The gulf of mexico oil spill a corpus based study of metaphors in british and american media discourse 7

The proposed Integrated-approach to the Identification of Conceptual Metaphors IICM in this thesis aims to “triangulate” the entire process of metaphor research by going beyond the pure

CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

7.1 Introduction: Triangulation (The key advantage of corpus

informed research)

Baker (2009) attributes considerable significance to the field of corpus linguistics because it successfully captures the “incremental effect of discourse” (p.13) This simply refers to the way underlying evaluations are effectively uncovered through an in-depth analysis of how language is widely employed across specific societal discourses The proposed Integrated-approach to the Identification of Conceptual Metaphors (IICM) in this thesis aims to “triangulate” the entire process of metaphor research by going beyond the pure use of intuition as a springboard for subsequent metaphor analysis in

a large collection of representative texts The overarching aim of this thesis is

to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed IICM framework by examining a cross-section of the repeated patterns of metaphor use across all four British and American broadsheets in order to uncover the dominant metaphorical evaluations embodied by the respective broadsheet corpora This is done in order to demonstrate a small snapshot of the range of discourse positions available to the broadsheet reader, contributing to the ongoing discussion in the way discourse prosody potentially influences and shapes shared cultural viewpoints

“Triangulation”, in the context of this thesis, refers to the use of the integrated approach advocated by the IICM, which essentially uses multiple frameworks and methods of analysis to validate the resultant findings This

“integrated approach” embodies the combination and adaptation of various frameworks into an effective, unified system for metaphorical analysis The strength of such an approach lies in three significant and inter-connected areas:

• Firstly, the empirical and inductive nature of this proposed conceptual metaphor formulating process aims to provide an alternative framework for the triangulation of metaphorical findings via the current practice of intensive manual analysis of representative data Thus, it aims to provide an inductive framework that potentially complements existing deductive methodologies

• Secondly, this proposed method carries the potential for an exhaustive analysis of metaphors in a large collection of representative texts if deemed necessary by the researcher due to the exhaustive lists of lexical items and USAS domains generated by both concordancing programmes Thus, the IICM plays the role of a comprehensive integrated framework for large-scale metaphorical analysis

• Finally, the use of two leading online concordancing platforms (WMatrix and Sketch Engine) anchors the range of findings in potentially empirically robust interpretations and evaluations This facilitates validity checks due to the detailed and repeatable procedures embodied in the IICM

At this juncture, it is important to acknowledge that informed researcher intuition is an integral part of all discourse-analytical corpus

research This is due to the fact that while the USAS semantic domains and

“word sketches” provide a springboard for the analysis, it is ultimately the researcher who determines the metaphoricity of the lexical units and formulates the relevant conceptual mappings Hence, researcher bias cannot and should not be totally eliminated, as it is virtually impossible to deny one’s sociocultural and intuitive responses to language However, the main aim of this thesis is the formulation of a repeatable method that strikes an adequate balance between semi-automated and manual analysis Hence, it is hoped that the systematicity of the metaphor mining process proposed by the IICM would ensure repeatability and result in a more comprehensive analysis of the manifestations of metaphoricity

7.2 Findings and contributions

It is important to note that while the range of metaphors mined from these 250 articles per broadsheet might not be wholly encompassing, I believe that this preliminary methodological demonstration done via the IICM-framework showcases its potential to surface the predominant evaluative trends pertaining to the issue under study The utility of the IICM framework

is demonstrated in the way subtle differences in the conceptual metaphors used within both national cultures are surfaced in the public debates This is in spite of the fact that these metaphors are largely similar in range due to the close intertwining of the historical and political cultures between Britain and America In the case of the BP oil spill, the metaphorical framing of this conflict between two traditionally strong allies has shown the potential for a

