GREEN ENERGY IN THE LIGHT OF METAPHORS AND METONYMIA IN ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY DISCOURSES

Abstract: In studies of human cognition, metaphor is no longer seen as belonging to the field of literature. It can be seen as a cognitive manifestation of language. The main objective of this study is to investigate the conceptual construction of environmental sustainability from the semantic analysis of the conceptual metaphors that constitute it, as well as to assess the contribution of these metaphors to the linguistic argument in these texts. For this purpose, it is adopted as methodological bias the collection of a linguistic corpus from of Brazilian and Portuguese newspapers texts focused on environmental sustainability for the realization of a linguistic-discursive analysis of cognitive nature and qualitative and quantitative nature. From the qualitative results obtained, we can access the argumentative conceptual tools which are called for the persuasion of the common reader on the improvement of the practices of protection of the environmental resources. There is also the constitution of an epiddical discourse in the sense of exaltation to natural resources and the need to produce clean energy. Metaphors and metonymies act as strategic tools, listed according to the designs of Lakoff / Johnson’s conceptual metaphor model (1980/2003). Pragglejaz group’s (2007) Metaphor identification procedure (MIP) analysis method was used to identify metaphors in a corpus and Charteris-Black’s Critical Metaphor Analysis (2004) to identify the statistical resonance of the main conceptual domains found in these. The results indicate that the conceptual metaphor can be identified as part of the argument of these texts and there are more activated conceptual domains than others. It is concluded that metaphors on this environmental theme are used as part of the conceptual system and for persuasive purposes.

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