ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 38 (Nº 54) Year 2017. Page 23

Metaphorical Models in Legal Media Discourse (derived from Russian and English media texts)

Modelos metafóricos en el discurso legal de los medios (derivado de los textos rusos e ingleses de los medios)

Gulchehra NORUZOVA 1; Bagila AKHATOVA 2

Received: 14/07/2017 • Approved: 25/08/2017

Content

1. Introduction

2. Results

3. Conclusions

Bibliographic references

1. Introduction

In domestic and foreign philology, there is an extensive body of work devoted to the consideration and study of the institutional discourse utilized in various spheres of human activity, whether it is politics, economics, sport or medicine - but the specificity of the legal discourse functioning in the framework of mass media space remain poorly studied. In contrast to the formal legal discourse, which complies with a strict set of lingua-stylistic and lexical features, such as a strict regulation, de-personalization, the tendency to a formal and non-emotional presentation, categorical judgments, semantic certainty, the use of lexically stable and special thesaurus, legal media discourse is characterized by the existence of emotional and expressive vocabulary and of a variety of linguistic means used solely to perform two main functions: informing and affecting the reader emotionally.

In communication studies or media studies, mediatization is a theory that argues that the media shapes and frames the processes and discourse of political communication as well as the society in which that communication takes place (Lilleker, 2008). The Danish media scholar Stig Hjarvard also suggested that mediatization is a social process whereby the society is saturated and inundated by the media to the extent that the media cannot longer be thought of separated from other institutions within the society (Hjarvard, 2008). By mediatization, we mean both the spreading the media influence on the most important areas of social life and the involving various aspects of social activity in the information sphere, that is, creating zones of intersection of media and social phenomena. This process is characterized by a duality in that the media have become integrated into the operations of other social institutions, while they also have acquired the status of social institutions in their own right. As a consequence, social interactions – within the respective institutions, between institutions, and in society at large – take place via the media (Hjarvard, 2008:113). Moreover, Krotz conceives of mediatization as an ongoing process whereby the media change human relations and behavior and thus change society and culture (Krotz, 2007:39). Thus, the modern stage in civilization development is characterized by the fact that institutions and whole societies are shaped by and dependent on mass media (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999).

If, according to the Swedish media researcher Kent Asp, who was the first to speak of the mediatization of political life, mass media are the main or the only source of political information through which it may influence or even shape people's conceptions of political reality (Asp, 1986), the mediatization of legal communication plays an important role in the interpretation and circulation of legal knowledge, thus increasing the level of legal awareness and consciousnesses of citizens. The formation of public legal consciousnesses is impossible without a large variation of interpretations. Unlike the official interpretation given by professional lawyers, the ordinary interpretation given by journalists, who are not legal specialists, is also essential. Therefore, the media performing as interpreters help a person to decipher a complex code of legal discourse and establish communication.

1.1. Literature Review

The legal language “lives” and “develops” not only in the speeches of professional lawyers, but also in the speeches of representatives of the government authorities and journalists. It should be noted that interpretation is just one of the social roles of the media. Due to the fact that legal information is available only to a certain group of people (lawyers and citizens at the time when the criminal or civil offence was committed) and significant only in cases of any relationship and effects of legal nature, then, in this case, the mass media, along with other social institutions are an important means of contributing to the popularization of legal information for a wide audience. The mass media serves as a global “mixer” that consolidate existing opinions, facts and fictions, ideology, discursive formulas, mythology, concepts and evaluations together. «The fragmentation of the external life in the single media space is transformed into a holistic media world in which different contexts are called upon to enhance its authenticity and reality" (Klushina, 2013). However, media do not necessarily 'cause' the transformations but they have become co-constitutive for the articulation of politics, economics, education, religion (Hepp, Hajarvard, Lundby, 2015), law and etc.

According to E.N. Tonkov, it is important to understand that «the law alone cannot operate; the actors are people who perceive legal regulations through their individual legal conciseness» (Tonkov, 2013). Trying to understand the meaning of a rule, reader always skips written statement through the prism of their individual experiences, context.

