The Immersion Stage in Summary
Feature 8: Metaphor
In a business context, Koller (2003: 88–89) argues that weak or dead metaphors, nevertheless, give additional weight to dominant themes.
Further, the distinction between live, dead and dormant metaphors is not always easy to defi ne. As is the case in much linguistic analysis (e.g. the identifi cation of genres) prototypical examples are clear, but much other identifi cation and categorisation can be a matter of judgement.
In the BP texts, metaphors either belonged to a recurrent group (e.g.
the common group BUSINESS IS WAR) or were one-off usages. In the case of recurrent groups, I included all three categories of live, dormant and dead metaphors, on the grounds that dead metaphors may still sup- port a particular metaphorical line of thought in a congruent way.
Findings from the BP Data
Table 10.2 shows the frequency of metaphorical uses from 2010 to 2012.
A frequency count is a relatively superfi cial way of investigating meta- phor, but a number of interesting changes were evident over the period of the data, which formed part of the evidence for wider patterns. Th ese were:
Table 10.2 The occurrence of metaphors in the 2010–12 BP texts
2010 2011 2012 OIL SPILL IS MALEVOLENT/WILD CREATURE 23 0 3 FINANCIAL ITEMS MOVE IN SPACE 20 39 4 WEATHER IS ANIMATE 9 0 0 Metaphors in source domain of MYTHS AND LEGENDS 1 4 8 BUSINESS IS SPORT 1 10 8 BUSINESS IS A JOURNEY 0 1 15
BUSINESS IS WAR 0 12 7
OIL IS WATER 0 0 6
Metaphors in source domain of THEATRE AND ART 0 2 5 Metaphors in source domain of CRIME 0 0 5 BUSINESS GROWTH IS LIKE BUILDING 0 6 4 BUSINESS GROWTH IS ORGANIC 0 1 2
COMPANY IS HUMAN 0 4 2
Other live metaphors 4 8 23 Other dormant metaphors 14 37 50 Other dead metaphors 14 26 41
Totals 86 150 183
Totals per 000 words 9.5 21.4 25.8
1. Th e occurrence of metaphors of all kinds increased over the span of the data.
2. Th e source and target domains changed over the span of the data.
Firstly, the general rise in frequency of metaphorical usage may have a number of drivers. Studies indicate (e.g. Krennemayr, 2011) that news writing is quite metaphorical, and that, if anything, hard news writing uses more metaphor than soft news. Th ese fi ndings relating to occur- rence of metaphor run counter to my own analysis of the BP texts, where the pattern of text type shifts from primarily news and fi nancial reports (Krennemayr’s “hard news”) towards evaluative writing such as editorials, travel pages, reviews, letters, business articles and personal blogs, which are more aligned to her defi nition of “soft news”. Th e shift is not whole- sale, but Krennemayr’s fi ndings would predict a drop, rather than a rise in metaphor. Since I fi nd that genre is an important explanatory factor for linguistic movement in this BP corpus over the three-year period, and since Krennemayr’s work is relevant, providing a specifi c review of how metaphor works in news within a substantial corpus, it is worth taking this apparent discrepancy seriously. It would seem that both the higher incidence of metaphor in Krennemayr’s texts and the higher incidence of metaphor in hard news compared with soft news can largely be explained by a single categorisation diff erence. Krennemayr takes the formulation ORGANISATION FOR MEMBERS to be a metaphor, which she labels personifi cation. Indeed, she cites this as being a key explanation for the
“unexpected result” (2011: 123) of the relative overuse of verbs in their metaphorical sense in news. I classify such usages as metonymy, with the justifi cation that they signify a whole–part relation, and in doing this I follow Chandler (2007) and Cornelissen (2008). If this category were added into the analysis of metaphor, it would certainly change the pat- tern to be more in line with Krennemayr’s expected behaviour for the data. Her overall point remains very pertinent to this work, namely, that news writing is highly metaphorical, and that metaphor has a number of functions that are specifi c to the genre—including making complex or abstract concepts more accessible to the reader, a cohesive function to create a satisfying whole, a rhetorical persuasive function and a way of creating humorous eff ects (Krennemayr, 2011).
Secondly, there is noticeable change in the clusters of metaphors that appear regularly. Target domains in 2010 are the oil spill itself, the weather and fi nancial items such as shares and profi ts. Both the oil spill and the weather are represented through metaphor as animate, threaten- ing or uncontrolled.
Louisiana-based BP spokesman Neil Chapman said 49 vessels—oil skim- mers, tugboats, barges and special recovery boats that separate oil from water—are working to round up oil as the spill area continues to expand.
