Edward Budaev - The Concept of Family in Metaphorical Comprehension of Politics: A case study of British and Russian media discourse

The theoretical basis of the research is the “cognitive-discursive” paradigm which combines heuristics of cognitive linguistics and media discourse-analyses. Metaphor is seen as not the rare or isolated linguistic device, but as one of the most basic and ordinary means through which humans conceptually organize the world. Through examination of linguistic data one can reveal the structure of humans’ conceptual systems. Thus, by identifying metaphorical concepts evident within a culture and “mapping” them semantically, one simultaneously gathers information on the values of a particular culture.
   The empirical content of the study is an analysis of metaphorical model ‘Politics Is Family’, which organise conceptualization of ex-Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in the EU (British press) and beyond (Russian press). The metaphorical models reflect the dominant ways of cognitive construal and evaluation of the concept “Baltic States” in Russian and British consciousness. It is argued that a political misunderstanding between Russia, Baltic States and Europe is linked with the difference between metaphorical conceptualizations of the same reality in national media discourses.