The socio-parasite and bio-parasite metaphorical concepts in racist discourse
Małgorzata Waśniewska
University of WarsawAbstract
Defined as the transfer of meaning from one conceptual domain to another (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993), metaphors play a key role not only in the thought process, where they facilitate the understanding of complex concepts, as well as determine and shape people’s attitudes and perceptions of reality, but also in the way we speak, as they strongly influence the storage and organisation of information. The main aim of the paper is to identify and evaluate the people are parasites metaphor employed while referring to racial outgroups, and to review its different forms of usage on the white-supremacist Internet forum Stormfront.org according to the bio -parasite / socio-parasite categorisation framework proposed by Musolff (2016). The analysis of the metaphors unveils a slight target-dependant variation in the conceptual frame employed, which, in consequence, may influence the actions of forum users.Keywords:
Conceptual Metaphor Theory, socio-parasite, bio-parasite, racism, antisemitism, ideologyReferences
Bärsch, Claus-Ekkehard. 2002. Die politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus. Munich: Fink.
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 2006. Social parasites: How tramps, idle youth, and busy entrepreneurs impeded the soviet march to communism. Cahiers du Monde russe 47(1/2), 377–408.
Gray, Heather M., Gray Kurt and Daniel M. Wegner. 2007. Dimensions of mind perception. Science 315, 619.
Hodson, Gordon, Kteily Nour and Mark Hoffarth. 2014. Of filthy pigs and subhuman mongrels: dehumanization, disgust, and intergroup prejudice. TPM - Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology 21(3), 267-284.
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George. 1993. The contemporary theory of metaphor. In: Ortony, Andrew (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 202-251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Levin, Brian. 2003. Cyberhate. In: Perry, Barbara (ed.), Hate and Bias Crime: A Reader, 363-382. New York/London: Routledge.
Musolff, Andreas. 2007. What role do metaphors play in racial prejudice? The function of antisemitic imagery in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”. Patterns of Prejudice 41(1), 21-44.
Musolff, Andreas. 2016. Political Metaphor Analysis. Discourse and Scenarios. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Schaller, Mark and Justin H. Park. 2011. The behavioral immune system (and why it matters). Current Directions in Psychological Science 20, 99-103.
Smith, David Livingstone. 2011. Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Swain, Carol M. and Russ Nieli. 2003. Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thibodeau, Paul H., McClelland James L. and Lera Boroditsky. 2009. When a bad metaphor may not be a victimless crime: The role of metaphor in social policy. In: Taatgen, Niels and Hedderik van Rijn (eds.), Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 809-814. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Waytz, Adam, Epley Nicholas and John T. Carcioppo. 2010. Social cognition unbound: Insights into anthropomorphism and dehumanization. Current Directions in Psychological Science 19(1), 58–62.
Google Analytics
https://www.seethestats.com/site/stormfront.org (10 April 2017)
Hippler, Fritz. 1940. Der Ewige Jude.
https://archive.org/details/1940-Der-Ewige-Jude (10 April 2017).
Online Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=parasite&allowed_in_frame=0 (15 April 2017)
Stormfront.org (10 April 2017)
