Conceptual metaphors in war discourse
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Date
2025
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Publisher
UMT.Lahore
Abstract
This study aims to investigate the usage of conceptual metaphors in war discourse related to Palestine-Israel conflict. The study seeks the answers concerning the following research questions; 1. What are the prominent conceptual metaphors employed in the news articles related to Palestine-Israel conflict? 2. How do those conceptual metaphors contribute to framing techniques applied in the news discourse related to Israel-Palestine conflict? And lastly, 3. How do the conceptual metaphors differ in their framing techniques across various Eastern and Western news articles? This study utilized Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as well as Framing Theory by Entman (1993) as theoretical frameworks. This is a mixed-method study, descriptive in nature. 70 authentic web news articles related to Israel-Palestine conflict from both Western and Eastern media outlets were chosen through purposive sampling technique. The exploration and enlisting of conceptual metaphors and the categorization of framing techniques were qualititive in nature, hence done manually. For the comparison and contrast among Western and Eastern Media portrayals, which employed a quantitative approach, a chi-square test of independence was applied which established a statistically significant relation, resulting in the rejection of null hypothesis. Furthermore, post-hoc residual analysis with Bonferroni correction indicated that Western outlets incorporated significantly more simplification framing type, meanwhile Eastern sources relied significantly more on employing emotional/empathy framing type. The outcomes reveal the subtle yet significant impact of conceptual metaphor incorporation and framing strategies to influence the audience’s comprehension, elicit particular responses and shape their perceptions about such a sensitive and global conflict.
Keywords: Israel-Palestine conflict, conceptual metaphors, news framing, media representations, war discourse