Are religion metaphors anti‑revolutionary?

Abstract

This paper investigates the socio-political implications of sceptical metaphors in French discourse about the climate crisis. Existing literature has demonstrated the prevalence of religion metaphors in English sceptical discourse. Yet, in France, religious references in language use are limited as such references have been considered “anti-revolutionary” since the storming of the Bastille, in 1789. I thus ask to what extent sceptical metaphors in French climate crisis discourse differ from English sceptical metaphors. To this aim, I conduct a corpus-based study relying on texts published in the extreme-right wing French newspaper “Valeurs Actuelles”. The metaphors identified in this corpus are analysed so as to uncover the mini-narratives related to sceptical metaphor scenarios. Consistent with existing literature, the analysis establishes the prevalence of the religion scenario. However, the research highlights significant argumentative exploitations: metaphor users define the source concept according to cultural viewpoints on religion and ideological understanding of the religious lexicon. I demonstrate that religion metaphors prevail because associated source concepts (environmentalism as islam) are not conceived as being part of the domain of religion, according to these (extreme-right-wing) discourse producers.