The Rhetoric of Violence in Polish and English Soccer Reporting

Abstract

This paper explores the use of conflict-related metaphors in soccer language in a contrastive perspective within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The analysis, which involves both a quantitative and qualitative approach, aims to demonstrate that FOOTBALL is conceptualized not only in terms of WAR but also of other source domains. Thus in addition to the SOCCER MATCH IS WAR metaphor, the author proposes and discusses three other conceptual metaphors: DEFEAT IS DEATH, A SOCCER MATCH IS A BOXING BOUT and ATTEMPTING TO SCORE IS HUNTING, all of which, to a large extent, frame the soccer reporting discourse.