Silanova M. A. (2014) was at the forefront of researching the influence of media on the current trends in the legal language development. Mediatization of legal discourse is, first of all, both the process of spreading the media influence on public relations that fall within the scope of law covering not all of society but only the area of legal regulation and the process of involving various aspects of legal activity in the information sphere, that is to say, the creation of intersection zone between media and legal phenomenon and giving the last a publicity. Moreover, the mediatization of legal discourse implies complex processes that can be divided into several stages: the interpretation of legislative text, then the dissemination of this interpretation to a broad audience through the media, the formation of public opinion, which as a system of social control again returns us back to the stage of social reality regulation. (Silanova, 2014).

One of the most important theses in discourse theory is that none of the discourse is closed and complete; it constantly changes in the process of contact with other discourses. The interdiscursivity arises when different discourses and genres are articulated together in one communicative event. Creative discourse practices in which different types of discourses are combined in new and complex ways – is an indicator and driving force in discursive and sociocultural changes. Combining the elements of various discourses we can change a certain discourse and, as a consequence, a social and cultural world. On the other hand, discursive practices in which discourses are "mixed" by conventional ways - are indicators that simultaneously support the established order of discourse and social order. Thus, interdiscursivity serves both as a manifestation of the variability of language and a sign of its stability (Dyakova, 2011: 79-80).

Legal media discourse is understood as the specific sphere of interplay of law and media, as a result of the media coverage and interpretation of the legal discourse, which focuses on the integration of the legal knowledge, legal norms and events into our everyday reality. Consequently, the legal media space comprises discursive texts born at the interplay of the legal discourse and the discourses of other types (scientific, journalistic, political, domestic, medical and even artistic) (Silanova, 2014). Thus, it is important to note that legal media discourse inherent in interdiscursivity arises in the course of crossing different discursive spaces (in our case there are two discursive spaces - the legal discourse and media discourse) in a particular communicative plane. Under this category, the discourse is always in conflict with other discourses that claim to define reality in a different manner and establish other principles of social practice (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999:7).

Participants in the legal media discourse are the sender and the addressee of the media information, more specifically, the journalist and the ordinary reader. In legal media discourse, both the journalist and the recipient do not have any specific legal knowledge. In fact, the recipient of media information is an ordinary reader who does not have even professional legal thesaurus, while the journalist is more competent in the specific legal matter. Since the sender, in the process of creating a media text on legal issues, may need to utilize additional legal sources to reconstruct, in the mind of the recipient, the right image of legal events on the basis of the described text. While preparing media texts on legal topics, the author uses stylistic techniques and linguistic means that provide an ease of perception of the legal information by ordinary recipients. Accordingly, the author's purpose in creating legal – oriented media texts is not only to codify the legal norm, but also to inform the public about it, together with the norm’s explanation and evaluation, and in some cases its coverage from a certain angle in order to manipulate the reader's consciousness (Dyakova, 2011: 81).

Legal media discourse, as any type of institutional discourse unfolding in the media environments, uses special lexical means. One of the important lexical means by which the emotional background of the legal media communication is intensified, is the metaphorical component of statements. The metaphor is one of the main ways of image modeling and reflection of reality. It is important to note that the metaphor performs an essential cognitive-pragmatic function. It is a powerful instrument that affects the recipient’s consciousness and transforms his world view.

The actualization of metaphor in legal media discourse

A metaphor can be understood as "a communicative (discourse) operator" in any form of language communication (Drößiger and Hans-Harry 2007: 124). Despite the fact that some researchers continue to think that the term "metaphor" can be applied only to the language (Jackendoff & Aaron, 1991), most of the researchers focus on the cognitive aspect of this phenomenon.

It should be noted that, in the legal media discourse, the metaphor performs the following functions:

- a cognitive function, whereby the metaphor is a peculiar way to a deeper understanding of legal terms;

- an explanatory function - the metaphor helps to interpret the laws;

- an emotional-evaluative function – which is implemented by the use of expressive lexical means with affective potential.

In turn, the availability of metaphorical expressions in a language is a consequence of the existence of metaphorical models in the human mental sphere. In the work "'The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious", J. Lacan notes that human mental sphere is made up of the imaginary, symbolic and real orders (Lacan, 1966). Therefore, in the metaphor located on the symbolic level of the psyche, it is necessary to calculate those intentions, in which the individual modulates his discourse.

