Discursive-Metaphoric Function of Media Language: Cognitive Approach

The purpose of the current study is to achieve discursive-metaphoric functions of the media language from cognitive perspective and based on Fauconnier and Turner's Conceptual Blending Theory (1994, 1998, 2002) to illustrate how the media uses metaphor in their speech and expresses what they want. The methodological nature of this qualitative research is descriptive-analytic and the data has been selected and collected from widely circulated newspaper in recent years, and for this purpose, 18 samples of metaphors used in these texts were analyzed and evaluated. The findings showed that media discourse conceptualizes language by blending two domains of source and target, and emerging the forth new emergent source to provide the possibility of the mapping of abstract concepts such as, the "wave of Islamic awakening", "throwing the ball to the opponent", etc. into tangible and concrete concepts, and attract audience, and lighten public opinion; in such a way that the common features of these two mental spaces correspond to each other one by one.