Metaphor in Political Discourse: The Case of the `Common European House'

Abstract

The metaphor of the `common European house' appeared in political discourse in several European languages in the late 1980s. Political discourse, usually treated in a domestic single-language perspective, is here examined in a trans-national and trans-linguistic one. A model of such political discourse as a kind of `conversation' is proposed, as well as a framework for the analysis of metaphor that combines a cognitive and a discourse approach. Using this framework, sample texts from Russian, German and French sources are analysed in order to obtain an understanding of how the metaphor passed between linguistic and political cultures.