Metaphorical models should be analyzed in the discourse in close connection with the context in which they originate and operate, taking into account the author's intentions and pragmatic characteristics. The system of metaphorical models is an important part of the national language, but also exemplifies the writer’s world picture and national mentality. It is closely connected with the history of the people concerned and contemporary socio-political (Chudinov, 2003, p.69) and legal situation.

Researchers of metaphorical models usually consider the following characteristics:

- the frequency of models (the number of conceptual metaphors of a certain conceptual domain);

- the productivity (the possibility of secondary nominations corresponding to the metaphoric model);

- the dominance (the significant increase in productivity and frequency of metaphoric model in a certain historical period).

In our analysis, in order to understand the metaphorical character of legal media text, we rely on the cognitive metaphor theory, the followers of which are G. Lakoff and M. Johnson. The conceptual metaphor theory was first sequentially presented in the famous G. Lakoff and M. Johnson’s (1980) publication “Metaphors we live by”. The main provision of this theory states that: “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature”. According to the G. Lakoff and M. Johnson’s point of view, this is partly attributable to the fact that the man expresses his thoughts not only with the help of metaphors, but he thinks metaphorically, creates with the help of metaphors the world in which he lives. The human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. From the outlook of cognitive linguistics, on the basis of conceptual metaphor theory, we can analyze the use of metaphors in the legal media texts from the example of Russian and English languages.

From a cognitive viewpoint, a metaphor is defined as (Barcelona 2000: 3) “a cognitive mechanism whereby one experiential domain is partially ‘mapped’, i.e. projected, onto a different experiential domain, so that the second domain is partially understood in terms of the first one”. In other words, conceptual metaphors provide us with unfamiliar ways of conceptualizing familiar things, and familiar ways of conceptualizing unfamiliar things. A cognitive metaphor is not a matter of language but of thought: a metaphor is ‘a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system’, thus establishing links of the different orders between its elements, and promote the integration of new knowledge and putting them into a context of already known (Lakoff 1993: 203). Moreover, the "conceptual metaphors are an integral part of the cultural paradigm of native speakers. While being already part of our conceptual system, they are so customary that they are often not recognized as a metaphor" (Lakoff 1993: 210).

D. Ritchie (2003), in the framework of his connectivity theory of metaphor interpretation, also emphasizes the need to analyze metaphors in cognitive and communicative context that implies a detailed representation of the communicative situation and previous experience of its participants.

More generally, the main thesis of the cognitive metaphor theory can be summarized as follows: the metaphorical model is, in the minds of native speakers, the creation and development of bonds between conceptual domains, which can be represented by a specific formula: «X is like Y statement». For example, legislators – are the soldiers, the statement of the law – is the attack, the interaction between the laws of different actors - is the military operation. Based on this formula, a frame system (with its own slots and concepts) of one mental domain (a source domain) serves as the basis for modeling the mental system of another domain (a target domain). This modeling in the target domain usually preserves not only the structure of the original domain, but also the emotive potential typical for the concepts of the source domain, which creates opportunities to affect the emotional and volitional sphere of recipient in the communication activities (Chudinov 2003: 70).

Due to the fact that the mass media, along with other social institutions, is turning out to be the main source of the existence of legally significant information, for our analysis we have used 150 Russian-Kazakh editorials with access to their official websites and 120 English-language electronic periodicals and so-called "new media" presented on social networks.

In this analysis, while considering the Russian legal media discourse, our attention was drawn to the metaphorical models build on more specific source domains such as the domains of "war", "medicine", "movement", "sport" and "natural phenomenon”. It is important to note that, from these four source domains above, only two of them - "war" and "medicine" are the most frequent domains in Russian legal media discourse, that, at once, underlines the role that these spheres of human activity play in modern society. However, it is particularly worth noting that the metaphorical statements on legal issues in the media space, due to their frequency of use, have become familiar expressions and partly lost their metaphorical significance. Therefore, while analyzing the metaphorical models in Russian and English legal media discourse, it is important to separate them into the metaphors firmly entrenched in the language system (worn or lexical metaphors) and metaphors with secondary nominations. Let us consider two examples from Russian legal media discourse that use the source domain "war":

Example 1.

Worn metaphor - “The end of the Russian-American legal war can hardly be predicted. But it is interesting that both Russian citizens and citizens of America may display hostility towards their parliamentarians”.

Example 2.