nationalistic and ideological bias For example, the findings in the British broadsheets show the tendency of the relevant editors to adopt mitigating strategies in order to downplay the agency of the cause of the entire catastrophe (mainly attributed to BP, a company with distinctively British origins) These mitigating strategies include the strategy of passivising sentences in order to delete agency, the use of parallels in order to deflect attention (by alluding to the recent disasters in the US that highlight US Government incompetence) as well as the use of disaster and financial metaphors to describe abstract processes in terms of disaster and physical damage in order to further conceal the actions of those who have caused the disaster (see detailed discussion in Chapter 5) This is in contrast to the American broadsheets where the framing of the conflict generally focuses more on the pragmatic aspect of economic restitution by the guilty parties, emphasizing on the scale of the economic and ecological damage in an attempt

to galvanise the citizenry against a common enemy There is another strong unifying narrative strand that foregrounds a nationalistic stance, with the primary focus placed on the investigative aspect of the entire tragedy with the aim of castigating the CRIMINALS in the pursuit of justice as well as the parallel search for a deterrent measure to prevent the recurrence of a catastrophe on such a scale This is done by voicing national outrage in culturally specific terms and analogies through the use of the 9/11 terror attacks or Hurricane Katrina as a parallel to the catastrophe A detailed exposition of these metaphorical evaluations can be seen in Chapter 6

However, the dimension of intra-cultural bias is also evident in the way the liberal broadsheets in both the Britain and America (the NYT-corpus and

the G-corpus) frame the conflict in predominantly antagonistic and nationalistic terms These liberal broadsheets tend to focus on the scale of the disaster and emphasise the range of negative emotions arising from the BP Oil Spill, favouring a narrative centering on the pursuit of justice and the relentless castigation of culpable parties This can be seen in the higher percentage of negative evaluations for the key players in the oil spill in the NYT and G-corpus This is in contrast to the conservative broadsheets (the WP-corpus and the TT-corpus) that tend to frame the conflict in pragmatic economic terms, focusing on the all-encompassing concern of economic and financial survival of the respective economies This is

the predominance of the WAR/CRIME/THREAT conceptual key in the WP-corpus (53.6%) and TT-WP-corpus (68.1%), conceptualizing BUSINESS as a WAR/ GAME OF SURVIVAL in an effort to justify BP’s continued economic survival Thus, it would appear that the conservative broadsheets adopt a less explicit, and a more subtle and mitigated approach to the metaphorical evaluation of the key actors in the oil spill – in an effort to foreground the more pragmatic, pro-business editorial ideology (language of ECONOMIC PRAGMATISM/ ACCIDENT SCENARIO) This is in diametric opposition to the liberal broadsheets which are more focused on the more explicit and intense metaphorical framings of the scale of the disaster and on the ideological adherence to notions of justice and ecological sustainability (MORAL-ACCOUNTING METAPHOR/ CRIME AND PUNISHMENT SCENARIO) These findings clearly demonstrate that metaphor choice is motivated by both ideological outlook and the rhetorical aim of persuasion

7.3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research

7.3.1 The need for a multimodal perspective

There is an emerging need for discourse analysis to include the examination of the accompanying photos and positional strategies that appear

in tandem with the corresponding printed pages or the webpages of the online broadsheets The specific images that should be analysed include those accompanying the headlines taken from the relevant image banks Two examples are embodied by Figures 7.1-7.2

Fig 7.1

Image capturing the scale of the environmental catastrophe

Fig 7.2

Image depicting the scenes of the initial blowout on the Deepwater Horizon Rig

These images have a high meaning potential as they can be used not only to document particular moments in time and place but also to symbolise the generic This increased use of images to represent disasters is part of a broader change in the use of photography in the mass media Rather than merely documenting events, the photograph is increasingly central as part of layout and used symbolically Furthermore, in many cases these online newspaper sites used their websites' interactive features to illuminate aspects

of the story that would have been harder to digest in print or broadcast formats

This salience of this point is further illustrated in the way some of these online newspapers have done better than many traditional media outlets

in making effective use of these interactive features on their websites to track key aspects of the BP disaster For example, some widgets enable the direct monitoring of the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf through a visual video

feed, whilst the NYT website offered a video animation that helped explain

how a last ditch effort to prevent the spill failed

7.3.2 The cross-classification of metaphors

Grady, Taub & Morgan’s (1996) delineation of all metaphors into primitives (“simpler sub-mappings”) and compounds (“metaphors that are compositional in nature”) attempts to address two core issues plaguing the metaphorical analysis in large representative texts (p.179-181):

