Metaphor in Barack Obama's Political Speeches on the Arab Spring:

A Cognitive Approach
Marwa Saad El-Shahat
Lecturer in Linguistics- Faculty of Arts- Benha University

Abstract
Over the past few years, the world has witnessed a revolutionary wave of protests and
uprisings in the Arab world, which later come to be known as the "Arab Spring" or
"Season of hope"- a label circulated by several Western media outlets. This study
intends to examine the use of metaphors in the discourse of the American President
Barack Obama with respect to these Arab uprisings. The main aim is to indicate how
Obama utilizes metaphor in his political speeches as a powerful tool to manipulate the
Arabs, and to convince them that it is inevitable to fight for freedom, change and
democracy. Following a CMA methodology, proposed by Charteris-Black (2004,
2005/2011), the study then proceeds to manifest the significant ability of metaphor to
give a clear insight into the way Obama's audience can conceptualize the Arab Spring
issue, and to evoke an evaluative judgment of particular elements of Obama's political
discourse. The study argues that Obama possesses an eloquent style and rhetorical
techniques that have an influential role in manipulating his audience. It also argues that
the Arab uprisings provide a historic opportunity to meet the aspirations of the Arabs.
The results indicate that Obama proves a crafty orator, with his use of metaphorical
language to uncover his ideologies and political strategies concerning the situation in
the Middle East. The results also demonstrate that the conceptual network underlying
the Arab Spring serves to invalidate the uprisings rather than justify them. The
findings then supported the position that CMA could account for interpreting political
phenomena and reveal Obama's hidden ideologies.