Language & Media
Zeynab Bavandpour; Parsa Bamshadi
Abstract
The present study explores the metaphorical source domains in football media discourse. To this end, the news headlines for eight Iranian sport newspapers including Hadaf, Khabar Varzeshi, Iran Varzeshi, Abrar Varzeshi, Gol, Pirouzi, Shoot and Esteghlal were selected in a three-month period from September ...
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The present study explores the metaphorical source domains in football media discourse. To this end, the news headlines for eight Iranian sport newspapers including Hadaf, Khabar Varzeshi, Iran Varzeshi, Abrar Varzeshi, Gol, Pirouzi, Shoot and Esteghlal were selected in a three-month period from September 2009 to the end of November 2010. The data were analyzed by conceptual metaphor framework (Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999), and examined based on Kövecses’s view on metaphorical origin (Kuchsh, 2010). The results show that the most important sources of metaphorical domains are war, path, metaphysics, natural phenomena, animals, machines, games and sports, buildings, health and disease, art, light and darkness, school, power and politics, cooking and food, sea and marine activities, and plants. In general, metaphors in football news headlines have three major functions: a) getting the attention of the audience and encouraging them to read and follow it; b) facilitating the expression of complex and abstract concepts of football in an artistic and engaging manner by the media; c) helping the audience understand these concepts. These functions ultimately facilitate and reinforce the relationship between the media and the audience, and confirm Kövecses’s (2014) view that in addition to its cognitive function, metaphor has an important communicative role in discourse.
