“Worse than the Nazis” – A corpus linguistic approach to the analysis of Nazi comparisons and Nazi metaphors Cover Image

„Schlimmer als die Nazis“ – Ein korpuslinguistischer Ansatz zur Untersuchung von NS-Vergleichen und NS-Metaphern
“Worse than the Nazis” – A corpus linguistic approach to the analysis of Nazi comparisons and Nazi metaphors

Author(s): Linda Giesel
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics
Published by: Instytut Germanistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Nazi comparisons; metaphors; analogies Nazi vocabulary; National Socialism; post-Shoah antisemitism; Israel-related antisemitism; corpus linguistics; politolinguistcs; cognitive linguistics

Summary/Abstract: This study examines Nazi comparisons and Nazi metaphors (NS-V/M) based on linguistical clas- sifications and quantitative as well as qualitative methodological approaches. A corpus analysis consisting of 10.235 e-mails, that were addressed to the Embassy of Israel in Berlin and the Central Council of Jews in Germany between 2002 and 2014, reveals a result of 945 (9.2 %) texts including antisemitic NS-V/M. In an equal frequency, these utterances address both institutions and they are continuously being sent during periods of military escalations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as during times of (military) de-escalation. Producers verbalize NS-V/M predominantly by using different lexical comparison indicators rather than typical comparative connectives. In addition, they use Nazi vocabulary to express the reversal of perpetrators and victims. Analogies which are manifested in metaphorical forms are either expressed as predicative metaphors or as compound metaphors.

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 16
  • Page Range: 115-139
  • Page Count: 25
  • Language: German
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