Glaubenskämpfe and Himmelfahrtskommandos: metaphors in German media discourse on inclusion

Abstract

The traditional German school system is characterized by its high degree of selectivity. Nevertheless, in 2008, Germany has committed to an inclusive education system. This decision led to a controversial debate in the media, which continues up to this day. From the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics (CL), there can be stated a considerable use of war and religious metaphors in this media debate. Within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the present paper analyzes these metaphorical phenomena based on Conceptual Integration Theory. The corpus is composed of articles published in four online newspapers of national importance between 2011 and 2015.