Definition:
A group or series of metaphors (or figurative comparisons) that rely on the same image, condition, or event (the source domain) to convey a particular idea or experience (the target domain). See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "Although it appears more stylistic than argumentative, metaphor is another association playing a vital role in furthering the Wired [magazine] mind-set. Metaphors are collapsed analogies in which conceptual fusion can be effected in a single word. One metaphorical cluster in Wired is that of the 'race.' For example, as one CEO interviewed for an essay observed, 'When you're faced with a disruptive new technology, you've got to recognize its implications more quickly or--like the dinosaur--you'll watch the mammals eat your eggs' (Bayers, 1998, p. 168). In many write-ups about product development and corporate decision making, writers imply that the first person or company to the market with a new idea or product will succeed. Making the most of one's opportunities is therefore essential."
(Barbara Warnick, Critical Literacy in a Digital Era: Technology, Rhetoric, and the Public Interest. Larence Erlbaum, 2002) - "[President Franklin] Roosevelt first described fear metaphorically, as a curable disease that some were yet to 'recover' from. In the following sentence fear took on a battle metaphor, depicted as a 'phantom' soon to be 'laid.' Roosevelt was the physician who would heal the nation from the disease of fear. He was also the fearless leader who would slay fear forever. Health, vigor, and fearlessness were the attributes Roosevelt assigned to himself in the midst of the banking crisis. He had used the metaphorical cluster of health and vigor for the past eight years, primarily to overcome the perception that his physical disability would impede political potential."
(Amos Kiewe, FDR's First Fireside Chat: Public Confidence and the Banking Crisis. Texas A&M University Press, 2007) - "[M]etaphors do not in a simple way represent or reveal a deeper culture or hidden structure. Their use enacts such a structure. Their power comes in the systems deployed, not in something outside or beyond them. The presence of military metaphors in an organization does not reveal militaristic thinking or necessitate centralized control. Rather, the use of metaphors implements a manner of distinguishing people and events, unities and oppositions. The repetitive use of a metaphorical cluster is nothing more or less than that. Counting the number of a particular type of metaphor in a text tells us virtually nothing. Without locating the particular situational deployment, we could not tell whether the same word implemented the same set of distinctions or what the system of control was like. For example, extremely tight conformity can be set in play with team and family metaphors as well as with military ones. The move in the particular system of relations rather than what is external to them is the key to the analysis. Metaphors implement power relations, but they also provide opportunity for elaboration, clarification, and resistance."
(Stanley Deetz, Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization: Developments in Communication and the Politics of Everyday Life. SUNY Press, 1992)
