A CRITICAL METAPHOR ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSES IN THE PHILIPPINE SETTING

This research employed Critical Metaphor Analysis to examine the inaccuracies embedded in metaphors within the environmental discourses in the Philippines from a corpus of 30 documentary films. The study involved interviews with 5 science teachers and 5 senior high school students in the metaphor analyses. The pre-metaphor analysis level encompassed the discussions on pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, and nature conservation. During the metaphor identification level, 35 conceptual metaphors containing inaccuracies were identified such as paradise, festival, treasure, refuge, landscape, society, patient, lungs, psychological disorder, sinking ship, waterworld, victims, battle, karma, last forest, symbols of freedom, burning, and simple solution domains. These are grouped into 12 conceptual keys such as ideal place, home, threat, interconnected system, living organism, monster, war, cause and effect, unrestricted movement, combustion, and simple solution source domains. At the metaphor interpretation phase, topics comprised conservation, preservation, and natural value; resource value and commodification of nature; waste and pollution; climate change and environmental degradation; and human influence and environmental ethics. The identified metaphors were characterized by orientational (5), ontological (17), and structural (13) mappings, with 23 metaphors conveying alarmist tones and 12 relational and hopeful tones. Purposes were found as ideological (9), empathetic (10), heuristic (7), and aesthetic (9). At the metaphor explanation level, ideologies such as human dominance, commodification, environmental ethics, sanctity of nature, and overwhelming burden were revealed reflecting modify (2), adapt (1), and depend (2) power dynamics. This study highlighted the cultural, ideological, and motivational underpinnings of metaphor usage in public media that can significantly shape public perception and environmental action. KEYWORDS: environmental discourses; documentary films; critical metaphor analysis; applied linguistics; Philippines