A contrastive study of metaphors in Brexit discourse, in communications produced by Theresa May and Boris Johnson, and in parliamentary debates during their premierships

Metaphors have been shown to play an important role in persuasion in political communication. The interest of this study lies in a comparative perspective of Brexit-related metaphors produced in institutional contexts during the premierships of Theresa May and Boris Johnson. While Brexit has attracted a substantial body of research due to its political significance, particularly during the referendum campaign stage, the development of metaphor use in post-referendum government discourse across different leaderships warrants further exploration through comparative analysis. This allows an examination of both continuity and variation in the metaphorical portrayal of key Brexit-related topics. In doing so, it also sheds light on how metaphors appear to encode speakers’ evaluations in Brexit discourse. This thesis draws on the analytical tools of systematic metaphor and metaphor scenario to analyse metaphors and their associated evaluative stances. Methodologically, it employs corpus linguistics to determine key topics within the two corpora and to examine the frequency and significant collocates of the metaphors identified.

The findings show that both pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit actors frequently used metaphors to construct arguments aligned with their respective stances throughout the Brexit process under the leaderships of the two Prime Ministers. The presence of shared frequent metaphors, systematic metaphors, and metaphor scenarios points to a degree of commonality in metaphorical framings and related narratives and ideological constructions across the two governments, as illustrated by examples such as the systematic metaphor BREXIT IS AN INVESTMENT and the metaphorical depiction of “Global Britain”. Meanwhile, differences in metaphor lemmas and their frequencies within certain systematic metaphors, metaphor scenarios, and key topics reflect shifts in the thematic emphasis of Brexit discourse across the two administrations, shaped by the distinct stages of the Brexit process confronting each government.