate about Europe. By presenting European issues in the form of well-known and recognisable schemas and scenarios metaphors make them accessible to the general reader. However, in order to understand complexity of metaphors, it is necessary to analyse them in the context where they occur. Against this background, this paper aims to investigate the representation and description of the European Union integration process related to the Lisbon Treaty debate in a selection of British tabloids and broadsheets. In particular, this research project aims to explore the most recurring conceptual metaphors –MOVEMENT and CONFLICT– in order to show how these metaphors not only describe the scenario created by the Irish rejection of the treaty but also give information about Britain’s perception of the EU and its future.

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