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RE-USING NEWSPAPER METAPHORS

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Metaphor and Symbol, 28: 60–73, 2013 ISSN: 1092-6488 print / 1532-7868 online DOI: 10.1080/10926488.2013.744572

Newspaper metaphors: Re-using metaphors across genres M. Dolores Porto & Manuela Romano [email protected] - [email protected] Universidad de Alcalá

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Abstract This article shows how the specific discourse situation and socio-cultural context influence the development and degree of entrenchment of metaphor in language. Two metaphors are analyzed and contrasted in two different communities and times: SIGNS OF A POSITIVE CHANGE ARE GREEN SHOOTS in Spanish newspapers throughout 2009, and OBSTACLES FOR SUCCESS ARE AN ASH CLOUD in the British press in 2010. Because these metaphors emerged in different socio-cultural, political and geographical contexts, in different languages, and in different discursive communities, each underwent a distinct development, degree of expansion and divergent pragmatic and semantic changes. Both metaphors are paradigmatic examples of genre re-contextualization (Linell & Sarangi, 1998; Linell, 2009; and Semino, 2011) and of semantic change in progress.

Metaphor has been widely studied as a tool for conceptualization, that is, for explaining the world around us.i After centuries of studies on the creative, literary use of metaphor for rhetorical purposes, by the end of the 20th century, great emphasis was placed upon the fact that most of the metaphors we use are unconsciously learned and mechanically employed (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), and only very recently the concepts of creativity and deliberateness have come back into play. Moreover, in the last decade, more attention has been addressed to the effects of metaphors in discourse and the influence of context in their meanings and functions (Littlemore, 2003; Kövecses, 2009, 2010; Musolff & Zinken, 2009; Semino, 2008; Steen, 2008, 2010).ii

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In line with this last trend, this paper shows how context influences the creation and development of metaphors by focusing on two novel metaphors: SIGNS OF A POSITIVE CHANGE ARE GREEN SHOOTS

and

OBSTACLES FOR SUCCESS ARE AN ASH CLOUD.

These metaphors

emerged in two separate socio-cultural, political and geographical contexts, in two different languages, and in two independent discursive communities. Consequently, each metaphor underwent a distinct development, degree of expansion and divergent pragmatic and semantic changes. The contrastive analysis will show how their specific context induced significant changes not only in the meanings, but also in the pragmatic functions of the metaphorical expressions and their degree of entrenchment in each language. The GREEN SHOOTS metaphor became very popular in Spain in 2009. By this year, the world financial crisis, starting in the USA in December 2007, had affected most countries in Europe, and economists and governments searched for any small signs of economic recovery, which were sometimes referred to as green shoots. In Spain the metaphorical expression brotes verdes became widespread when politicians started to use it as a strategy, even a dialectal weapon, in their political debate. The economic crisis had become a confronting issue between the government and the main political party in the opposition, as the government had denied the existence of the crisis throughout 2008 and, apparently, had not adopted the necessary measures to cope with it. As a result, the metaphor extended beyond the expert fields of economy and politics to other non-specialist domains, as discussed later. As for the

ASH CLOUD

metaphor, it spread in British newspapers mostly in 2010. In

this year, between April and October, a series of volcanic eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland took place, causing enormous disruption to air travel in Europe and across the world. While some ash fell on uninhabited areas in Iceland, an enormous ash cloud emerged and was carried south-eastwards by westerly winds, resulting in the shutdown of a large air space in Northern and Western Europe over an initial period of six days in April and a second closure

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in May. These two closures caused the cancellation of thousands of flights, both to and from Europe, that affected hundreds of thousands of people. Many political, economic, sporting and cultural events were delayed or even cancelled. As a result, the term Eyjafjalla and the expression ash cloud appeared for the first time on the front pages of newspapers and TV news of many European countries and, therefore, in the consciousness of people. Because of its physical-geographical context, being an island and so close to Iceland, the United Kingdom was especially affected by this ash cloud and the consequent closure of air space. In the UK, the air traffic was closed from the 15th to the 21st of April 2010 and, a month later, when the problem was thought to be over and winds had changed direction, there was a second closure on May 16th. In this context, the expression ash cloud was largely used as a metaphor for other obstacles and difficulties in such different fields as politics, sports, economy or culture. Thus, both metaphorical expressions, ash cloud and brotes verdes (green shoots), were creatively used in contexts and fields different from those in which they originated, and within these new contexts they underwent further changes, mostly semantic but also grammatical and pragmatic. Both metaphors became very popular in the periods included for this study, as evidenced by their frequent use in newspapers; but their development and rate of diffusion differ drastically. The ASH CLOUD metaphor had a very quick and abrupt growth and decline in a very short lifespaniii, whereas the

