Crazy machine or strong 'Living Apart Together' relationship? The role of metaphors in citizens' perception of Belgian federalism

This paper proposes a quantitative and qualitative corpus-based analysis of the use of metaphors in political discourse from the original perspective of citizen discourse. Our data were collected from focus group discussions respectively held in the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking parts of Belgium, which tackled the citizens’ perceptions of Belgian federalism. Our findings suggest that citizens do produce metaphors when talking about complex political processes and that these metaphors reveal different political visions. This research also suggests differences in saliency of the source domains in terms of which citizens make sense of Belgian federalism. In this regard, the family domain, and more especially the metaphor Belgian federalism is a love relationship appears to function as an important conceptual reference point for the citizens’ understanding of the political relations in the Belgian context.