Political metaphor analysis. Discourse and scenarios

2. The belly and the body politic
We use of metaphor in political discourse may provide a test-case here, for it pro-vides us with data that are sufficiently prominent to be well documented over longer periods of time and that are and were meant to make a strong emotional appeal to their audiences. One such metaphor that is employed frequently in public discourse today and seems to have been so for many centuries is the interpretation of the state in terms of the human body (see also Skinner and Squillacote this volume), which in British and American English is even manifested in a special lexicalized form, body politic.
Body politic, in Western political thought, an ancient metaphor by which a state, society, or church and its institutions are conceived of as a biological (usually human) body. As it is usually applied, the metaphor implies hierarchical leadership and a division of labor, and it carries a strong autocratic or monarchial connotation.
In the following parts this issue is explored in detail.

2.1 The body politic tradition

The author starts by telling the audience that historical overviews of the conceptualization of the nation (state) as a body locate the origins of this tradition in Western thought in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy. They highlight two main scenarios that have informed debates about the nation state since then: (1) its functional-anatomical hierarchy as a political body from the top, the head, down to the feet (which is easily recognizable in the First Citizen’s protest in Coriolanus) and (2) its state of health. These ‘foundation scenarios’ were developed further in the course of Western political philosophy, by Greek, Hellenistic and Roman historians as well as Stoic, Neo-Platonist philosophers and merged with Christian theological traditions.
In this part of the text, the author discusses the origins of political metaphor and provides many interesting examples of its use at the state level.
‘Blueprint’ for metaphor scenarios can be gauged from the treatise Policraticus (c. 1159), written by the cleric John of Salisbury (c. 1115–1180). In the treatise, John, who survived his friend’s ‘murder in the cathedral’ and later became Bishop of Chartres, analyzed the Christian medieval polity systematically through the analogy with the human body, combining as he did a hierarchical perspective from the head down to the feet with a strong emphasis on the church’s role as the soul that rules the whole organism including the head (the prince), and on the mutual duty of care among all body parts.
The feet, which owe the rest of the body obedience, have a right to be cared for by the other body members: ‘Remove from the fittest body the aid of the feet; it does not proceed under its own power, but either crawls shamefully, uselessly and offensively on its hands or else is moved with the assistance of brute animals’. The (head’s) duty of care for all body members is matched by the duty to remedy any ‘illness and blemishes’, even by way of amputation of any afflicted members; John extends even further: ‘Indeed, neither the ears nor the tongue nor whatever else subsists within the body of the republic is safe if it revolts against the soul for whose sake the eyes themselves are gouged out’. This ‘radical cure’ approach to the ‘outcome’ of the illness therapy scenario, which John borrows from the Bible, is representative of his overall discussion of diseases in the body politic.
John utters dire warnings as regards infections or injuries in various body parts, for example, heart, hands, feet, a disease of or injury to the head is the most serious. John asserts that ‘a blow to the head … is carried back to all the members and a wound unjustly afflicted upon any member whomsoever tends to the injury of the head’ and quotes Plato as having warned of an oppressive magistrate being equal to a ‘swollen head’ that makes it ‘impossible for the members of the body to endure it either at all or without difficulty’ and even leads ...
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2.2 Body politic, corps politique, politischer Körper: Traces of national discourse traditions in metaphor usage

At the beginning of the story the author gives examples of body-based metaphors in present-day British political discourse:

• Britain has still not joined Europe. The transplant of a European organ into the British body politic still requires constant reinforcement by immunosuppressant drugs. (Financial Times, 17 January 2013)
• The Prime Minister knows that the free-market system is hard-wired into our national DNA. (The Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2012)
• The German question never dies. Instead, like a flu virus, it mutates. On the eve of unification some European leaders worried that it would resume killer form. (The Economist, 21 October 2010).

These examples have many names for body parts identified with the state. Apart from the body concept and the notion of the life cycle, concepts include of parts of the anatomy and their functions (twenty distinct sub-concepts), illness/disease/ injury concepts (thirty-three sub-concepts), therapy (eleven sub-concepts) and body aesthetic (four sub-concepts).
Аll sub-concepts in BODYPOL, apart from the body aesthetic category, can be related to the two main themes for scenario building in this domain which John and Shakespeare already covered, that is, relationship of different body members and organs and bad state of health/cure/therapy. Although it is mentioned a few times, the body politic in good health seems to be at no time a popular scenario; instead, it seems far more interesting for both historical writers and present-day journalists to comment on its pathological conditions and the chances of recovery and therapy.
The physical body (or body appearance) of a political leader is the ostensive target referent of the phrase body politic, but the use of that very phrase points to an implicit target, namely the politician’s standing, power and status. There are a number of further ironical uses which, while not containing explicit wordplay on the double entendre of the term body, highlight grotesque aspects of ‘corporeality’ that are ascribed to an individual politician’s standing vis-à-vis the whole body politic, such as those of pustule, pimple, wart, or (ingrowing) toenail. Their frequency in the English sample of BODYPOL is about 10–15 per cent, whereas in the French and German samples its occurrence percentage is between 2 and 5 per cent. It thus seems to occur in British public debates on a regular basis, mostly in polemical discourse, designed to ridicule the target

INTRODUCTION
In modern English comparison involves an explicit and implicit form of comparison. Comparative constructions are used to express explicit orderings between two objects with respect to the degree or amount to which they possess some gradable property. A metaphor is an implicit comparison.
Metaphor is very common in English and other languages. People often think of it as being a typical feature of poetry and literature. But, in fact, many familiar words and phrases have metaphorical meanings, although we do not usually realize this when we use them. Metaphor is a relation between an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things or objects. It compares two different things based on a single or some common characteristics. Metaphors are used in common language and in types of literature, but more often in poetry and songs to draw poetic or comparative links between things. Every metaphorical word or phrase contains a 'key idea'. This is the connection or similarity between the literal meaning and the metaphorical meaning. he key idea in this case is that trying to recover from an illness is like fighting a war, and many of the words and phrases that we use for talking about illness express this idea. Once we understand this key metaphorical idea, it is easier to understand words and phrases used for talking about illness. This is why metaphor is so important.
Metaphors in political discourse have recently attracted the attention. Being an important and widely used expressive means, metaphor has a great impact on the course of political communication. Scholars refer to it as "the most relevant of the figures of speech used in political discourse" and point to its connection with other figures of speech, such as irony and sarcasm.
Metaphor is aimed at strengthening the speaker's arguments and enhancing the interest of the audience. According to the researchers, metaphor is a kind of mirror where national consciousness on a particular stage of development is reflected, regardless of anybody's preferences. Consequently, political metaphor is a whole set of mirrors reflecting different aspects of social life. Metaphors make it possible to depict a complicated problem as a less difficult one, single out some of its aspects, accentuating it or, on the contrary, distracting public.............

Реферат полностью написан на английском языке. Имеется аннотация. В конце реферата имеется словарь слов с переводом на русский.