1 The inefficiency of analysis i.e the issue of organising the sprawling metaphorical complexes that arise in order to account for all the relevant correspondences from linguistic evidence An ambitious preliminary attempt to account for the range of resultant conceptual metaphors from large representative corpora using Grady, Taub & Morgan’s concept can be seen in Figures 6.9-6.12

in Chapter 6

2 The issue of accounting for duality (i.e the cross-classification of metaphors) A simple hypothetical example is embodied in Figure 7.3 below The cross-classification or metaphorical “duality” is accounted for in Figure 7.3 where the structural metaphors of

reconciled by depicting the Gulf Economy being a victim of poor business strategy and bad politics These metaphors are classified under the overarching WAR/CRIME scenario with the conceptual key OIL IS A THREAT)

Hence, Grady, Taub & Morgan’s framework claims to result in the efficiency of analysis by adequately accounting for the problematic issue of metaphorical cross-classification This is achieved by accounting for the conceptual gaps arising from the independent motivations of each metaphorical primitive through the simple use of the overlaps to represent the resultant metaphorical compounds

However, the element of subjectivity in all experience of metaphor is inevitable as there are too many eclectic, overlapping factors that affect the individual analyst or text consumer’s emotional response to language Hence, even though the analytical method proposed in the IICM is clear and the reader is free to challenge metaphor classifications, the subjectivity inherent in the scenarios result in interpretative ambiguity on the part of both the text-producer and text consumer in the attempt to establish a common scenario This can be clearly seen in the presuppositions inherent in the WAR scenario that enables it to be used as an embodiment of two opposing target domains – POLITICS and BUSINESS This clearly shows how the text-producer’s intentions behind the use of a metaphor are largely dependent on the text-consumer’s socio-political outlook and experiences Thus, a framework that automatically includes the cognitive-semantic elements (social and metaphorical contexts) should be included in subsequent permutations of the IICM Since metaphor draws on the unconscious emotional associations of words, which are often rooted in contextual and cultural understandings, the eventual development of

a holistic approach to conceptual metaphor formulation that incorporates cultural and contextual knowledge will serve to further refine the current IICM framework

7.3.3 The evolution of metaphor (A longitudinal perspective)

Another possible area of future research would lie in the tracking and analysis of the diachronic development of metaphorical concepts This is especially so as both politicians and the media are mainly focused on the

“fastest and widest possible dissemination and acceptance of their representations”, accounting for the “density of micro-changes in usage patterns that we observed in variations and reinterpretations of certain prominent metaphor formulations” (Musolff, 2004, p.121) The potential implications of these findings can be significant in accounting for the eventual survival or demise of the relevant actors in the BP Oil Spill e.g the current British and American metaphorical representations of BP is of significance in accounting for BP’s prospects and long-term survival in the US and beyond (as lawsuits are being formally filed from 2013) However, in order to substantiate and formulate these metaphors to track the evolution of public discourse, separate corpora from across all four broadsheets have to be collected These corpora also have to be collected from different and clearly delineated timeframes in order to track the “evolutionary transformation” between the successive and predominant metaphorical representations of the key entities under study

Hence, a longitudinal approach to the study of the metaphors from the same issue across a range of different domains (scientific journals, literary references, organization and management manuals and brochures, law texts, political speeches and religious references) would effectively showcase how a set of particularly interesting set of metaphors is “formulated, developed,