Page 174 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 174
What Do We Know about the World?
satisfied with the EU membership. The use of the Union’s financial aid
is seen as one of the greatest benefits of the integration. A majority of the
Poles are in favour of the EU, and place a lot of trust in it and its institu-
tions – 74 % of the Poles declare trust in the EU, although they have rela-
tively scant knowledge of its institution at the same time (CBOS, 2009).
Maybe a following principle is in operation here – I trust the one who
brings benefits to me and if everything goes well, I do not need to go into
the details of the operation. The Euro zone crisis and the fiscal pact draft
indicate the fallacy of that approach. We must still remember that the
addressees of the public speeches are the people for whom the Union is
still a certain abstract being.
The opposition, according to its basic argumentative strategy, pro-
claiming that the government’s activities led/ are leading to the partial
loss of sovereignty, is using the metaphor of a client or sidekick. Poland
– as the audience should read that image – gives up its role as an active
player, an important actor in the international scene, and the aspirations
of the rulers are limited to the winning of favours from the powerful pa-
tron.
Polish politicians also use typical imagery concerning movement.
The economy is a living organism which can “get winded”, or it may
“slow down”, and venture capital can “get rampant”. Also the metaphor
depicting the EU as a vehicle is connected with movement. The vehi-
cle must be “prevented from skidding”, therefore Poland should act as a
“driver of change” and not as “a brakeman”. The brakeman – he is a pop-
ular character in the Polish political discourse, most frequently the pres-
ident is accused of being one when he vetoes the bills.
It is worth pondering on the source domains of the heretofore men-
tioned metaphors. Generally they are closer to the everyday (or even
closer – the physical) experience than more abstract target domains.
Both the Union and the crisis are the abstract notions. Hence the meta-
phors used by politicians serve cognitive purposes to a large degree; they
help to establish a certain structure, as it happens to be in the analyz-
ed case – the rather ill-defined crisis. The metaphors of the building,
of a natural disaster or a feast are naturally much closer to the everyday
experience of the audiences. The only exception is the metaphor of the
boat/ship – navigation is not a commonplace in Poland, but the famil-
iar nature of this activity is the result of the linguistic idiom. As I have
mentioned already, the topos of the motherland as a boat/ship is one of
those most often used in Polish literature, which is the basis of school
education, therefore those images are immediately recognized as such.
satisfied with the EU membership. The use of the Union’s financial aid
is seen as one of the greatest benefits of the integration. A majority of the
Poles are in favour of the EU, and place a lot of trust in it and its institu-
tions – 74 % of the Poles declare trust in the EU, although they have rela-
tively scant knowledge of its institution at the same time (CBOS, 2009).
Maybe a following principle is in operation here – I trust the one who
brings benefits to me and if everything goes well, I do not need to go into
the details of the operation. The Euro zone crisis and the fiscal pact draft
indicate the fallacy of that approach. We must still remember that the
addressees of the public speeches are the people for whom the Union is
still a certain abstract being.
The opposition, according to its basic argumentative strategy, pro-
claiming that the government’s activities led/ are leading to the partial
loss of sovereignty, is using the metaphor of a client or sidekick. Poland
– as the audience should read that image – gives up its role as an active
player, an important actor in the international scene, and the aspirations
of the rulers are limited to the winning of favours from the powerful pa-
tron.
Polish politicians also use typical imagery concerning movement.
The economy is a living organism which can “get winded”, or it may
“slow down”, and venture capital can “get rampant”. Also the metaphor
depicting the EU as a vehicle is connected with movement. The vehi-
cle must be “prevented from skidding”, therefore Poland should act as a
“driver of change” and not as “a brakeman”. The brakeman – he is a pop-
ular character in the Polish political discourse, most frequently the pres-
ident is accused of being one when he vetoes the bills.
It is worth pondering on the source domains of the heretofore men-
tioned metaphors. Generally they are closer to the everyday (or even
closer – the physical) experience than more abstract target domains.
Both the Union and the crisis are the abstract notions. Hence the meta-
phors used by politicians serve cognitive purposes to a large degree; they
help to establish a certain structure, as it happens to be in the analyz-
ed case – the rather ill-defined crisis. The metaphors of the building,
of a natural disaster or a feast are naturally much closer to the everyday
experience of the audiences. The only exception is the metaphor of the
boat/ship – navigation is not a commonplace in Poland, but the famil-
iar nature of this activity is the result of the linguistic idiom. As I have
mentioned already, the topos of the motherland as a boat/ship is one of
those most often used in Polish literature, which is the basis of school
education, therefore those images are immediately recognized as such.
