Negotiating is cooking: a discourse study through conceptual metaphor
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Abstract
In Chile, during Michelle Bachelet's second term (2014–2018), the metaphor of the ‘political kitchen’, used to refer to negotiations surrounding the new tax reform, gained prominence in political and media discourse. Ten years later, in 2024, this metaphor resurfaced in public discourse to describe secret meetings between ministers of President Gabriel Boric and businesspeople, along with other private actors. This qualitative study aims to evaluate the ‘kitchen’ metaphor as a discursive event in the mediated political discourse of the two aforementioned moments, through the lens of conceptual metaphor theory. The Metaphor Identification Procedure (Pragglejaz Group, 2007) was employed to analyze journalistic texts, considering the discursive context and mappings between source and target domains. The results reveal two opposing perspectives on the kitchen metaphor: one critical, emphasizing secrecy and exclusion, and another that legitimizes the metaphor as a necessary tool for political negotiation. The study concludes that this metaphor articulates ideological tensions surrounding transparency and legitimacy, highlighting its power to structure narratives and shape public perception.
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References
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