UNSPECIFIED (1994) THE WOUND WE HAVE TO CLOSE... - METAPHORS IN RACIST DISCOURSE. In: Colloquium on Identities and Otherness, RABAT, MOROCCO, NOV, 1991. Published in: JOURNAL OF PRAGMATICS, 21 (6). pp. 583-619.

Abstract

This article applies a methodology derived from cognitive semantics, in particular from the theorY of metaphor, in order to analyse (1) the lexical structures of racist discourse, and (2) their realization in a sample of French texts representing the spectrum of political parties in the 1980s. The principal structures rest on the cognitive schema of closed space (container) and on the cognitive schema of physical movement ('path'). From these two schemas emerge, on the one hand, notions of externality, otherness, difference, etc., and on the other hand notions of exclusion, penetration, assimilation, etc. - notions often linked to a certain conception of the human body. The putting into discourse of these lexical networks contributes to the internal coherence of texts dealing with migration, as well as to the intertextual coherence observable across the domain of public expression. The difference between the political parties in relation to the question of migration seems to lie less in the store of basic concepts than in the degree of explicitness that their texts display. On the basis of the linguistic and textual analyses the article offers, by way of conclusion, five hypotheses on the nature of racist discourse in general and on its relationship to the political evolution of Europe.

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

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