Hide
Show all
Email this article Metaphorical Blending in Conspiracy Theory Discourses: a German Case Study
Abstract
This paper studies the blending of diverse conspiracy theories (CTs) in the context of public debates in Germany about the COVID-19 pandemic, with a special focus on right-wing extremist CTs. They provide a prototypical example of metaphorical projections of fictitious resistance/war scenarios onto a conceptually alien topic (i.e. that of pandemic containment), as predicted by Danesi’s (2023) analysis of CTs. Retrospective interviews with CT believers confirm a degree of conceptual “fossilization” (Danesi) but it still remains an open question whether this is the result of neurophysiological processes, as posited by Danesi, or of socio-emotive benefits, such as emotional reassurance in identity building. In either case, mere fact-checking and/or -falsification is insufficient to prevent the CTs’ socially detrimental effects. I therefore argue that in addition to cognitive analysis, CTs have to be confronted by counter-narratives that empower the recipients to rely on their own epistemic competencies.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Aristotle. (1991). The Art of Rhetoric (H. C. Lawson-Tancred, Ed.). Penguin.
Aristotle. (1996). Poetics (M. Heath, Ed.). Penguin.
Birchall, C., & Knight, P. (2023). Conspiracy Theories in the time of Covid-19. Routledge.
Butter, M., & Knight, P. (2021). The History of Conspiracy Theory Research: A Review and Commentary. In J. E. Uscinski (Ed.), Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (pp. 33–46). Oxford University Press.
Danesi, M. (2023). Politics, Lies and Conspiracy Theories. A Cognitive Linguistic Perspective. Routledge.
Demata, M., Zorzi, V., & Zottola, A. (Eds.). (2022). Conspiracy Theory Discourses. John Benjamins.
Deschrijver, C. (2021). On the metapragmatics of ‘conspiracy theory’: Scepticism and epistemological debates in online conspiracy comments. Journal of Pragmatics, 182, 310–321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.02.010
Der Spiegel (2020, November 7). Chaostag, Chaosnacht.
Der Spiegel (2022, December 9). Die Putschfantasien der »Reichsbürger«-Truppe.
Der Spiegel (2023, November 15). Angeklagter soll mehr als 14 Jahre in Haft.
Der Tagesspiegel (2020, September 1). Heilpraktikerin aus der Eifel: Das ist die Frau, die zum Sturm auf den Reichstag rief.
Die Welt (2020a, August 30). Die gefährliche Legende vom „Sturm“.
Die Welt (2020b, August 31). Besetzte Reichstagstreppe – Was kurz davor tatsächlich geschah.
Die Zeit (2020, August 31). Sie brauchten nur dieses eine Foto.
Die Zeit (2023, August 24). Warum haben Sie mitgemacht?
Fauconnier, G. (1994). Mental spaces. Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language. Cambridge University Press.
Fauconnier, G., & Turner, M. (2002). The Way we Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. Basic Books.
Hagemeister, M. (2022). The Perennial Conspiracy Theory. Reflections on the History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Routledge.
Hofstadter, R. (1964). The paranoid style in American politics. Harper’s Magazine, November, 77–86.
Keeley, B. L. (2018). Of Conspiracy Theories. In D. Coady (Ed.), Conspiracy Theories. The Philosophical Debate. (pp. 45–60). Routledge.
Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.). Metaphor and Thought. (pp. 202–251). Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G. (2008). The neural theory of metaphor. In R. W. Gibbs (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (pp. 17–38). Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1980)
Maci, S., Demata, M., McGlashan, M., & Seargeant, P. (Eds.). (2024). The Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation. Routledge.
Mahon, J. E. (1999). Getting your sources right, What Aristotle didn’t say. In L. Cameron, & G. Low (Eds.), Researching and Applying Metaphor (pp. 69–80). Cambridge University Press.
Musolff, A. (2020). Factual Narrative and Truth in Political Discourse. In M. Fludernik, & M.-L. Ryan (Eds.), Narrative Factuality. A Handbook (pp. 351–365). De Gruyter.
Musolff, A. (2023). Trump’s framing of COVID-19 as a war, and conspiracy theories. In N. Thielemann, & D. Weiss (Eds.), Remedies against the pandemic: How politicians communicate their crisis management (pp. 256–275). John Benjamins.
Pantenburg, J., Reichardt, S., & Sepp, B. (2021). Corona-Proteste und das (Gegen-) Wissen sozialer Bewegungen. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 15 January 2021. https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/wissen-2021/325605/corona-proteste-und-das-gegen-wissen-sozialer-bewegungen/
Pigden, C. (2018). Complots of mischief. In D. Coady (Ed.), Conspiracy Theories. The Philosophical Debate (pp. 139–166). Routledge.
Popper, K. (1962). Conjectures and Refutations. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Reichardt, S. (Ed.). (2021). Die Misstrauensgemeinschaft der „Querdenker“. Campus.
Schönberger, C., & Schönberger, S. (2023). Die Reichsbürger. Ermächtigungsversuche einer gespenstischen Bewegung. Beck.
Sperber, D., Clement, F., Heintz, C., Mascaro, O., Mercier, H., Origgi, G., & Wilson, D. (2010). Epistemic Vigilance. Mind & Language 25(4), 359–393.
Thalmann, K. (2019). The stigmatization of conspiracy theory since the 1950s: ‘A Plot to Make Us Look Foolish’. Routledge.
The Guardian (2020, September 4). How coronavirus has brought together conspiracy theorists and the far right.
The New York Times (2020, August 31). Far-Right Germans Try to Storm Reichstag as Virus Protests Escalate.
Thießen, M. (2013). Vom immunisierten Volkskörper zum „präventiven Selbst“. Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 61(1), 35–64. https://doi.org/10.1524/vfzg.2013.0002
Thorwart, K. (2020). Corona-Demos in Berlin: Von Reichsflagge bis AfD - Eine Fahnenkunde. Frankfurter Rundschau, 6 September 2020.
Thorwart, K. (2022). Prinz Reuß von den „Reichsbürgern“ bedient antisemitische Verschwörungserzählungen. Frankfurter Rundschau, 12 December 2022.
Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The Uses of Argument. Cambridge University Press.
Van Eemeren, F. H., & Grootendorst, R. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The pragma-dialectical Approach. Cambridge University Press.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2025.49.4.53-62
Date of publication: 2025-12-31 00:14:29
Date of submission: 2025-10-01 13:32:25
Statistics
Indicators
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2025 Andreas Musolff
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.