HEALTH METAPHORS IN DR MAHATHIR’S BUSINESS SPEECHES

Abstract

The present paper, drawing upon Charteris-Black’s (2004) Critical Metaphor Analysis Approach, analysed metaphors of Health in 25 business speeches delivered by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the year 2000 to understand how Dr Mahathir perceived and conveyed economic ideologies from a medical doctor’s point of view. The findings reveal that ‹economic challenges are diseases› and ‹believing in market ideologies is a mental disease› are the two main conceptual metaphors behind Dr Mahathir’s Health metaphors with different purposes, functions, and ideological stances across the national and international audience. It is argued that Health metaphors are used with the main purpose of persuading international solidarity and unity among developing and Southeast Asian countries, and the main function of creating a sense of alarm among the audience (international audience) as well as the main purpose of persuading people’s trust in and support of the government’s policies, and the main function of creating an image of the government as a reliable authority (national audience).