Are (Polish) Politicians Out of this World? 59food as a vehicle ĺ folk metaphorical understanding of alimentary
processes ĺ transportation.
Despite its conceptual complexity, (2) provides access to universal
embodied experience and culturally-shared notions, and thus is
instantaneously interpretable for those familiar with current political
issues. By highlighting the aspects of imitativeness and absurdity, the
statement conveys its intended message in a compact form.
The scope and material
One intention of this analysis is to present linguistic traces of the
discursive exploitation of the conceptual domains of outer space in
expressing the critical perceptions of political performance in printed and
online media. For this reason, a corpus of linguistic evidence in the form
of citations including lexical exponents of relevant metaphorical mappings
has been collected from Polish press articles, blog posts, interviews,
political commentaries, internet forum posts in the years 2012, 2013 and
early 2014. While no quantitative claims are intended – this study is purely
qualitative in nature – the most frequent lexical exponents attested in the
corpus of 137 citations include: kometa (comet), gwiazda (star), orbita
(orbit), kosmos (space), silnik rakiety (engine of a spaceship), satelita
(satellite), ksiĊĪyc (moon), Mars, as well as verbs (and verbal phrases) of
motion, such as: wynieĞü na orbitĊ (place in orbit), dryfowaü (float/drift),
spaĞü z ksiĊĪyca (fall down from the moon), and lawirowaü (swerve).
The material encompasses primarily informal register characterized by
a high level of idiomaticity, and as such rich in metaphors. As Fabiszak
(2007: 71) observes, Polish political press commentaries exhibit features
of the ‘oral style’, which, more recently, with the direct access of the
public to the online media, results from an unprecedented participation of
average citizens who feel free now to have their own say. This has a direct
reflection in the language of the public discourse, its conversational
character full of emotionally loaded words, and provides a valuable
material for an investigation into metaphorical underpinnings. These are,
in fact readily exploited by their authors, who – not infrequently – choose
to structure whole passages around the theme of space travel, as in:
decades, the latter and more recent metaphor seems to enjoy popularity with
disgruntled citizens who apply it in Internet posts commenting on current affairs.