Critical Metaphor Analysis, Essay Example

Critical Metaphor Analysis – Brief Summary of Proposition 203 and How Metaphors in Media Affect Minority Learning)

Proposition 203 was designed to help bilingual students who were not proficient in English.  Yet, Arizona voters were wary of Proposition 203 because of the way the program was being portrayed through media, creating metaphors that were mostly harming the program and bilingual students.

Three sources of media, The Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune and Arizona Ballot Propositions & Judicial Performance Review Voter Information Pamphlet, were the chosen methods of media because of their wide circulation within the population.  The Republic and the Tribune were searched for articles related to Proposition 203 from January 2000 to November 2000, as this was a significant timeframe before the election of Proposition 203.

The author of the study then took specific word domains from each of the articles related to Proposition 203.  These domains included words that created negative and/or positive feelings on Proposition 203.  This is what he found:  Words Domains Failure, Pathology, Industry, Bad Investment, Segragation, Trap, Broken & Barrier  = 200.  Word Domains Victims, Swimmers, & Invaders = 77.  Word Domains War = 73.  Word Domains Success, Unity, Tool, & Gift = 52.  Word Domains Acceleration & Success = 49.  Word Domains Pathology, Isolation & Artifact = 47.  Word Domains Body Of Water & Competition = 21.

In conclusion, there were more negative words and metaphors regarding Proposition 203, therefore creating bias within Proposition 203.  It also concludes that there is a larger social issue regarding stratification.

The author contributed a lot of research to pick out domains that could severely impact education issues. He found that media uses metaphors instead of what the program actually is.  Education programs that are designed to help minorities get labeled negatively because of bias and lack of knowledge. This is a good step to let us know that we need to step away from metaphors, and I wouldn’t have done it any differently.