LLS2016- Thailand Napaporn panomrit

1. Use of Metaphors in
Conceptualizing Healthcare
Policy Covering Obama’s
Affordable Care Act Speeches
Napaporn Panomrit,
Department of English, University of Phayao,
Thailand
E-mail: classgirl76@gmail.com

2. Introduction
OThe art of political oratory has been
studied and promoted since the time of
the birth of democracy in ancient Greece.
OThis tool aims at convincing citizens of
the merits of specific policies, boosting
morale particularly during an economic
downturn, and seeking the largest
amount of support from these voters.

3. Introduction (cont’d)
OIn order to achieve these goals with
prominent policy issues, any political
leader will need to carefully weigh and
polish his/her words and figures of
speech in order to achieve strategic
goals.
OSuch strategic goals within the USA
included the introduction of guaranteed
medical care to everyone who became ill.

4. Introduction (cont’d)
OAccording to Capone, (2011), in 2009
America was the only developed country
that did not have such provision. Despite
six legislative attempts over the course of
the twentieth-century to, most notably
during the Clinton Presidency, none of
them succeeded in overcome this
problem, and delivering on this hallmark
of democracy.

5. Introduction (cont’d)
OIn March 23, 2010, President Obama
signed into law the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act, guaranteeing access
to health insurance for all Americans.
OThe new legislation creates a duty for
individuals to obtain health insurance and
government responsibility to help subsidize
the cost of insurance for those unable to
pay the full price (Burnes, 2011).

6. Introduction (cont’d)
OThe political stakes were extremely high
for Obama, and therefore he needed all
the linguistic tools of political discourse to
effectively deliver keynote speeches.
ONot only is he the president of a powerful
country, nation at a particular time in
history, but Obamacare has also been his
signature policy.

7. Introduction (cont’d)
OThe healthcare speeches are of great
significance not only to him individually, but
also to his party and the nation at a particular
time in history.
OHis use of metaphor in other key speeches
such as the two inaugural ones, those
concerned with the economic state of
America, and his approach Middle Eastern
policy have been the object of scholarly
research (Scacco, 2009, Charteris-Black,
2011 and Lakoff, 2013).

8. Introduction (cont’d)
OHis speeches on healthcare before the
enactment of the law have also been
analyzed for their use of metaphors (Lakoff,
2012).
OHowever, less attention has been focused on
how these speeches are analyzed since the
Affordable Care Act came into effect and how
his use of metaphors in these speeches,
structure the ways in which healthcare policy
is conceptualized as well as debated (Lee,
2004).

9. Introduction (cont’d)
O In the present contribution, we investigate the
occurrence of metaphor in these healthcare
speeches delivered by President Barack Obama
and the way metaphors are used in his public
discourse.
O As we shall see, Obama had a vivid rhetoric and
employed metaphors to persuade Americans that
his signature legislation, otherwise called
Obamacare, was appropriate for Americans. The
metaphors were also used to defend his policies
and political opponents.

10. Problem Statement, Research
Objectives and Research Questions
OThe use of metaphors has been established
as a fundamental tool for effective
communication and explanation of policy.
They frame arguments and suggest particular
conclusions. All leaders, including business
managers and military generals, have used
metaphors over the years to pass their
message to their followers, fellow citizens and
enemies.

11. Problem Statement, Research Objectives
and Research Questions (cont’d)
OHowever, politicians tend to use metaphors
more often in their speeches than other leaders
in order to inspire as well as present
conceptualizations of current visionary and
transformational agendas.
OThe research objectives are to gain an
understanding of the use of metaphors in
Obama’s Affordable Care Act speeches on
November 14, 2013, as well as on April 1,
2014.

12. Problem Statement, Research Objectives
and Research Questions (cont’d)
OThe two interrelated research questions are:
A) What is Obama’s repertoire of metaphors
in terms of source domains?
B) What are the apparent purposes
underlining Obama’s speeches in terms of the
specific challenges he was facing, and how
appropriate and effective were they?

13. Methodology and Discussion
Owe compiled a corpus of two Affordable Care
Act speeches taken from the Whitehouse
archives, which are publicly available at
https://www.whitehouse.gov.
OOur selection criteria were related to the
content of these speeches (their topic focuses
on the key moments in the life cycle of this
policy).