(Carleton Place (Canada), 27.4.2010)
Th e sunken BP and Transocean oil rig is spewing 42,000 gallons of crude a day. (NewsWatch: Energy, 27.4.2010)
And the Coast Guard unfortunately admitting that no matter how much cooperation they get from the currents as well as the winds, it probably will not be able to stop that 1800-mile slick from splashing onto shore by the weekend. (CNN, 27.4.2010)
By 2011, targets remain fi nancial items, given the fi rst quarter results, but metaphors relating to business become more predominant, particularly those that off er a combative view of business, using the source domains WAR and SPORT. Th is was found in context to relate mainly to BP’s business struggles one year after Deepwater Horizon, which concern not only the oil spill, but also other diffi culties such as BP’s business deal- ings in Russia. By 2012, as 27 April does not fall on results day, fi nancial texts have dropped in number and proportion, and related metaphors are greatly reduced. Business is still a target for metaphorical expressions, and those relating to WAR and SPORT are still in evidence, although there are fewer, and in the area of business some alternative metaphorical constructions have emerged in the areas of business growth and business conceived as a JOURNEY.
Various metaphors for business growth have been identifi ed in litera- ture, including parenting (Dodd, 2002) building (Dodd, 2002; White, 2003) and organic growth. Within the 2012 data set, examples of the BUILDING metaphor appear, in phrases such as the following.
Building brands through behaviour. (Campaign Middle East, 27.4.2012, my emphasis)
Shell turned a profi t of $7.7bn (nearly £5bn) in the fi rst three months of this year and the trading performance will buttress already good market sentiment around its recommended acquisition of Cove. (Th e Scotsman, 27.4.2012, my emphasis)
Th e examples above are rather conventional usages, and only indirectly related to the BP events: in the fi rst case the metaphor refers to a theoreti- cal or hypothetical brand (advice for building a brand: don’t do what BP did!), and in the second to BP rival Shell.
Th is widening of application is true of the other cluster of business metaphors that are more conspicuous in 2012, namely, BUSINESS IS A JOURNEY. Of the 15 instances of the metaphor identifi ed in 2012, only one refers to BP itself, and this is the third shown below.
Brands that embrace this new honest and responsible world have an excit- ing future. And agencies that can help their clients understand, navigate and deliver in this new world will be more important than ever. (Campaign Middle East, 27.4.2012, my emphasis)
Th e next step is to fi nd the idea that can be used as a strategic compass not only to communicate this externally but also to galvanise the organisation itself. An idea that lies between the two biggest trends impacting business today: social responsibility and social media. (Campaign Middle East, 27.4.2012, my emphasis)
Th e troubled energy major, which is seeking to move on from the US Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster in 2010, had returned to profi t last year with net annual earnings of $23.9 billion. (Agence France Presse, 27.4.2012, my emphasis)
Once again these metaphors are conventional, but I suggest that choice of conventional metaphors can still be telling. Th e third extract above refers specifi cally to BP, “the troubled energy major”, proposing that busi- nesses need to move on from crisis situations. It would be reasonable to assume that BP, and other oil companies mentioned, could still be por- trayed as “battling”, “manoeuvring” and “using weapons”, but there is a more “questing”, “building”, “pathfi nding” tone to the metaphors used by 2012. Milne et al. (2006) explore the JOURNEY metaphor in the context of business writing on sustainability, fi nding that in that context,
the metaphor depicts a journey without a destination, and hypothesising that the journey metaphor is a useful device for avoiding commitment to a defi nite end goal. It is possible that a similar ambiguity is relevant in speculation on the future of BP post-Deepwater Horizon.
Similarly interesting is the emergence of MYTH AND LEGEND as a source domain in the 2012 texts. Th e concept of myth and legend is realised in the following examples:
Attendees of the United States Energy Association’s (USEA’s) membership meeting, taking place simultaneously at the Washington DC-based club, were invited to listen in as the Secretary blasted unnamed Washington insiders for perpetrating “fairy tales” about imagined obstacles to oil and gas drilling and expansion on US off shore and onshore federal properties.
(Foster Natural Gas/Oil Report, 27.4.2012, my emphasis)
“Like presidents of both parties before him, however,” Mr. Coll writes,
“he lacked the depth of conviction, the political coalitions and the scien- tifi c vision to do more than toss relative pennies into a wishing fountain .”
(Th e New York Times, 27.4.2012, my emphasis)
Th ese metaphors are not about BP’s progress itself, but appear in co-text.
It would be overburdening the fi ndings to suggest that the metaphors of journey, myth and art somehow recontextualise our perception of the BP events. However, these metaphor clusters, emerging as they do in 2012, may be a small part of a general pattern that places the BP into a less concrete and more abstract context.
In Summary
Th ere is evidence to suggest that the use of metaphor within the BP texts increases. Th is is a slightly unusual pattern, given that news reports in particular are held to be highly metaphorical, but can partly be explained by an overlap in defi nitions of metaphor and metonym. Th e other change is in metaphor domains, where metaphors relating to the uncontrollable weather and oil spill give way to metaphors in the domains of journey, myth and legend, which add a diff erent (more symbolic) dimension to the BP story, albeit to a limited extent.
© Th e Author(s) 2017 179
J. Gravells, Semiotics and Verbal Texts, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58750-3_11