Latina
Revista Latina de Comunicación Social. ISSN 1138-5820
Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0.
Metaphors of Natural Phenomena and Semantic Prosody in Spanish Media Coverage
of Brexit
Ismael Ramos Ruiz
Paris Cité University. France.
Álvaro Ramos Ruiz
Loyola University Andalusia. Spain.
This work is part of the POPULEX research project (PID2024-156770OB-I00) and the activities of the ALTAE (EA 3967, Paris Cité University), FENIX (SEJ-596, University of Seville), and Lexicon and Discourse (HUM 265, University of Granada) research groups.
How to cite this article / Standard reference:
Ramos Ruiz, Ismael, & Ramos Ruiz, Álvaro (2026). Metáforas de fenómenos naturales y prosodia semántica en la cobertura mediática española del Brexit [Metaphors of Natural Phenomena and Semantic Prosody in Spanish Media Coverage of Brexit]. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 84, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2026-2697
Date of Receipt: January 28, 2026
Date of Acceptance: April 22, 2026
Date of Publication: April 28, 2026
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Media coverage of complex political and economic phenomena requires discursive strategies that translate abstract processes into frameworks understandable to the general public. In this context, the present study analyzes the use of metaphors drawn from natural phenomena and their evaluative orientation (semantic prosody) in the Spanish press regarding Brexit, within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and studies on semantic prosody. Methodology: The analysis is based on a corpus of 9,035 journalistic texts published between June 24, 2016, and January 31, 2020, in four leading Spanish online newspapers (El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, and ABC), compiled using the Factiva® database. The methodology adopts a quantitative and qualitative lexical-semantic approach. This approach allows for the identification of metaphorical uses based on a predefined list of terms associated with natural phenomena, organized into five conceptual domains. The analysis is conducted using a semi-automated procedure based on the MIP method, supplemented by a systematic manual review. Results: The results show a clear predominance of hydrological and atmospheric metaphors, along with a secondary presence of biological and geological metaphors, as well as a predominantly negative evaluative orientation in the four media outlets analyzed. Discussion: This pattern shapes a representation of Brexit associated with instability, overflow, and crisis, with few differences among publications, suggesting the existence of shared interpretive frameworks in the Spanish general-interest press. Conclusions: The study concludes that metaphors of natural phenomena act as cognitive and discursive devices that contribute to naturalizing and dramatizing the political process of Brexit, reinforcing a predominantly adverse interpretation in Spanish media discourse.
Keywords: conceptual metaphor; metaphors of natural phenomena; semantic prosody; media discourse; Spanish press; Brexit; corpus linguistics.
1. INTRODUCTION
In the contemporary media landscape, the mainstream press occupies a central place in the public interpretation of complex political and economic phenomena. Although it does not constitute a specialized discourse, it frequently incorporates technical concepts from the economic and political spheres that must be interpreted and contextualized for broad audiences. This mediating function places the media in a hybrid space where informative, explanatory, and interpretive elements are combined to facilitate the understanding of highly complex processes.
The press acts as a social player that selects, prioritizes, and frames events, shaping shared modes of interpretation (Langer & Gruber, 2021; Perloff, 2022; Salonen et al., 2023). In this sense, as Charaudeau (2005) points out, the media wield symbolic power by transforming facts into information through discursive operations guided by specific intentions. This process also depends on the conditions of enunciation and the articulation between texts, actors, and sociopolitical contexts (Beciu & Lazăr, 2021; Mast & Temmerman, 2021; Perdomo and Rodrigues-Rouleau, 2022). This dimension is especially relevant when the mainstream press addresses complex political and economic processes, whose abstraction requires discursive strategies that facilitate their understanding and interpretation. Brexit coverage thus constitutes a paradigmatic example, since it is a phenomenon with political and economic consequences that forces the media to activate interpretive frameworks, such as metaphors, that facilitate understanding and guide the public reading of the process.