GREEN SHOOTS

metaphor shows a more

continuous and gradual model of development. In the following sections, we firstly outline the theoretical concepts that have been especially useful for the analysis. Next, we explain the data and methodology. Then, examples of the use of each metaphor are given in order to evidence the role that the specific socio-cultural contexts and communicative situations, i.e. newspapers, had in their creation and evolution. The semantic changes and extensions, as well as the different discursive

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functions of both metaphors, are also analyzed in these contexts. Finally, we explain the divergent development of each metaphorical expression along a cline of conventionality, and discuss the reasons why while the SHOOTS

ASH CLOUD

metaphor is not active any more, the

GREEN

metaphor in Spanish has entered the common repertoire of the speech community

and can still be found in newspapers with new meanings and functions.

Theoretical assumptions This paper studies two fixed expressions, brotes verdes and ash cloud, rather than two conceptual metaphors and their possible surface expressions. In other words, we do not analyze the

ECONOMY IS A PLANT

metaphor or the concepts

ASH

or

VOLCANO

as sources for

various possible metaphorical projections. Rather, we deal with two metaphoremes, as defined in Cameron & Deignan (2006), i.e. stable patterns of use that encode culturally and temporally specific value judgments. Typically, metaphoremes have a fixed lexical and grammatical form that is used “as shorthand for the ideational and evaluative content” (Cameron & Deignan, 2006: 677), with which current speakers will be familiar in a specific time span. We will thus see how newspapers contributed to the creation and expansion of the new functions and meanings of the metaphoremes brotes verdes (‘green shoots’) and ash cloud. Given the crucial role of context in our analysis of the metaphoremes, two other closely-related concepts were taken into account: context-induced creativity (Kövecses, 2010) and situationally-triggered metaphors (Köller, 2004; Semino, 2008). Kövecses’ concept of context-induced creativity explains how the choice of a specific source domain for a novel mapping is triggered by contextual factors, among them, the immediate cultural context, the immediate social setting and the immediate linguistic context itself, as well as the immediate physical setting and what we know about discourse participants. The notion of situationally-

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triggered metaphors is very similar to Kövecses’ notion, and regards the general context in which the mapping takes place, as well as its specific socio-cultural conditions. In this sense, in Spain, the economic crisis and the particularly tense political atmosphere in 2009 motivated a wide expansion and recurrent use of the expression brotes verdes and induced its choice as a source domain for metaphors on sports, for example. Whereas in the UK, the chaos provoked in the air traffic by the 2010 ash cloud and its ensuing economic effects, influenced the creation of the novel ASH CLOUD metaphor to refer to problems in other fields in an unconventional way. As a matter of fact, in both cases, the real contextual setting, i.e. the economic crisis and the chaos in the air traffic, usually appeared on the front page of the same newspapers that then used the

ASH CLOUD

and the

GREEN SHOOTS

metaphors in their

news and reports on sports, music or religion. A final notion taken into account in our analysis is that of recontextualization of metaphors across genre boundaries, as developed by Linell & Sarangi (1998), Linell (2009) and Semino (2011). This concept has been extremely useful, first to explain how the green shoots and the ash cloud metaphoremes were deliberately re-used in contexts different from those where they had first originated (i.e. economy and geology) and, second, to understand how such re-contextualizations provided the expressions with new meanings and functions, especially regarding the evaluative one.

Data and methodology The data under analysis were retrieved, in a first stage, from leading mainstream newspapers in Spain and the UK. A later and more general search in Google provided further examples of use from local or regional newspapers, as well as from journal blogs. As for the time span studied, the first occurrences of ash cloud appear in April 15th 2010, whereas

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brotes verdes was first found in May 6th 2009. In both cases, the search was extended until the end of the year, when a decrease of frequency was observed. Both headlines and whole texts were studied. As calling attention devices or relevance optimizers, headlines are clearly prone to metaphoric creation (Knop, 1985; Moon, 1998; Dor, 2003; Semino, 2008; Kövecses, 2010). But the main texts that follow are equally important, since they constitute the larger discursive context or frame of the metaphors, and are often the key for interpreting the headline. These texts were especially useful for the identification of novel metaphorical expressions or new uses of already existing ones. In this sense, conventional metaphors using CLOUDS

to refer to

NEGATIVE EVENTS

PLANTS

or

as a source domain to refer to

OBSTACLES

ECONOMY,

or

are very frequent in newspapers. What

we understand as novel metaphors in this study is the specification of a given entity as GREEN SHOOTS

than a

instead of just

CLOUD.

