The DEVIL metaphor is also found only a few times in the articles (2.2%) and only once in the cartoons (0.9%). The following are examples from the verbal articles:
(52) a. The devil is in the detail, said a senior health official, explaining the six-month delay in the release of the “top secret” report (Article 2003-07-24a).
b. Sex is a marvellous part of life ... and nudge-wink secrecy plays the devil with it (Article 2001-02-15e).
The single instance of the metaphor in the cartoons appears to have been drawn from article (2003-07-24a), quoted in (52)a, which reports on the statements of a government health official. Explaining why the government is late in releasing a report on the affordability of HIV/AIDS medication, the official is quoted as saying
“the devil is in the details”, explaining that the government is not questioning the larger issues, but merely struggling to work out “contextual issues”. The cartoonist takes this idiomatic expression and elaborates it by drawing Tshabalala-Msimang as the devil, peeking out from the pages of the report (Cartoon 2003-08-15). This communicates the cartoonist’s opinion that the reason the report is not released is because of interference by Tshabalala-Msimang. By representing her as the devil, the cartoonist maps all the negative knowledge and features of the ‘devil’ concept onto the health minister. This type of poetic enrichment of conventional idiomatic expressions (which are, according to CMT, merely conventional metaphors) is found often in the cartoons, as was seen in section 4.7.
5.3 Use of poetic mechanisms
In Chapter 4 the first part of research question (2) was answered, namely that the cartoons do employ all four mechanisms of poetic metaphor. In this section the second part of this research question will be answered for the verbal articles. Figure 5.2 below presents these results in comparison with the cartoons. As can be seen from the graph, it was found that the verbal articles employ only two of the four poetic mechanisms, and do so at very low frequencies, especially when compared to the cartoons. Elaboration was present in only 7.7% of the articles, as compared to 64.7%
of the cartoons. Extension was present in only 2.2% of the articles as compared to 30.2% of the cartoons. Composition and questioning was not found at all. It is not only the presence, but also the nature of use of the mechanism that differed, however.
The poetic mechanisms occurred in the articles as isolated instances that did not play a central role in the text in the same way that they do in the cartoons. These results confirm hypothesis (2) that the cartoons are poetic texts, while the articles are not.
Frequency of Poetic Mechanisms in both modes
Figure 5.2 Graph of frequency of poetic mechanisms in both modes
In order to demonstrate their limited use in the articles, I will analyse the instances of poetic mechanisms that did occur, for comparison with the cartoons. It will be seen that while these have been analysed as possible poetic uses, they are often still largely conventional. The degree, and not only the number, of poetic enrichment is much less than in the cartoons.
5.3.1 Elaboration
Only seven instances of elaboration, amounting to 7.7% of the verbal database, were found in the articles. This compares with 64.7% in the cartoon database. For completion, I will present all seven of them here. These elaborations involved two metaphors, namely the WAR metaphor and the JOURNEY metaphor. The following are the two instances of elaboration of the WAR metaphor:
(53) a. Baby mortality bombshell (Article 2007-08-23b; Title)
b. Unlike the virus, we have not been aggressive enough. Unlike the virus, we have not been integrated and comprehensive in our strategies (Article 2002-07-25c).
In example (53)a, the ‘weapon’ domain is elaborated with the concept of ‘bombshell’.
The metaphoric mapping is A REPORT IS A BOMBSHELL. The report under discussion was a Medical Research Council (MRC) report stating that 20% of infant deaths in South Africa were avoidable. The metaphor therefore structures the receiving of bad news as an attack, through the WAR metaphor of HIV/AIDS. The effect of this elaboration is to bring the metaphor out of its conventional abstract level and into a more specific level with stronger negative connotations. The elaboration therefore increases the emotional impact through these extra features that are mapped, and in so doing serves to increase the level of blame placed on the health department, and especially the AIDS denialism of Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang.
