Metaphors in German newspaper articles on multidrug-resistant bacteria in clinical contexts, 1995–2015

Abstract

The study investigates the usage of metaphorical structures in the German press discourse on multi-resistant pathogens in the clinical context by applying methods of qualitative discourse analysis to a corpus of 900 newspaper and magazine articles published between 1995–2015. The study shows that metaphors are of key importance for the processes of knowledge transfer, emotion production and persuasion. Metaphors are assigned to one of three general principles (mechanising explanation patterns, gain and loss of control, agentivity and personification) and to seven dominant source domains which structure the discourse through frequent argumentation structures: war, economy, space, machines, water, police and crime, sports and games. The occurrence of metaphor is – as previous research in other areas has shown – universal to all examined press texts; variation is limited to the thematic focus of individual argumentation structures between the different texts.