Metaphor as the means for the realization of the appellative function in the headlines of economic articles in german

Abstract

The aim of the article is to describe metaphor as the means of implementation of appellative function of a headline. The goal of this research is to analyze the usage of metaphors in the headlines as the means of implementation of appellative function. The material of the study is the corpus of 1080 headlines of economic articles published by the German magazine „Der Spiegel“ obtained using the method of continuous sampling. The following system of methods is used: componential and contextual analysis and method of interpretation. The analysis revealed that 770 headlines out of 1080 have metaphors. The research made it possible to conclude that metaphors are an important and widespread means of implementation of appellative function. Metaphors attract the reader’s attention to the message, form a certain attitude toward its perception and express the author’s position to the economic events described in the article. The reason for the frequent use of metaphors in headlines lies in the possibility of metaphors to impact the psyche and consciousness of the recipient due to increased imagery and a pronounced emotional and evaluative component. As the analysis of the material has shown, the metaphor, regardless of the thematic orientation of the economic text, is actively used by German journalists in headlines that have a substantive and verbal sentence structure. In headlines with a substantive structure, substantive, indicative and genitive metaphors are used. Predicative metaphors are mainly presented in headlines that have a verbal structure.