Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

Since the rise of Conceptual Metaphor Theory in the 1980s, metaphor theorists have investigated the diverse effects that metaphor has on cognitive processes. In certain situations—in political speech, for instance—it is noticed that metaphoric expressions are relatively frequent and play a decisive role. Some researchers—most notably, Steen—suggest that metaphors can be intentionally employed as metaphors in communication to achieve specific discourse goals. Thus, investigating the role of intentions behind metaphor use would shed light into the general question of why people resort to metaphors in specific contexts. Scholars generally take…