METAPHORICAL CONSTRUCTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PAKISTANI AND AMERICAN POLITICAL SPEECHES
Keywords:
American Politics, Comparative Analysis, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Human Rights Discourse, Metaphorical Framing, Pakistani PoliticsAbstract
This research shows that how political leader use metaphor in their speeches when discussing Human rights. Although, Human rights are universal right but understand and express differently across different cultures. Using conceptual metaphor theory, developed by Lakoff and Johnson, this research analyses four major political speeches delivered between the time period 2021 to 2025, two from Pakistan (Imran Khan and Shahbaz Sharif) and two from American leaders (Joe Biden and Donald Trump). This research identifies metaphorical pattern as Pakistani leader predominantly use religious and emotional metaphor while framing rights as divine responsibility and national struggle. Meanwhile, American leaders emphasize war, and journey metaphors framing right as community responsibility and collective progress. This comparative analysis shows that supposedly universal human rights language is fundamentally shaped by culturally specific metaphorical frameworks.
Downloads
References
Baldi, B. (2020). Persuasion we live by: symbols, metaphors, and linguistic strategies. uaderni Di Linguistica E Studi Orientali, 6, 337–382. https://doi.org/10.13128/qulso-2421-7220-9706.
Bratož. (2015). Metaphors in political discourse from a cross-cultural perspective.
Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis.
ELENA SEMINO, Z. D. (2016). An Integrated Approach to Metaphor and Framing in Cognition, Discourse, and Practice, with an Application to Metaphors for Cancer. applied Linguistics 2018: 39/5: 625–645.
George Lakoff, M. J. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.
Howe, N. (1988). In Metaphor in Contemporary American Political Discourse, Nicholas Howe (1988). Taylor & Francis, Inc., 530 Walnut Street, Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106.
Johnson, B. L. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press: Language and Linguistics: General Language and Linguistics, Philosophy of Language.
Johnson, L. A. (1980). Metaphor we live by.
Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation.
Lakoff, G. (1993). The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed., pp. 202–251). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173865.013.
Lapka, O. (2021). Language of Persuasion: Analysis of Conceptual Metaphors in Political Discourse. Universidad de Jaén.
Lapka, O. (2021). Metaphor in political discourse: A review of selected studies. International Journal of English and Literature.
Malghani, Mehwish, Discursive Functioning of Parts of Speech in Political Parties’ Manifestos in Pakistani Election 2013 (2019). Pakistan Perspectives, Vol. 24, No.1, January-June 2019 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3549166. (n.d.).
Rani, H. A. (2023). The use of Religious, Historical, and Primary Metaphors in Pakistani Political Speeches.
Rasul2, L. U. (2017). Critical Metaphor Analysis: Nawaz Sharif and the Myth of a Golden Time. NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry Vol 15(II) December, 2017 ISSN 2222-5706.
Saeed, H. R. (2024). The Power of Language: Exploring the Role of Language in Politics. International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), 8(08), 2063-2073. https://doi.org/https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2024.8080152.
Woods, K. N. (2022). War, Love, and Journe e, and Journeys: A Comparative Analysis of Conceptual e Analysis of Conceptual. Theses and Dissertations. 9611.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Sehr Rana, Zeenish Huma (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
