Work

Metaphor, topoi, and cognitive heuristics in climate governance: a dual-staged metaphorical argumentation analysis of climate political speech

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Although metaphors are widely recognised as central to climate communication, scant studies have explored how they function as structured arguments that exploit cognitive heuristics in political discourse. This study proposes a dual-staged model of metaphorical argumentation that links Toulmin’s layout, discourse-historical topoi and cognitive accounts of heuristics, applied to a corpus-assisted analysis of US officials’ speeches at the 2021 Leaders Summit on Climate. Using Wmatrix-assisted metaphor identification, the study identifies journey , construction and illness as predominant metaphors, with relevant expressions reconstructed as chained argumentative stages. The analysis shows journey argumentation normalises cooperative, time-bound climate action, construction framing legitimises incremental, techno-economic solutions and illness metaphors provide danger and moral urgency. Across patterns, these metaphorical argumentative cells combine into a macro-argumentative chain that organises and narrows the space of acceptable climate responses. The study illuminates how metaphor-based argumentation steers public reasoning in climate governance, offering valuable insights into the cognitive–discursive mechanisms of metaphorical argumentation.

Source: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-026-07492-6

Authors: Yuxin Wu, Xiufeng Zhao, Mengyao Liu

Institutions: Lancaster University, China University of Petroleum, Beijing

Language: English

Topic: Language, Metaphor, and Cognition

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Climate action

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,890