Metaphor, football and violence in Minas Gerais, Brazil

Abstract

This paper presents metaphorical as well as metonymical language which emerged in discursive interactions among participants when they talked about violence and soccer in Minas Gerais, Brazil. We take a discourse dynamics approach to metaphor that holds that the metaphors people use in talk reflect their emotions, values and understandings. The analysis is focussed on data gathered from the discourse produced by a focus group discussion in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Our research question is how do participants use figurative language when they talk about violence and soccer? We adopted metaphor-led discourse analysis (CAMERON et al., 2009), which enables us to reflect on the way how Brazilians face situations of violence related to soccer and the figurative language they use in order to conceptualize violence.