14. Methodology and Discussion (cont’d)
OOf the total corpus of speeches accessed
online, a decision to choose two specific
speeches relating to Obama’s Affordable
Care Act were made and they are listed
below:
• Speech One: Statement by the President on
the Affordable Care Act in November 14, 2013
• Speech Two: Remarks by the President on
the Affordable Care Act in April 1, 2014

15. Methodology and Discussion (cont’d)
OThe analysis of a corpus containing two of
Obama’s speeches on healthcare was carried
out in three stages.
 The initial stage of our research involved
multiple thorough readings with the aim to
identify metaphoric expressions that
conceptualized healthcare policy in both
speeches.

16. Methodology and Discussion(cont’d)
 The process involved recognizing where the
two constituent elements of source and
target domains were different and involved a
conceptual mapping from the former to the
latter At this stage, we identified 11
metaphorical expressions. These
metaphorical expressions were classified
according to the source domain they belong
to: journey (11).

17. Methodology and Discussion(cont’d)
 The second stage involved dividing the
clusters, e.g. journey, into sections, e.g.
point of departure, conflicts on the
trajectory and the point of arrival. These
different aspects of the cluster were studied
for their complexity or the simplicity and the
degree of variation in their applications.

18. Methodology and Discussion (cont’d)
 The third stage is linked to interpretation
where patterns in the uses of metaphors are
considered. They are put into the context of
the particular conversation going on to confirm
or emphasize the acknowledgement of the
problem and their connection to the current
state of affairs of the health sector and what
was being done to correct the situation.

19. Methodology and Discussion(cont’d)
OTo ascertain the degree of effectiveness in
the adoption and implementation, we use the
cognitive notion of metaphors for reference
(Charteris-Black, 2004, Charteris-Black,
2013).
OA presentation of each of these source
domains together with its metaphorical
mappings is provided below.

20. Methodology and Discussion (cont’d)
OHealthcare Policy Is A Journey
 The heavy presence of journey metaphors
in political communication has been
highlighted in recent metaphor literature
(Beer, 2004, Charteris-Black, 2004).
 There are 11 examples of such a
metaphorical use of journey metaphors in
our analyzed corpus.

21. Methodology and Discussion (cont’d)
OThe very opening of Speech 1 begins with the
metaphor denoting a pace change on the
journey as exemplified by the sentence (1).
Switching gears, it has now been six weeks.
(Speech One)
…the rollout has been rough so far. (Speech
One)

22. Methodology and Discussion (cont’d)
OThe notion of ‘switching gears’ implies a
change of pace, in particular, one of speeding
up, and thus, responds to the criticism of the
system being so slow. Secondly, gears are
part of a vehicle which acts as a carrier
throughout the journey. Thirdly, this
mechanical metaphor enables the driver to
control it and, therefore, the electorate can be
empowered to move forward.

23. Methodology and Discussion (cont’d)
OThe website problem can be deflected as being
due in part to the ‘surge in demand’ rather than
any inherent failure on the part of the president.
Another journey metaphor deflecting attention
from the website failure is blaming.
old political battles that keep us gridlocked
(Speech Two)
Nobody remembers well those who stand in the
way of
America’s progress or our people. (Speech Two)

24. Conclusion
OIn this corpus of two speeches on healthcare,
the first and second speeches furnished a
range of linguistically-mediated responses to
a spectrum of political problems.
OA suite of metaphors was carefully chosen to
give this law, technical project and political
process in order to move it from a cold
system, a faltering website, to a warm and
welcoming experience.

25. Conclusion (cont’d)
OThe portrayal of Obama, not as the enemy of
Americans or even of a group of Americans
but as a heroic leader, needed a user-friendly
and customized approach.
OThe journey metaphor cluster is linked to
notions of Obama’s personal perceptions of
the admission of shortcomings but largely of
providing evidence of success.

26. Conclusion (cont’d)
OThe underlying political feat of persuading
and convincing the electorate that his
signature legislation, Obamacare, was an
appropriate configuration needed a solid
approach.
OAlthough customized for the American
people, it was also aligned to global ideals of
fair access to healthcare.

27. Conclusion
OThe key journey metaphor is depicted as a
tour journey to reach this glorified destination.
OThis conflicting journey is portrayed as to
where the purposes of admitting responsibility
can be conveyed without damaging the
leadership of Obama.