PLANTS,

or something referred to or described as

ASH CLOUD

rather

Finally, all newspaper sections were searched -politics, economy, arts, sports,

society, etc. But it was particularly in the commentary sections, i.e. where journalists feel freer and more creative, that most examples and the most novel uses of the metaphors were found. In order to search for examples including the expression brotes verdes, we accessed the Spanish general newspapers El País, El Mundo and ABC, as well as the financial newspapers Expansión and Cinco Días, all of them dated from May to December 2009. A total amount of 97 occurrences were collected, and are distributed as shown in Figure 1:

Re-using newspaper metaphors

others 30%

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El Pais 19%

El Mundo 9%

ABC 14%

local papers 15% financial papers 13%

Figure 1: Brotes verdes in Spanish newspapers

As for the time distribution, it clearly follows the model of language change diffusion (Aitchison, 1991), with a starting point followed by a peak of diffusion, and a final period of decline in frequency of use (see Figure 2).iv As can be seen in figure 2, there is a sudden increase in November which can be explained in relation to the specific economic and political context of the moment. In November 2009 there were signs of economic recovery, a slight decrease in unemployment figures, an upturn in the sales of cars, etc., that were seen by some experts and members of the party in government as the long-expected green shoots needed to improve the final balance of the year.

45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 May

June

July August September October NovemberDecember

Figure 2: Brotes verdes rate of diffusion

The English data incorporating ash cloud and variations like cloud of ash and cloud of ashes were collected from The Guardian, The Mirror, The Independent, The Times and The Telegraph. A total of 44 occurrences were collected from April to December 2010, and their distribution is shown in Figures 3 and 4:

Re-using newspaper metaphors

Others 11%

8

Telegraph 11%

The Times 25%

The Guardian 37%

The Mirror 16%

Figure 3: Ash cloud in British newspapers

20 15 10 5 0

Figure 4: Ash cloud rate of diffusion

As expected, the first months after the eruption (April, May and June 2010) correspond to the innovative peak of the expression, i.e. the highest rate of use, whereas the months from July to December 2010 show the final declining period.

Discussion The ASH CLOUD metaphor As early as April 18th 2010, i.e. while the first eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull was still taking place, we find metaphorical expressions in newspapers all across Europe using different elements of the volcanic eruption as their source domains, for instance, Eyjafjalla, volcano, cloud, ash cloud, ashes, toxic ashes, lava, crater, eruption, heat, magma, etc. In this paper we concentrate on the emergent metaphoreme ash cloud in the English press from April 1st to December 31st in all newspaper sections, such as news, reports on politics, economy, sports and society, as well as in the various commentary sections.

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The metaphor OBSTACLES FOR SUCCESS ARE AN ASH CLOUD is not completely novel. As happens with most creative metaphors, it is a specification of widely used, conventional metaphors, e.g., those using

CLOUD

as their source domain, which tend to carry a negative

meaning. For instance, among the things English speakers conventionally see in terms of a cloud, we find: •

A shapeless compact mass, as in Mosquitoes were coming up in clouds.

• Obstacles to vision and understanding (since conventionally

KNOWING IS SEEING),

as

in His explanations clouded the issue. • Something transitory but negative that obscures or darkens something, i.e. causes gloom, sadness, suspicion, etc., as in There was a cloud in the horizon, He has a cloudy reputation, She clouded up/over when she remembered her hometown. Most of the negative connotations in the examples above are also present in the ash cloud metaphoreme discussed in this paper. Let us first present some examples of how the metaphor re-contextualizes from one field to another, crossing genre boundaries, as well as performing different functions; and second, see some instances of elaborations of common English expressions or word plays with cloud, also very frequent in the press during the same time span. They are all examples which show how these expressions were created within a very specific socio-cultural context -the volcanic eruption and its consequences, a specific time span and very specific purposes, namely, expressive and evaluative, rather than conceptualizing and persuasive. The ash cloud metaphoreme was widely used to talk about the political situation from the very first days after the eruption. In an early example from The Times, the problems that the Labour Party was facing in its 2010 campaign are presented through very explicit mappings of the

