Metaphors in healthcare : A qualitative analysis of conceptual metaphors in liberal and conservative discourse

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to analyse how conceptual metaphors are used in the political platforms’ healthcare sections of the Republican party and the Democratic party in the United States of America. The aims are to see whether the usage of the conceptual metaphors displays difference or patterns between the party platforms. My aim is also to see whether the parties views on healthcare are different or not, according to the platforms. The field of this thesis is political discourse analysis. The analysis will be conducted using Karen Sullivan’s (2013) and Lakoff & Johnson’s (1980) typologies and studies on conceptual metaphors. The analysis is conducted manually on all the metaphors, excluding metaphors which comprise of a prepositional phrase.

The central findings were that the healthcare sections do use the metaphor types differently. The analysis also showed, that the Democratic party’s healthcare section used metaphors which use lexical choices related to a battle. Otherwise, my analysis did not find a clearly straight-forward pattern on the use of metaphors but did show difference in the opinions of the parties, which makes it clear that the parties view the area of healthcare differently.