Metaphor with the secondary nomination - "Every judicial institution - is a war, and in large part is more difficult than the scramble of the two armies, for it, it is not unilateral, but multi-dimensional ... One of the parties – either the defense or the prosecution - must inevitably lose, this is the nature of the court. But the judge, despite his decision, is always a winner - and this is also the nature of the court”.

As the first example demonstrates, linguo-cultural society ceases to feel the difference in the meanings "legislative war" and "hostile relationship" often identifying these expressions with the legislative quarrel or unfriendly relations of Russian and American parliamentarians towards their politicians. The worn metaphor, in this example, is entrenched in the language system so firmly that it has not only lost the motivated semantic core of the system, but, on the other hand, is perceived as an argument proving the completeness and accuracy of the basic structural metaphor.

The second example, in our opinion, illustrates several metaphorical projections: The judicial authority (target) – is the armed struggle (source); the dispute – is the battle; the disputing parties - are the army; the number of parties to the proceedings – are an unlimited number of troops; the judge, who takes the final judicial decision – is the winner. Each of these projections (either alone or in various combinations) implements, in the context, various consequences metaphorical thinking.

It should be noted that, in Russian legal media communication, there are also a large number of metaphoric expressions that use the source domain of "war", but lost their secondary nomination, and contain a limited number of metaphors with a secondary meaning (Figure 1a).

Another important conceptual metaphorical block used in the Russian legal media discourse is the medical metaphor. It is important to note that the assimilation of legal affairs towards processes occurring in the human body enhances the emotive component of statements, thus urging the audience to support the speaker’s view point. In the Russian legal media discourse there are metaphoric phrases consisting of elements (words) belonging to the medical discourse, which, due to their frequency of use, have also become entrenched in the language system and lost their direct meaning. This block can be illustrated by the following example:

• “It is clear that the employment protection legislation – is the most painful aspect of the labor legislation. It largely depends on whether the employer will work "in white" or go into the shade, which will have consequences on the increase the staff, modernization of production and much more".

In addition to the above-mentioned example, attention can be also paid to the use of worn medical metaphors in the Russian media discourse. However, in contrast to the military metaphors in Russian legal media discourse there is a sufficient number of metaphorical expressions with the source domain of "medicine", which doesn’t lose their metaphorical significance (Figure 1b).

Figure 1
Metaphorization of Russian legal media discourse
with the source domain of "war" and "medicine"

It can be easily seen that that the conceptual metaphors with such source domains as "war" and "medicine" are widely used in the Russian legal media discourse. However, it should be noted that most of these metaphorical models are worn or stable components, which are not only regularly represented in a given textual system, but they are also repeated several times in the form of ready information product created with the help of media technologies and aimed at a mass audience (Dobrosklonskaya, 2014, p.124).

With regard to other conceptual metaphor blocks built on the basis of such source domains as "movement", "sport", "natural phenomena", "family", their use is less frequent, but the metaphor data comprises the highly visible and emotive component. For example, in most contexts, the conceptual source domain of "movement" highlights the idea of communicative action. Among the metaphors based on this metaphorical block, only stable forms of metaphoric expressions can be identified (Figure 2a).

Sport metaphorical block mainly includes cliché expressions characterized by a statistically determined repetition in the media environment. Sport metaphors focus on the tactics and strategy of legislative competitions giving members of parliament "vital information" about the nature of the legislative program and the intentions of the politicians. Metaphors associated with “natural phenomena” can be attributed to both worn metaphor and metaphor with the secondary nomination. The stable metaphorical expressions are built on the basis of the conceptual source domain of "family" (Figure 2b,2c,2d).

Figure 2
Metaphorization of Russian legal media discourse with the source
domain of "movement", “sport”, “nature” and “family”

 English legal media discourse is also characterized by the use of metaphor for expressive effect on audience. It is important to note that the metaphoric expressions are mainly built on the basic conceptual source domains as «war", "sport", "medicine", "climate", and «construction".

Metaphorical models of war are specific to Englishlegal media communication no less than metaphorical models in Russian legal media discourse that once again confirms the assumption of universality of associations that arise in connection with certain spheres of human activity. There are also similarities regarding the talks about the changing geopolitical situation in the English-speaking world. Let us consider the example of metaphorical expressions with the source domain of "war" in English legal media discourse which create new meaning:

“A criminal defense lawyer is definitely seemed to me like a fighter who was going to get in there and fight for the underdog”.