OBSTACLES FOR SUCCESS ARE AN ASH CLOUD:

planes are different factions within a

political party, and the royal navy of economy is a specific economic rescue proposal, etc.:

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Politics is in flux. It’s as if a volcano has erupted and a cloud of ash has grounded all the red and blue planes. Lord Madelson has dispatched the Royal Navy of the economy to try to rescue Labour’s campaign. (The Times, 20 April 2010)

In a similar example, Cameron’s

FOREIGN POLICY

is presented as an

ASH CLOUD

blocking foreign affairs; just as real ash can block rotor blades, engines, etc. In addition, this metaphor is here combined with the

GOOD/BAD WEATHER INSTABILITY,

used to refer to

Cameron’s CONTRADICTIONS; that is, defending different proposals at home and abroad: Today's policy statement was all bright smiles and brave dawns. But abroad there is only the same old ash cloud clogging the rotor blades. In the statement, foreign affairs occupied just half a page of waffle. (The Guardian, 20 May 2010) If the focus is not so much on the cloud, but on the ashes, i.e. something dirty, stained, unpleasant, then the negative evaluation is even more marked, as in the following commentary on the budget cuts taking place in the UK because of the economic crisis: Public blessing of cuts will dissolve when reality strikes (…). The dust doesn't settle, it is blowing into an ash cloud. On closer inspection, this has become the "impossible" budget. . . (The Guardian, 25 June 2010) In this excerpt, budget cuts are presented as volcanic dust that will turn into a big ash cloud (BUDGET

CUTS ARE AN ASH CLOUD)

that will finally spread and bring about serious

consequences for the UK. An example from the sports section, more specifically car races, appeared in The Guardian on May 10th: Lewis Hamilton appears to have his very own, personal cloud of volcanic ash and it continued to loom over him yesterday even in the sunny hills that sit above the Catalan capital. (The Guardian, 10 May 2010)

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In this commentary, we are told that Hamilton, the British driver, is not winning the races lately, he is living a bad moment and is having bad luck. In this context, the journalist could have used the conventional

CLOUD

metaphor

TRANSITORY TROUBLE IS A CLOUD,

but the fact

that he used cloud of volcanic ash reveals the influence of the socio-cultural context in the selection of the source domain. The Eyjafjallajökull eruption and its consequences for the air space were thus activated −consciously or unconsciously− in the moment of production. This is why we can consider this example as a situationally-triggered metaphor. The next instance is an example of a humorous use of the ASH CLOUD metaphor, where the actual ash cloud, which posed an obstacle to vision and therefore to flying, is projected onto a metaphorical cloud that impedes understanding. The maverick boss [Ryanair owner] used the results to brand the Met Office “idiots” for ordering the closure of UK airspace during the dust scare. He fumed: “The only place there was an ash cloud was between their ears”. (The Mirror, 2 June 2010) The ash cloud metaphoreme is also used in the field of music to describe the effects of a particular piece: The finale, troubling and beautiful, was followed by a long silence before the applause began…. The score is held together by a cell-like, oscillating phrase that suggests the grinding of tectonic plates, between which the rest of the music spills like lava. The closing section drifts like that infamous ash cloud before sinking to silence. It was remarkable. (The Guardian, 8 June 2010) The piece of music this paragraph describes, “The Period of Cosmographie”, was inspired by a recording of subterranean rumblings from a seismograph in the Reykjavik science museum. This is an example of a similev that was not only situationally-triggered, given the context and date of the news and the use of the “infamous ash cloud” to describe the closing section, but also topic-triggered (Semino, 2008), since it was the topic of the text, i.e the music

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inspired by the seismic noises in Iceland, which prompted the use of several volcano metaphors and similes – i.e “the music spills like lava”−, as well as the ASH CLOUD metaphor to mean that “sustained music is like a drifting ash cloud”. A late occurrence of the ash cloud metaphoreme appears in November 2010 (observe that, by that time, the problems with the air traffic were almost forgotten). In this case, it is again mixed with a number of other metaphorical expressions of the VOLCANO metaphor: Look around at the political reporting of Labour just now. It's as if a spew of lava has buried the landscape – a molten river of anger, burning lakes of score-settling and an ash-cloud of bitterness under which everything else has vanished. Gordon Brown's reputation has vanished far below the crust, as some kind of legendary tyrant. (The Guardian, 22 November 2010) Almost all the main elements of a volcano eruption are used as source domains (lava, molten river, burning lakes, crust, etc.) to describe Gordon Brown’s policy within the Labour Party in the last months of 2010, in addition to LABOUR PARTY IS AN ASH CLOUD

