The figurative language of corporate alliances

Abstract

Metaphor is central to language. The present paper examines the widespread use of metaphor in the business press through the analysis of the metaphorical expressions describing corporate alliances in Financial Times and El País. Such expressions draw on information from the domains of WAR, FICTION, SPORT, GAME and LOVE and are instantiations of conceptual metaphors which result from processes of correspondence and blending and are explained following Lakoff’s conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff 1980, 1987, 1996), and Fauconnier and Turner’s blending approach (1995, 2006). The comparative analysis of the business metaphors in English and Spanish shows many similarities in the conceptualization of corporate alliances.