Besides the example above, it may also be noted the cases of use of established metaphoric expressions and metaphorical expressions with a secondary meaning based on the source domain of "war" (Figure 3a)

Medical metaphors are also very common in the English legal media communication. The emotional component of metaphors built on the basis of source domain "medicine" with a secondary meaning is clearly visible in this example:

“Now, I'm not a medical doctor, but I do want to go over some of the symptoms with you -- because I want to make sure nobody else catches it. If you say you're for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you'd sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work -- you might have Romnesia. Now, this extends to other issues. If you say earlier in the year, I'm going to give a tax cut to the top 1 percent and then in a debate you say, I don't know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks -- you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you've probably got Romnesia”.

In the English-speaking society there are other medical metaphors, which have lost their imagery and metaphorical expressions, addition to metaphors characterized by the secondary nomination (Figure 3b).

Figure 3
Metaphorization of English legal media discourse
with the source domain of "war" and "medicine"

With regard to sport metaphors, they are also widely represented in the English legal media discourse. This can be explained by the enormous role that sport plays in the modern English-speaking society. Thus, the writer of legal media discourse resorts to this lexical means in order to create a positive image which is so necessary during unstable periods. English legal media discourse includes basic sport metaphorical models, both stable metaphors and metaphors able to develop a new image (Figure 4a).

The role of metaphors related to climate, including natural disasters, in the English legal media discourse should not be overlooked. This fact is based on the desire of speakers to call very simple, but rather profound effect on the human mind. Certainly, the identification of the legal information with a particular natural element is the essential emotive component. Metaphorical blocks with the source domain of "climate" include both the worn metaphors and metaphors that can be used to create a secondary meaning (Figure 4b).

The conceptual source domain "construction" is also widely used to build metaphorical blocks in the English legal media communication. Metaphorical blocks with the source domain of "construction" include metaphors which are characterized by their frequency of repetition and metaphors with semantic duality (Figure 4c).

Figure 4
Metaphorization of English legal media discourse with the
source domain of "sport", "climate" and “construction”

The analysis shows that the legal media discourse contains a rich variety of source domains, whose components are differentiated in both the Russian and English linguocultures, due to extralinguistic factors. Based on the analyzed materials, it has been found that that, unlike the Russian legal media discourse, the English legal media communication is characterized by the frequency of use of three conceptual source domains (“war”, “medicine”, “sport”) instead of two (“war” and “medicine”) that are mainly used to construct metaphoric expressions in the Russian legal media discourse. It can also be noticed the lack of a systematic character in using metaphors associated with other domains of human activity.

It should be emphasized that among the identified metaphorical blocks, a large number of worn metaphors are prevailing and are inevitably present in both the Russian and the English legal media communications. The worn metaphors are well established expressions because of its frequency of use in the media environment. Therefore, despite the less frequent use of metaphors based on such conceptual source domains as «movement", "sport", "natural phenomenon" in the Russian legal media discourse, such metaphors create peripheral systems. At the same time, it should be noted that metaphorical blocks in the two languages are not the same not only in quantity, but in quality. For example, relatively rare in the Russian legal media discourse, sport metaphors are quite typical for English legal media communication, which can be explained by the fact that sport plays a significant role in the modern western society, as well as the fact that sport is a convenient tool for the creation of a suitable image in the public eyes.

In this regard, according to our observation of the English legal media discourse, the military metaphors lose out under the pressure of the sports metaphors. English legal media discourse is characterized by the dominance of the three above-mentioned metaphorical blocks, which, of course, does not exclude the metaphors related to other areas of human activity. However, these metaphors are used occasionally and on their basis it is difficult to single out the separate metaphorical blocks. In general, the use of any metaphorical blocks has one reason or another, whether geopolitical instability, climate change, the limited possibilities of medicine or multiple sport events.

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1. Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages, 200 Muratbayeva Str., 050022 Almaty, Kazakhstan. *Corresponding E-mail: noruzova.gul@yahoo.com

2. Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages, 200 Muratbayeva Str., 050022 Almaty, Kazakhstan. Email: bagilakh@yahoo.com