THE (BITTER) POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE IN THE

hiding any previous good aspects of Gordon Brown’s

policy. Apart from its use within texts, the ash cloud metaphoreme appears extensively in headlines for its rhetorical strength in the specific time span when the ash cloud was big news. Typically, it appears in headlines in the form of elaborations and word plays deriving from common expressions in English, many of which already included the term cloud in their formulation, as the following elaborations of the proverb “Every cloud has a silver lining”: Every volcano cloud has some silver linings. (The Times, 19 April 2010) Every ash cloud has a silver lining (or ten). (The Independent, 19 April 2010) The boss of an Edinburgh based private jet Hire Company is someone who's finding a silver lining in the ash cloud. (The Guardian, 23 April 2010)

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All of them seemed to pursue witty, ironical and humorous effects on readers, as in the elaboration of “It is an ill wind that blows no good”: It’s an ill volcanic ash that blows no good. (The Times, 18 April 2010) Or the word play from the common expression “smile in the face of adversity”: Smile in the face of ash. (The Guardian, 18 April 2010) Other examples are: In the time it takes a volcanic ash cloud to abate, Crystal Castles have morphed from unsettling electro indie heroes into melodic… (The Guardian, 20 June 2010) Has my volcanic ash cloud refund claim gone up in smoke? (The Guardian, 7 August 2010). The GREEN SHOOTS metaphorvi As already mentioned, this metaphor is actually a specification of the more general, widespread metaphor

ECONOMY IS A PLANT

(Charteris Black, 2000; White, 2003; Crawford

Camiciottoli, 2007), which highlights the cyclic nature of economy and which is evidenced in linguistic expressions such as economic growth, strong/weak/healthy economy and seed capital and further elaborations as in the following examples from White (2003): Growth is in full bloom at the moment and should continue in the coming months. The worst of the recession may be over but the economy still needs some time to put down roots before any significant results can be expected. Economic growth wilts under higher taxation. The first instance of the metaphor appeared in Spain on May 6th 2009, when the Spanish Economy Minister, Elena Salgado, used the expression green shoots in a press conference to announce the first signs of the country’s economic recovery:vii The economic situation is having some green shoots and we must wait until they grow up. (El Mundo, 6 May 2009)

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On that same day, the phrase jumped to the front page of newspapers, in inverted commas, and became the object of public criticism: Salgado sees ‘green shoots’ in Spanish economy. (El Mundo, 6 May 2009) Even if the expression was probably known by experts and by regular readers of economic press, especially in English, its Spanish form shocked current opinion as a novel, creative metaphor and was also considered unfortunate. As a consequence, the expression expanded fast and wide as it was used and re-used in different contexts with a variety of purposes, from supporting to scornful and critical. The Bank of Spain confirms the green shoots that Salgado had announced. (El Plural, 7 June 2009) A pair of green shoots – This Thursday, July 1st there have been a pair of green shoots to be considered, that is, two minimally happy data points: those of [less] unemployment and the purchase of private vehicles. Two hopeful data points, even if there is still much to do. (Diario Siglo XXI, 3 July 2009) The secretary for Communication of the PP [party in the opposition], Juan José Güemes, today claimed that “it seems that Salgado’s green shoots are marihuana and the government has been smoking them….”. (Europa Press, 2 June 2009) The metaphor was further elaborated and other associated domains that helped to extend the metaphor were included. Thus, green shoots can grow in large fields or just appear in the middle of a desert (RECESSION

IS A DESERT

was an already existing metaphor closely

related to THE FIRST SIGNS OF ECONOMIC RECOVERY ARE GREEN SHOOTS), they can wither, dry out or rotten, and it is also possible to care for them and water them to see them grow, as evidenced by the following headlines: Internal reports in the Ministry of Economy dry out Salgado’s ‘green shoots’. (Expansión, 29 May 2009)

