Metaphors of the EU constitutional debate

Ways of charting discourse coherence in a complex metaphor field

Résumé

In 2005, referenda about the EU’s constitutional treaty were held in several European countries, which resulted in a No vote in France and the Netherlands and which left the European polity both devastated and clueless. The present essay describes metaphors in British journalism beginning with the year before the referenda and ending a few months after them. In 675 examined newspaper articles from the Sun and the Guardian, mostly commentaries, diverse conceptual patterns are found that belong to five major headings (= metaphoric target domains): the EU as political entity, the EU constitutional treaty, the process of EU integration, the impact of the No votes on the European polity, and pro- or anti-constitution campaigning prior to the referenda. A software-assisted and full-scale survey of metaphors is undertaken to identify recurrent conceptual metaphor patterns. This is followed by a theoretical analysis that aims to exemplify how cross-buttressing tendencies in the metaphor field, i.e. coherence between conceptual metaphors, can be charted out. The basic insight underlying this is that metaphors not emanating from the same conceptual metaphor can still entertain important conceptual relations with each other, for example because their inferences fit together or because they partake of a single “metaphorically told” story. With this in mind, the basic data is screened for coherence patterns that further weave together the discourse fabric. Metaphor scenarios and narrative connections play a major role here. Other mechanisms of importance relate to generic similarities between target and source domains, metaphor composition, as well as looser kinds of metaphor pastiche.