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Bidenian and Harrisian Metaphors: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ Political Discourse
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This research analyzes some political leaders’ discourse which aims to achieve the objective of persuading their audience to align with their respective viewpoints and policies. Applying the Conceptual Metaphor Theory by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and guided by the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis by Fairclough (1995), this study examines a corpus of 40 speeches delivered by each of US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The analysis uncovers a recurrent utilization of metaphors grounded in the domain of life, such as "LIFE IS A BATTLEFIELD," "LIFE IS A JOURNEY," and "LIFE IS A GAME" by Biden. Similarly, Harris frequently employs "LIFE IS A BATTLEFIELD," which conveys attributes of resilience and fortitude, reflecting her capacity as Vice President. Furthermore, the analysis identifies another prevailing conceptual metaphor, "AMERICA IS A PERSON," by Harris. These metaphorical expressions operate as persuasive tools, facilitating the transmission of their respective political ideologies.
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Role-play is a communicative technique that encourages students to use and understand English in a situation, something traditional methods and grammar translation cannot achieve.
“It is a communicative technique that encourages students to use and understand English in a situation, something that traditional methods and grammar translation cannot achieve (Alwagfi, Aljawarneh, & Alomari, 2020; Alzboon, Alqaraleh, Aljarrah, & Alomari, 2022; Amaireh & Rababah, 2024).”
From An Experimental Study of the Effectiveness of Role-play in Improving Fluency in Jordanian EFL Students' Speaking Skills (2025) · cites this paper as Amaireh & Rababah, 2024
The Data collection section describes how the paper identifies metaphors in Biden’s and Harris’s speeches, while the Conclusion discusses their political language. Searches for role-play, communicative teaching, and grammar translation found no passage addressing the claimed comparison of teaching methods. No page numbers were available in the indexed passages. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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Research works printed but not linked: 24
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- Amaireh, Hanan A. 2023. Biden's Rhetoric: A Corpus-Based Study of the Political Speeches of the American President Joe Biden. Theory and Practice in Language Studies 13 (3): 728-735. doi:10.17507/tpls.1303. · DOI
- Amaireh, Hanan, and Luqman Rababah. 2022. Rhetorical Discourse Analysis of Biden's Address to the Nation on Afghanistan: Positive Us and Negative Them. Journal of Positive School Psychology 6 (8): 908-18.
- Atkins, Scott, Ashley Mote, Kimberly Gonzalez, and Krystal Alexander. 2020. "No Sympathy for the Bully: A Metaphor Analysis of Two Speeches on the Topic of Immigration." Metaphor and the Social World 10 (1): 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.19001.atk. · DOI
- Baby, Sumera, and Uzma Afzal. 2020. Pragmatic Analysis of Joe Biden's Victory Speech 2020. PalArch's Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology 17 (8): 1148-58.
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- Ghoushchi, Shafagh, Hooshang Yazdani, Hamidreza Dowlatabadi, and Moussa Ahmadian. 2021. A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Pictures in ELT Textbooks: Modes of Communication in Focus. Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures 13 (4): 623-644.
- Johnson, Carol. 2022. Feeling Protected: Protective Masculinity and Femininity from Donald Trump and Joe Biden to Jacinda Ardern. Emotions and Society 4 (1): 7-26. https://doi.org/10.1332/263169021x16310949038420. · DOI
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Rababah, L. M. (2025) · World Journal of English Language · doi:10.5430/wjel.v15n4p30 · Cited by 12
Self-citationRababah, L. M., Alqaryouti, M. H., Huwari, I. F., Alruzzi, K., & Al-Khasawneh, F. M. (2025) · Forum for Linguistic Studies · doi:10.30564/fls.v7i1.7538 · Cited by 2
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Metadata
- Authors
- Amaireh, H. A., & Rababah, L. M.
- Affiliations
- Philadelphia University (JO)
- Jadara University (JO)
- Venue
- Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures
- Publisher
- Yarmouk University
- Published
- 2024
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 651-671
- ISSN
- 1994-6953 (ISSN-L)
- 2304-8069
- OpenAlex
- W4406934956
- Cited by
- 3
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 1
- FWCI
- 1.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literature (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Cultural and political discourse analysis
- Social Sciences › Communication › Rhetoric and Communication Studies
- Keywords
- conceptual metaphor, political discourse, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, presidential speeches, persuasion, life as a journey, political ideology
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