Discursive Metaphorical Frames: “The Violence Over Language” Frame in Serbian and British Newspaper Discourse

This paper proposes an approach to analyzing systematic metaphorical representations in discourse, introducing the notion of discursive metaphorical frames to capture the different levels of conceptualization and generality that contribute to the social meaning of metaphor. The approach is illustrated through an analysis of metaphorical representations of the position of Serbian/ English language in Serbian and British newspapers, in light of the growing interest in language observable in European public discourses more recently. One conceptualization, based on the metaphor domain of VIOLENCE , is found to stand out in both Serbian and English articles, but analysis of the VIOLENCE OVER LANGUAGE frame shows that it is nevertheless radically different in the two language contexts, reflecting the different ideologies that may shape contemporary media metadiscourses. The value of the proposed approach in revealing the full cross-discursive metaphorical frame and its more subtle social meanings is discussed. abstract abstract phenomenon have long been studied in the philosophy of language and in linguistic theory. The most important early paper in this field of research is Reddy’s (1979) study, which argues that the major way in which we conceptualize language and communication is based on the conduit metaphor, i.e. by understanding language as a conduit that carries reified thoughts and feelings (e.g. get your thoughts across). Reddy focused on English language examples, but very similar conceptualizations have been found to operate in Serbian as well (Živanović 2014, Klikovac 2006). Later studies further revealed the complexity of these representations, highlighting some other prominent perspectives. Jean Aitchison (2003) shows that expert discourses on language historically involved several different metaphors, all of which corresponded to the current social theories and world views (including metaphors of CONDUIT , TREE , FAMILY , PLANT and BUILDING ). When it comes to folk linguistic discourses, existing findings further point to the prominence of reification metaphors (Seargeant 2009, Blommaert 2008) as well as personification metaphors (Strenge 2012, Ðurović 2009, Bogetić 2015). Another line of research, more akin to the present analysis, has examined the specific representations of language in particular social discourses. Argent (2014) thus stresses that the choice of metaphors in talk about language can reveal what characteristics are ascribed to language and how it is viewed in relation to speakers and society. In her analysis of Russian newspaper metalanguage, she shows that Russian is predominantly conceptualized as ill and infected by Anglo-American influences, and she argues that language matters are instrumentalized in Russian newspapers primarily for the purpose of strengthening the national consciousness. A large body of work has similarly focused on language representations in mass media. In the anglophone world, analyses reveal a major concern about language in digital media as threatening the notions of good communication (Thurlow 2007, Herring 2011). Also, various aspects of political