• The Conference
  • Home
  • Programme
  • Venue & directions
  • Organizing Committee
  • Scientific Committee
  • Exhibitors & sponsors
  • Satellite events
  • Conference Party
• Past & future
  • Previous symposia
  • Finland 2014
  • Spain 2016
• About FU Berlin
  • University homepage
  • Humanities at FU

Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 339

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Putting Greece in a plaster cast: The recent history of an old metaphor

Authors: Tsakona, Villy
Submitted by: Tsakona, Villy (Democritus University of Thrace, Greece)

Political metaphor is a powerful means of persuasion, since it is employed to explain in simple terms vague, abstract, or even morally suspect concepts by turning them into images of everyday experience. Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2005, Goatly 2007) aims at identifying metaphors and analyzing their function as ideological tools used for the construction of political ideologies and myths. It explores why specific metaphors appear in specific contexts by pointing out speakers’ unspoken intentions.
The present study investigates the GREECE IS A SICK PERSON IN A PLASTER CAST metaphor, which originates in the public speeches of the Greek dictator George Papadopoulos and other prominent members of his regime during the Greek military junta (1967-1974). This metaphor became emblematic of the regime and even today its mention strongly evokes the political discourse of that period. I intend to show that the metaphor re-emerged during the outburst of the Greek financial crisis to refer to the austerity measures imposed to overcome economical problems. After a brief discussion of the original use of the metaphor, I will try to shed some light on the ideological standpoints and goals of its current use. Furthermore, I will try to show that, as Musolff (2010: 36) suggests, there is a “public domain medium-term memory” which allows speakers to recycle and reframe metaphorical conceptualizations.
The data analyzed comes, first, from the public speeches of the leaders of the Greek military junta; second, from the Corpus of Greek Texts; and, third, from online media texts published during 2010 and referring to the negotiations of the Greek government with the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. Such diverse sources of data allow for tracing and describing how this metaphor resulted in the creation of an idiom mostly attested in media and political discourse and recently employed to refer to the current political situation in Greece.
The main point of the analysis is that, although this metaphor began its career as a propaganda tool at the dictators’ disposal, aiming at legitimizing their policies regarding civil rights and the freedom of the press, it has been transformed gradually into tool of protest (if not of passive resistance) against state (and international) policies. The plaster cast metaphor has motivated semantic extension and hence polysemy through a set of idiomatic phrases in Greek, and has been recycled to suit the purposes of journalists and the common people protesting against political authority and what they see as the violation of their rights, a transfer of sovereignty from the Greek government to the IMF, and a symbol of immobility affecting the economy it purports to “save”.

References:

Charteris-Black, J. 2005. Politicians and Rhetoric. The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Goatly, A. 2007. Washing the Brain. Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Musolff, A. 2010. Political metaphor and bodies politic. In U. Okulska & P. Cap (eds.), Perspectives in Politics and Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 23-41.