Frame exploitation at its worst

Abstract Although essential to science and health communication, metaphors can backfire. At this point, any attempt on the part of the speaker to clarify his/her intentions would ultimately prove futile because the mental situation models of speakers and their recipients may not be the same. A debate over the meaning of a metaphor, the variations in its interpretation, or constant negotiation between the interactants poses a substantial challenge to intention-based theories of implicature. A corpus analysis of the “kofta” analogy used by a senior Egyptian army doctor during a February 2014 televised news conference to announce cures for AIDS and hepatitis C and the ensuing impasse over its appropriateness shows that a metaphor designed to publicly communicate science, to confront and shatter the stereotypical image of scientists as dull and stilted people, to persuade citizens to accept the claims as fact, or to hide the speaker’s own scientific ignorance may be sarcastically repeated, extended, and elaborated (“overexploited”) by the target audience (“overdone metaphors”). The doctor or his use of the metaphor of “I give the virus back as a kebab skewer for the patient to feed on” has been condemned as “too lower class”. Various forms of metaphor denial and resistance are examined. The article, analyzing thousands of YouTube comments on the news conference video, provides valuable insights for interpreting tropes and has important implications both for science and health communicators and socio-cognitive pragmaticists.