Advanced English II (BFE19013)

Media Discourse Analysis: Semantic Fields and Metaphor

Instructor: Miao Zhang 張淼

More techniques of analyzing the text

Warm-up:

“…thousands of illegal immigrants to sneak into Britain…” — Daily Star

“bogus asylum seekers have been allowed to pour into Britain to live off our taxes.” — The Sun

Warm-up: what did you notice?

Which words seem to belong together — same topic, same picture?
What picture of refugees and asylum seekers do they paint?
Nobody wrote anything explicitly insulting — so where does the judgement come from?

Part 1: Semantic fields

Semantic fields: words travel in packs

A semantic field = a set of words related in meaning, clustering around one topic or image.

You rarely find one loaded word alone — it arrives with its packmates.
The writer chooses fields — and the choice quietly builds the message.
Readers feel the picture without ever being told it outright.

The fields Baker et al. (2008) found

Semantic field	Examples from the UK press articles	Effect
Illegal entry	sneak into, break into, pour into Britain	newcomers = intruders
Number	thousands, massive, influx	an overwhelming quantity
Burden	live off our taxes, benefits bill	newcomers = a cost
Water	pour, flood, stream, wave	people = an uncontrollable liquid

Sorting collocates of refugees / asylum seekers into fields like these was step one of their CDA-corpus analysis.

One event, two fields (constructed example)

X: Strikers battle bosses as unions dig in …

Y: Workers seek a fair deal as talks continue …

One event, two fields (constructed example)

X — conflict field: battle, dig in → two armies, no compromise.
Y — fairness/negotiation field: fair deal, talks → reasonable people at a table.
Same facts. Different field, different blame.

And the missing fields?

In the refugee articles, ask not only which fields appear but which never do.

No field of skills, work, contribution — no picture of refugees doing anything.
No field of families, homes, safety — no picture of who they are.
Absence is evidence too — this is Lens 3 from our overview session.

How to find semantic fields

Underline the loaded words — repeated or vivid nouns and verbs.
Cluster them — which share a topic? Label each cluster.
Count the clusters — which field dominates? Which never appears?
Ask why — why this word from the field, not a neutral one? (sneak into vs. arrive in)

Corpus shortcut (preview)

Doing this by hand works for one article. For hundreds, corpus tools do the clustering for you:

keywords — the words that statistically over-represent this topic;
concordance lines — every occurrence with its context, ready to sort into fields.

Baker et al. (2008) did exactly this, then read the lines closely to interpret the fields.

Part 2: Metaphor

Metaphor: one thing said as another

Metaphor = an abstract thing talked about in the concrete terms of something else.

In the quotes above, pour makes people into water.

Water has no face, no voice, no rights — dehumanisation.
Water is out of control — the topos of number/threat .
The writer never said anything “bad” explicitly — the metaphor did the work.

One metaphor is a flourish; a pattern is a strategy

pour alone could be a coincidence.
pour, flood, stream, wave across many articles = a repeated metaphorical domain — a strategy, not a stylistic accident.
That strategy is predication (DHA strategy 2): it attaches qualities without ever stating them.

Metaphors you already live by (constructed everyday examples)

ARGUMENT IS WAR — defend your claim, attack a weakness, win a debate.
TIME IS MONEY — spend, save, invest, waste time.
THE ECONOMY IS A BODY / THE WEATHER — a healthy economy, markets are nervous, recovery, a slump.

Every metaphor highlights something and hides something. A war has winners and losers — is that what an argument is?

Metaphor analysis: three questions

What is talked about as what? (people as water; education as a race)
What does the source domain highlight — and what does it hide?
Who benefits from seeing it this way — and what wording would the other side choose?

Practice

Spot the fields

From CNA’s interactive feature “Walk the Line” — a Chinese family’s overland journey to the US via the Darién Gap.

Your task

Underline the loaded words; cluster them into semantic fields and label each field.
Identify the metaphorical domains — what is talked about as what?
Whose side is this text on — and how can you tell?

Feedback: the fields we found

Field	Examples from the article
Peril / death	perilous, ride into hell, scared to death, capsized, dead body, treacherous, harrowing
Crime / predation	smugglers, gangs, ambush, strip-searched, hostage, ransomed, predators
Money / business	packages, US$350–740/person, boom, trade, ecosystem, industry, bribes
Journey / quest	trek, odyssey, route, “Walk the Line”, “Promised Land”, “brave new world”
Family	Dad, Mum, Auntie Lan, Uncle Wang, children
Nature / water	jungle, flash flood, drifting boat, the flow of migrants

Feedback: the metaphor domains

MIGRATION AS EPIC QUEST — odyssey, Promised Land, brave new world (both ironically quoted: the ending is precarious).
MIGRANTS AS WATER — unstoppable flow: Baker et al.’s water domain — but inside a sympathetic story, not a hostile one.

Feedback: the metaphor domains

PEOPLE AS PREY — easy prey for human predators… herded into groups: danger comes from humans, not the migrants.
MIGRATION AS BUSINESS — trade, ecosystem, industry, packages with prices and difficulty tiers.

Feedback: whose side is it on?

Migrants speak in their own voices throughout; officials appear mostly as bribe-takers and abusers.
Same danger/water fields as the UK tabloids — opposite effect. A field is not “good” or “bad”; field + stance (perspectivation) do the work together.

Wrap-up

Keywords for today

Term	Plain meaning
Semantic field	Words from one meaning-area clustering in a text (battle, dig in vs. fair deal, talks)
Metaphor / metaphorical domain	Abstract said as concrete; a repeated domain = strategy (Baker et al. 2008)