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Rotten green shoots – we could say that those green shoots already smell rotten. (Canarias Semanal, 25 May 2009) Salgado catches sight of a new field of green shoots. (ABC, 9 June 2009) The obvious link between the financial crisis and the expansion of the metaphoreme explains that there is an increase of occurrences in November, when there was news on a promising recovery of the economic situation, which was instantly perceived as the long expected ‘green shoots’. In addition to the metaphorical meaning of the expression, green shoots also had a summarizing function (Oakley & Coulson, 2008), and thus referred to the Minister’s statements and, by extension, to the whole economic policy of the government. When used in this sense, it always carried negative evaluation: Since the beginning of the year, [the price of gold] has increased by 28% […] a rise that shows that markets distrust the green shoots and do not believe that the economic crisis is hitting bottom. (Cinco Días, 16 November 2009) Salgado changes the ‘green shoots’ for a realistic policy. (Expansión, 16 June 2009) IU [a left-wing political party in the opposition] demands “more employment and fewer green shoots”. (La Verdad, 22 May 2009) However, such negative evaluation was not found to be present in the metaphor when used in new contexts, that is, after a process of re-contextualization. Outside economic and political discourse, green shoots became a hopeful sign for any positive change. For instance, in the culture section of a major newspaper, a playwright claims that Spanish theatre is becoming better and better and that there are many young authors who attract international interest. He then refers to this fact as “the green shoots of theatre”:

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Green shoots in the theatre – Mayorga […] admitted that contemporary theatre shows green shoots, as authors and audiences are proud of what is being done. (El País, 11 October 2009) Also, a local newspaper considers “a green shoot of civism” the fact that a statue that used to be constantly vandalized has remained intact for twenty days in a row: A hopeful green shoot of civism in Málaga - The statue of the Malagueña accompanying the writer Arturo Reyes hasn’t been stolen her flower for twenty days. (La Opinión de Málaga, 3 November 2009) Both examples clearly show that the green shoots metaphor was situationally triggered, as it was the economic and political situation, as well as the fact that everybody at that time seemed to be talking about green shoots, that influenced the creation of this metaphoreme. In Spain, both the negative and the positive meanings of the metaphorical expression still remain three years later. On the one side, it is still used to scorn the economic policy of Rodríguez Zapatero’s government, especially after the party that was in the opposition (PP) won the last general election in November 2011 and is now the party in government: “I don’t speak of green shoots. 2012 will be a bad year” said the head of government. (ABC, 9 February 2012) Rajoy buries the green shoots: “the situation can’t be worse”. (El Mundo, 9 February 2012) On the other side, green shoots are commonly used to categorize any kind of event as a positive sign of hope for a change to take place. For instance, in February 2011, a report on the cease-fire announcement by ETA in a national weekly was titled Green Shoots in Euskadi: Green shoots in Euskadi – […] Under the tombstone of hate and prejudices, are green shoots that give us hope springing up? (El País Semanal, 6 February 2011)

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In the sports section, green shoots was the headline of a news article on the good results in a football match for a team that was about to be relegated to 2nd division: Green shoots – Against the Athletic, we could see the glass half full in spite of being in the red zone for relegation. (El Diario Montañes, 12 December 2011) This positive meaning can also be seen in political contexts, not always related with economic matters: Only 100 days and Arenas sees green shoots in local councils: The president of Andalusian PP, Javier Arenas, has claimed that the first hundred days of municipal government of the PP are a green shoot and the beginning of confidence. (La Razón, 19 September 2011) De Guindos [new Economy Minister] returns to Salgado’s green shoots – In spite of obvious difficulties, de Guindos looked optimistic and predicted that by the end of this year a light will be seen at the end of the tunnel. A new version of Zapatero’s green shoots. (Público, 25 January 2012). European Social Democracy is looking for green shoots. (El País, 25 March 2012) This last example refers to the electoral collapse of most social democrats in European governments and the search for solutions before the coming elections in France and Germany.

Conclusions Our study has shown how the interaction between the discourse situation and the sociocultural context in which metaphors are created influences their development and degree of entrenchment in a language. Two different metaphors belonging to two different sociocultural contexts, communities and time spans have been compared: CHANGE ARE GREEN SHOOTS

