Prof. Kathleen AHRENS, Department of English and Communication

Taking strength from the source and breaking barriers. 15^th Conference on Researching and Applying Metaphor: The Social Impact of Metaphor. University of Bialystok, Poland, 21-24 September 2022.

Abstract
In the workplace and the political arena, women, but not men, still face metaphorical glass ceilings and, more recently, glass cliffs. These metaphors refer to women having difficulty advancing in their professional roles. But what about the quotidian metaphors that rely on the WAR or PLANT source domain? Are there gendered associations for these source domains as well? This talk will examine this question, drawing upon recent work that uses ontologies and collocational patterns to determine source domain usage (Ahrens & Jiang 2020). In addition, I will look at the metaphorical choices made by women in politics, with a focus on exploring how expectations regarding these gender associations for metaphors are used by women to position themselves in various leadership roles.