Metaphors of Brexit

No Cherries on the Cake?
By Jonathan Charteris-Black
11th December 2019
£19.99 | 25,99 € | $29.99 
Softcover | 978-3-030-28767-2

New research shows how language determined the reality of Brexit, with the Leave campaign’s superior command of metaphor and rhetoric securing their win.  
    
During the EU referendum both ‘Remainers’ and ‘Leavers’ did a lot of talking, but they certainly weren’t speaking the same language. 

This book delves into the linguistic framework of Brexit and explores how metaphor contributed to the savage tone of the Brexit debate. Through analysis of the metaphors used in public speeches, press articles and tweets – with an entire chapter dedicated to Boris Johnson – Charteris-Black shows how the language of Brexit evoked powerful emotional responses which led voters to act on the basis of moral judgements rather than rational decisions. 

From ‘Brexodus’ to ‘Brexitgeddon’, from ‘the Titanic’ to ‘the Trojan horse’, Charteris-Black uses concepts from cognitive linguistics, classical rhetoric and moral psychology to unveil the influencing power of Brexit jargon (handily compiled in a ‘Metaphor Brexicon’ at the back of the book). Building on the growing amount of research showing that human decisions are based more on ‘heart’ than ‘head’, his analysis shows how the Leavers’ successful ‘weaponisation’ of metaphors, allegories and symbols contributed to Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. 

This timely book shows how Brexit metaphors were instrumental in consolidating a sense of us and them and how they in fact become the political ideologies that they were originally designed only to express. Charteris-Black shows how the language used influenced collective perceptions of national identity, communicating a moral vision of Britain’s political situation in the 21st century which the Remain campaign was ill-equipped to handle. 

Metaphors of Brexit uses a unique blend of linguistic and political analyses to shine a fascinating light on one of the biggest political events in a generation, helping us to understand how we got here, and in which ways language will continue to influence our politics.

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Jonathan Charteris-Black is Professor of Linguistics at the University of the West of England, UK. His research interests are metaphor, rhetoric and political discourse.
 

For more information or to get in touch with the author please contact:
Rebecca Krahenbuhl – Communications Manager, Palgrave Macmillan
rebecca.krahenbuhl@palgrave.com, +44 020 7014 6634