in the Spanish press in 2009, and

SIGNS OF A POSITIVE

OBSTACLES FOR SUCCESS ARE

Re-using newspaper metaphors AN ASH CLOUD in

18

British newspapers throughout 2010. Each metaphor showed a different rate

of diffusion. Whereas the

ASH CLOUD

metaphor has completely faded away from British

headlines or reports since 2011, the GREEN SHOOTS metaphor is still active in Spain and even reaching a certain degree of conventionalization. As we show, such divergent developments can only be related to the dissimilarities in the socio-contexts that triggered their creation. The volcanic ash cloud is not news any more, as it dissolved when the volcano stopped expelling ashes and, therefore, affecting the airspace and people’s lives. As soon as the ash cloud disappeared from the front pages of newspapers, the volcanic eruption and its consequences for the United Kingdom were not in focus anymore and, therefore, could not act as a referent for new mappings. As a matter of fact, there were several other volcanic eruptions in 2010 and 2011 in Guatemala, Ecuador, Sumatra and Indonesia among others, with similar consequences for the air traffic of these countries. These other ash clouds did not affect the British or even European air traffic, and were not, therefore, suitable candidates for metaphorical expressions in the UK. On the other hand, the financial crisis is still present in newspapers and is leading to a feeling of general pessimism leading people to search for any kind of positive signs, in the economy or any other field. Such signs are referred to as green shoots. In this case, has it is not only the economic context that has influenced the stability of the expression. The political situation in Spain, with a radical change of government after a general election in November 2011, has contributed to the permanence of the metaphoreme in political speeches and debates and its expansion or re-contextualization to other fields and meanings. In short, the role of newspapers in the development and expansion of the metaphors studied has proved to be unquestionable. They are used in headlines to catch the readers’ eye and re-used for expressive purposes within the texts of the commentary articles and reports. These new uses or re-contextualizations also produced changes in the evaluative functions of

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the metaphoremes. Thus, what was originally negative (ash cloud) or positive (green shoots) changed sign depending on the interaction of specific contextual factors. Green shoots, for instance, was positively charged when a member of the party in government uttered it, and negatively when used by the opposition to show contempt for the other’s economic policy. Thus, if conventional metaphors are usually considered to have conceptualizing or categorizing functions; novel, creative metaphors, such as those studied in this paper, seem to be used to fulfill other functions; mostly expressive, evaluative and persuasive.

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References Aitchison, J. (1991). Language change. Progress or decay? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bernárdez, E. (2009). Comparaciones explícitas con "wie" en Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften de Robert Musil. Una aproximación cognitiva. Revista de Filología Alemana, 1, 5771. Cameron, L., & Deignan, A. (2006). The emergence of metaphor in discourse. Applied Linguistics, 27(4), 671–690. Charteris-Black, J. (2000). Metaphor and vocabulary teaching in ESP economics. English for Specific Purposes, 19, 149-165. Crawford Camiciottoli, B. (2007). The Language of business studies lectures: A corpus assisted analysis. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Croft, W. & Cruse, D. A. (2004). Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dor, D. (2003). On newspaper headlines as relevance optimizers. Journal of Pragmatics, 3(5), 695–721. Fraser, B. (1979). The interpretation of novel metaphors. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (pp. 329-341). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Knop, S. (1985). Linguistic and extralinguistic aids for reconstruction and interpretation of metaphors in headlines: Metaphor in language and thought. In W. Paprotté & R. Dirven (Eds.), The ubiquity of metaphor (pp. 243-262). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Köller, V. (2004). Metaphor and gender in business media discourse: A critical cognitive study. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. Kövecses, Z. (2009). The effect of context on the use of metaphor in discourse. Ibérica (Journal of the European Association of Languages for Specfic Purposes), 17(Spring), 11-23. Kövecses, Z. (2010). A new look at metaphorical creativity in cognitive linguistics. Cognitive Linguistics, 21(4), 663–697. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Linell, P. (2009). Rethinking language, mind and world dialogically: Interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Linell, P. & Sarangi, S. (Eds.). (1998). Discourse across professional boundaries. Special issue of Text, 18(2), 143-318. Littlemore, J. (2003). The effect of cultural background on metaphor interpretation. Metaphor and Symbol, 1(/4), 273-288. Moon, R. (1998). Fixed expressions and idioms in English: A corpus based approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Musolff, A., & Zinken, J. (Eds.). (2009). Metaphor and discourse. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Oakley, T., & Coulson, S. (2008). Connecting the dots: Mental spaces and metaphoric language in discourse. In T. Oakley & A. Hougaard (Eds.), Mental spaces in discourse and interaction (pp. 27-50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Porto, M.D. (2012). The life of the green shoots metaphor in the Spanish media. Metaphor and the Social World, 2/1: 22-40. Steen. G. (2011). The contemporary theory of metaphor- now new and improved! Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 9(1), 26–64. Semino, E. (2008). Metaphor in discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Semino, E. (2011). Metaphor and re-contextualization. Paper presented at the RaAM Specialized Seminar: Metaphor across Time and Genre. Almagro, Spain. Steen, G. (2008). The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-dimensional model of metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 23(4), 213-241. White, M. (2003). Metaphor and economics: The case of growth. English for Specific Purposes, 22, 131-151.