Example (53)b is a direct quotation by the author from a speech by Graca Machel at the AIDS conference in Barcelona in 2002. This type of direct quotation appears to be one of the ways in which newspaper articles can bring strong criticism into their texts without breaking the restriction of objectivity and factual accuracy. By including a direct quotation, the responsibility for the statements lie with the person quoted, and not the journalist. Of course, the responsibility for the inclusion of the quotation does lie with the journalist, but this is still a less direct means than if the journalist penned the metaphor himself. In this quotation Machel elaborates on the WAR metaphor, where the “virus” (HIV) is structured as the enemy. She elaborates by evoking specific qualities and actions that an enemy might take and have, by talking about its
“aggression” and its “integrated and comprehensive … strategies”. This elaboration,
just as in the previous example, serves to make the threat appear more real and dangerous in the minds of the listeners, by making it more visceral. In so doing it also places greater blame on the people she criticises in her speech, namely the AIDS denialists.
The following are the instances of elaboration of the JOURNEY metaphor:
(54) a. She [Tshabalala-Msimang] was sent on her absurd HIV/AIDS denialist safari by her boss ... Thabo Mbeki (Article 2006-09-14a).
b. Irrational AIDS debate rides rough-shod over patients (Article 2000-03-16d;
Title).
c. Some observers fear the TAC and the government are on a collision course (Article 2005-04-28a).
d. Abdullah says infrastructure and the cost of the drugs are not huge hurdles (Article 2002-02-28a).
e. I think the road map should be clear, simple and we must all participate in this (Article 2005-03-31j).
In (54)a the author elaborates the ‘journey’ slot in the JOURNEY metaphor with the more specific concept of ‘safari’. This concept has a number of features which come to bear on the critical use of the mapping in this case, such as those given in (55) below. The result of this mapping is to undermine the serious light in which Tshabalala-Msimang and Mbeki wish to portray their thoughts and actions. It trivialises their discourse, and sets this up against the serious nature of the problem of HIV/AIDS. What the author therefore achieves with the use of this elaboration is to make Tshabalala-Msimang and Mbeki appear guilty for trivialising the problem and not taking it seriously. Whether these implicit claims are true or not is not relevant to the metaphor. The metaphor achieves its power because its claims are implicit, making them harder to pin down exactly, and therefore harder to counter.
(55) a. A safari is not a serious journey.
b. A safari is a trip into the wilderness.
In example (54)b the concept of ‘vehicle’ is elaborated with a slightly more specific concept of ‘vehicle with wheels’. A sub-metaphor is created, namely, AIDS DEBATE IS A VEHICLE WITH WHEELS. This allows the author to say that this vehicle
“rides rough-shod over patients”. The implication of the metaphor is that the debate is causing harm to the patients – the physical damage being understood as emotional and health damage. Instead of stating this conventionally, the author has chosen to express this logic through metaphoric elaboration that, as in the other instances, draws on the negative features associated with the source domain – the idea of being run over by a car – to increase the emotional impact of the statement.
The other instances of elaboration of the JOURNEY metaphor work in a similar fashion, and will not be analysed here in detail. The examples discussed above clearly demonstrate the use of elaboration in the verbal mode, and that it serves essentially the same kind of purpose as it does in the visual mode, even though its occurrence in the verbal mode is very rare, and the extent of the enrichment lower than in the KwaZulu-Natal government has deserted the Department of Health in its fight against the Treatment Action Campaign (Article 2002-03-07f).
b. What bent Mbeki? (Article 2002-04-25a; Title)
In example (56)a, the conventional metaphor TO QUIT IS TO JUMP SHIP is used.
This is itself a more specific instance of the OPINIONS ARE POSITIONS metaphor, but is in this case not an instance of elaboration since poetic elaboration must be unconventional, which the idiom “to jump ship” is not. The concept of ‘jumping’ is however poetically extended in this case through the use of the words “acrobatic and aerial manoeuvre”. These concepts are not conventionally part of the metaphor. This extension does not seem to play a strong role in the criticism of the text, but serves to
portray the unexpected and radical nature of the move via the mapping of features from the concept of ‘acrobatic aerial manoeuvre’ which is perhaps most strongly associated with circus acts. Since this metaphor is not taken further in the article, it is not possible to say more about its possible implications, and this once again illustrates the limited use of unconventional metaphor in the articles, as opposed to the central taken further in the article, and does not appear to play a strong role in the criticism of the article. Actually, the strongest role it seems to play in this case is the alliteration between the words “bent” and “Mbeki”.