Rethorical goals of the ilness metaphor: Portuguese political news headlines

Abstract

The use of metaphor in political discourse and other communicative contexts has become so pervasive that it often goes unnoticed. Beyond its aesthetic function, metaphor serves as a powerful rhetorical tool, shaping perceptions and constructing new realities. This study examines the conceptual metaphor of illness in Portuguese political discourse, analyzing its rhetorical functions and implications. Employing a top-down methodological approach, the research begins with the conceptual metaphor of illness and identifies key metaphorical vehicles (e.g., “cancer” or “diagnosis”) that give rise to various linguistic expressions. The ongoing study has thus far compiled a corpus of 50 news articles on Portuguese politics, providing a foundation for further analysis of metaphorical framing in political communication. The data shows the prevalence of vehicles such as “contaminado”, “doente”, “diagnóstico” or “sintoma” for the argumentative construction of criticism. However, there are also some cases in which the metaphor serves to give credibility or legitimacy to the speaker, creating an image of a hero or savior (cf. “médico”).
Keywords: Conceptual metaphor. Linguistic metaphor. Political discourse. Rhetorical functions.