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In this article I present an analysis of the metaphors used in relation to the European single currency—the euro—in a selection of British and Italian newspapers published around the time of the euro’s official introduction on 1 January 1999. The analysis shows that the most frequent metaphorical patterns are shared between the two languages, and drawn from source domains, such as birth, journeys, and containers, which are conventionally applied to a wide range of different target domains. On the other hand, there are important differences in the way in which shared patterns are realized in each language, and it is possible to identify a number of metaphors which are specific to the Italian or the English data only. The data also suggests that novel metaphorical expressions tend to be used rhetorically in both languages to support particular views of monetary union. The analysis is broadly based on the cognitive theory of metaphor, and is backed up by quantitative information throughout. Some attention is devoted to the methodological issues raised by cross-cultural studies of metaphor, and to the implications of the findings for metaphor theory, particularly in relation to how to extrapolate conceptual metaphors from linguistic evidence.
Elena Semino (Wed,) studied this question.