Death by Metaphor: A study of metaphors and conceptualisations of death in British and American obituaries

Abstract

In accordance with Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), this thesis explores the various metaphorical expressions for death found in British and American obituaries from September 2014, and analyses their source domains according to a classification scheme introduced by the researcher Bert Bultinck (1998). It further compares the source domains and their manifestations used in British English and American English to investigate whether death is mapped and conceptualised differently within the two varieties of English. The main findings show that the domain of movement is by far the most frequent source domain used in both varieties, followed by conceptualisations of death through the surviving families feelings towards the dead. The American obituaries are less varied in terms of both source domain and manifestation, and mainly focus on the two domains mentioned above, while British conceptualisations are more evenly distributed across eight general source domains. In addition, the American metaphors tend to be religiously based, while the British metaphors evaluate death as positive for the dead and negative for the living.