ABSTRACT
This chapter applies metaphor analysis to the issue of terrorism in order to show how certain constructions of the terrorist in the media make certain counter-terrorism policies possible while others remain outside of the realm of those means considered appropriate. In pursuit of this aim the first part of the chapter outlines the method of metaphor analysis. The second part illustrates this method by applying it to the German media discourse on terrorism found in the tabloid newspaper the Bild and draws out four conceptual metaphors which constitute terrorism as a war, as a crime, as uncivilised evil and as a disease. Here the authors distinguish between two kinds of metaphors: the metaphoric expression and the conceptual metaphor. The conceptual metaphor, in this case TERRORISM IS WAR or TERRORISM IS CRIME, involves the abstract connection between one conceptual domain and another by mapping a source domain and a target domain.