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Appendix Brotes verdes, original Spanish texts: •

La situación económica está teniendo algunos brotes verdes y hay que esperar a que crezcan. (El Mundo,6 May 2009)



Salgado ve ‘brotes verdes’ en la economía española (El Mundo, 6 May 2009)



El Banco de España confirma los brotes verdes anunciados por Salgado. (El Plural, 7 June 2009)



Un par de brotes verdes. – […] Este jueves primero de julio hay un par de brotes verdes a considerar, o lo que es lo mismo, dos datos mínimamente felices: los relativos al paro y a la adquisición de vehículos privados. Dos datos esperanzadores, aunque sea aún mucho lo que queda por hacer. (Diario Siglo XXI, 3 July 2009)



El secretario de Comunicación del PP de Madrid, Juan José Güemes, aseguró hoy que "da la impresión que los brotes verdes" de la vicepresidenta económica, Elena Salgado, "son de marihuana y se los ha fumado el Gobierno" de José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, porque "de otra forma es inexplicable que el Ejecutivo proponga tantas ocurrencias y que se enmiende a sí mismo permanentemente" (Europa Press, 2 June 2009)



Los informes internos de Economía secan los ‘brotes verdes’ de Salgado” (Expansión, 29 May 2009)



Brotes verdes podridos – Se podría decir que esos brotes verdes ya huelen a podrido (Canarias Semanal, 25 May 2009)



Salgado avista un nuevo campo de brotes verdes. (ABC, 4 September 2009)



Desde comienzos de año su precio se ha incrementado un 28% (el 2 de enero se situaba en 879 dólares), una subida que en principio indica que los mercados

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desconfían de los ‘brotes verdes’ y no tienen claro que la crisis económica haya tocado fondo. (Cinco Días, 16 November 2009) •

Salgado cambia los ‘brotes verdes’ por una política realista. (Expansión, 16 June 2009)



IU exige más empleo y menos brotes verdes. (La Verdad, 22 May 2009)



Brotes verdes en el teatro Mayorga (…) admitió que el teatro contemporáneo muestra "brotes verdes, los autores y espectadores están orgullosos con lo que se está haciendo". (El País,11 October 2009)



Un esperanzador ‘brote verde’ de civismo en Málaga - La estatua de la Malagueña que acompaña al escritor Arturo Reyes lleva unos 20 días sin que ningún mamífero le robe la flor (La Opinión de Málaga, 3 November 2009)



“Yo no hablo de brotes verdes. 2012 será malo”, dice el jefe del Gobierno (ABC, 9 February 2012



Rajoy entierra los brotes verdes – “la situación no puede ser peor”. (El Mundo, 9 February 2012)



Brotes verdes en Euskadi – [...] Bajo la losa de odio y los prejuicios, ¿estarán surgiendo brotes verdes que inviten a la esperanza? […] (El País Semanal, 6 February 2011)



Brotes verdes- Ante el Athletic vimos la botella medio llena a pesar de seguir en zona de descenso. (El Diario Montañes, 12 December 2011)



Solo 100 días y Arenas ve ‘brotes verdes’ en sus ayuntamientos - El presidente del PP de Andalucía, Javier Arenas, ha asegurado que los cien días de gobierno de los ayuntamientos populares de Andalucía suponen un “brote verde y el inicio de la confianza”. (La Razón, 19 September 2011)

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De Guindos recupera los ‘brotes verdes’ de Salgado-.

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Pese a las dificultades

evidentes, de Guindos se mostró optimista y aventuró que a final de este año empezará a verse una luz al final del túnel. Una nueva versión de "los brotes verdes" de Zapatero. (Público, 25 January 2011). •

La socialdemocracia europea busca brotes verdes. (El País, 25 March 2012)

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Footnotes i

This study has been carried out under the funding of research project FFI2009-13582/FILO, Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.

ii

See also Bruce Fraser’s 1979 work on the relationship between context and novel metaphors.

iii

A very clear example of Aitchison’s 1991 ‘snowball effect’ of language change.

iv

Interestingly, this metaphor is still active both in political discourse and in the Spanish press; its last instance collected in May 5th 2012.

v

In this paper similes have been included because, even though they show different features from metaphor, they still can be considered mappings between different domains and can develop into metaphors. (Croft & Cruse, 2004; Bernárdez 2009). vi

vii

For a more extensive account on the GREEN SHOOTS metaphor in the Spanish media see Porto, 2012

All examples have been translated for the sake of convenience. The original ones have been collected in the Appendix.