Analysis of Baby-Boom Promoting Billboards in Iran
283covered path would metaphorically mean resuming the procreation
promotion law enforced in the 1980s.
The supreme leader uses a novel source domain to describe the
inattentiveness of the authorities to the overextension of the procreation
restriction policy:
(4) Hadd e zad ovala dar jameye ma chist? Man eshareh kardam. Yek tasmim e
zamandar va niazmand be zaman o maghtai ra entekhab kardim, bad zamanash
yademan raft. Masalan farz konid be shoma beguyand agha in shir e a bra yek
saat baz konid bad shoma shir ra baz koni o beravi. Maha raftim, ghafel
shodim, dah sal, panzdah sal (www.khamenei.ir 14/10/2012).
‘What is the limit of reproduction? I already pointed it out. We took a decision
[to be implemented] for a certain time period [to restrict procreation]. Then, we
forgot the timing. For example, imagine you are told to open the tap for one
hour and then you do it and go away. We went away. We ignored it for 10- 15
years.’What may have motivated the use of WATER CONSUMPTION METHODS
as the source domain is that water is considered a precious commodity and
overconsumption of it leads to a great deal of loss in humans lives. On the
other hand, within the last two decades, Iranian authorities have attempted
to advertise and popularize the optimal ways of water consumption due to
the drought inflicted on many parts of the country. In the METHODS OF
FAMILY PLANNING ARE WATER CONSUMPTION METHODS metaphor, a
sequence of actions and events within the source domain are brought into
correspondence with the target domain of FAMILY PLANNING METHODS.
Inappropriateness of the previous policy, as Ayatollah Khamenei has
pointed out in his speeches (www.khamenei.ir 10/10/2012), lies not in the
execution of the plan itself at the time, but rather, in neglecting the due
time when the plan should have been stopped. The negligence of the
authorities is metaphorically conceptualized as leaving the tap open and
going away. Considering the time limit (and the consequences of not
paying attention to it, by entailment) is the theme of the metaphor and the
central aspect of the target domain onto which the corresponding aspect in
the source is mapped. Timing in both consuming water and procreation
restriction is crucially important and in both, inattentiveness to the timing
causes damage to people and society.
Another important point in the supreme leader’s speeches on this topic
is the use of the first person plural mâ ‘we’ while criticizing the authorities
involved in performing the population restriction plan which indicates that
he considers himself as part of the allegedly mistaken decisions regarding