A neoliberal financial program and policies that attempt to attain
an economic and cultural integration (Mercosur) in Argentina constitute
a framework that has contributed to develop a new discourse that
consolidates, in citizens' conscience and behaviour, a compromised
attitude in the face of the phenomena of globalization. Such discourse
has grouped itself into textual classes aimed at intellectual
élites. It makes use of linguistic and cognitive tools
such as the metaphor, which give access to non specialists to
the concept of globalization and, at the same time, tend to become
persuasive tools as to the possible advantages (or disadvantages)
of the phenomena taking place.
In this way, a new axial system, which assigns certain values
to the process of globalization, is being used. A principle of
the ideology underlying the assignment of positive values to the
process is synthesised in the saying that claims that "I´d
rather be a lion´s rump than a mouse´s head".
In this context, the present paper attempts to: a) identify the metaphors (metonymy, synecdoche) which are related to the issue of globalization, in a corpus of popularised research texts (written press, journals on education, textbooks and handbooks) published in Argentina 1996-1998; b) describe the system of values underlying such figures of speech; c) identify possible prelocutionary objectives of such figures in argumentation. This study is based on a methodological framework of critical analysis of discourse (Rosas Caldas-Coulthard; Coulthard. 1996)), cognitive studies of metaphoricity (Lakoff; Johnson. 1978; Lakoff; Turner. 1989; Sweetser. 1990) and studies on metaphor and ideology (Judge. 1990; Rigotti. 1990; Dirven. 1990). To validate data of textual analysis, reading comprehension tests on a stratified sample of adults will be carried out.
ideology, metaphor, globalization, discourse analysis, argumentation
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