2. OBJECTIVE
Brexit, as the process of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, formalized in 2020, is known, was one of the most impactful events in recent European history. It was a political and economic process that generated intense coverage and diverse interpretations in the Spanish press (Blay-Arráez et al., 2019; Pena Díaz and Sánchez Ramos, 2021; Ramos Ruiz, 2023). Its financial implications, as well as its diplomatic and social effects, were addressed (Kalaitzake, 2022; Portes, 2022; Iliopoulos et al., 2024). Due to its magnitude and duration, it constitutes a good example for examining the discursive strategies of political and economic journalism. In the Spanish press, moreover, some corpus-assisted analyses, such as that of Pena Díaz and Sánchez Ramos (2021), have shown stable discursive patterns in the construction of identities and assessments relating to the EU and the United Kingdom around Brexit, which suggests recurring interpretative frameworks in the headlines.
In this context, the following research questions arise: what is the presence and frequency of metaphors of natural phenomena in Spanish journalistic discourse on Brexit? and what evaluative orientation or semantic prosody characterizes these metaphors in the different media under analysis? Therefore, the working hypothesis is that metaphors based on natural phenomena have a predominantly negative connotation, which shapes a discursive representation of Brexit associated with crisis and instability. Consequently, the objectives of this study are: a) to analyze the discursive construction of Brexit in the Spanish digital press; b) to identify the metaphors of natural phenomena that contribute to the configuration of the discourse; and c) to determine the evaluative orientation and the general metaphorical framework constructed by these metaphors in the different media. To this end, we have used a corpus of journalistic texts from the Spanish press covering the years 2016 to 2020. Thus, the contribution of this study is not to identify new metaphors, but rather to systematize a limited repertoire of metaphors for natural phenomena and to measure their evaluative orientation within a broad, comparative corpus.
3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Metaphor is a recurring discourse resource in various genres, including economics, and in journalism it helps to capture the reader's attention and facilitate comprehension. It thus fulfills a dual function: cognitive, by allowing the representation of abstract phenomena through concrete images, and communicative, by making discourse more accessible. In cognitive linguistics, the Theory of Conceptual Metaphor, formulated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), conceives of metaphor as a fundamental cognitive mechanism. Its subsequent development consolidated this perspective by understanding metaphor as a process of systematic projection between a source domain and a target domain, based on recurring patterns of bodily and sociocultural experience (Kövecses, 2022).
In public discourse surrounding Brexit, these metaphors take on a persuasive and ideological dimension, as they project specific sociopolitical interests and vary according to the communicative context (Morales Pérez, 2019; Vogiatzis, 2025). Therefore, this behavior reflects the general function of metaphors in political communication, where they act as interpretive frameworks that guide the understanding of events and contribute to the (de)legitimization of actors and institutions. In the case of Brexit, the recurrence of negative metaphors intensified as the referendum approached (Morales Pérez, 2019). Furthermore, in digital environments, these metaphorical choices have been associated with discursive strategies of delegitimization in the debate on the European Union (Vogiatzis, 2025).
In the specific context of Brexit, the analysis by Charteris and Black (2019) shows that metaphors play an essential role in shaping the moral and affective landscape of public debate. From the perspective of the Critical Metaphor Analysis, the author demonstrates that metaphorical frameworks—especially those related to natural forces, war, containment, or movement—cognitively structure the process and activate moral judgments and affective intuitions that guide the electorate's evaluation. His study also confirms that Brexit metaphors tend to dramatize the political situation, intensifying its emotional dimension and reinforcing oppositions between order/disorder or stability/threat. Along the same lines, Musolff (2021) shows that the combination of figurative language (metaphors and proverbs) with hyperbolic expressions increases the emotional intensity of the public debate on Brexit and contributes to its polarization. This reinforces the need to analyze not only metaphorical domains but also their pragmatic potential for evaluative intensification.
In economic discourse, two main metaphorical groups can be distinguished: those linked to health and medicine, and those based on natural phenomena (Charteris-Black & Ennis, 2001). The former have been extensively studied and constitute a well-established framework for describing processes of economic decline or recovery (Rojo López & Orts Llopis, 2010). In contrast, metaphors of natural phenomena have received comparatively less attention, although in recent years there has been a growing interest in their capacity to conceptualize scenarios of economic and political instability (Ho, 2019; Besomi, 2021; Zeng et al., 2021; Musolff, 2023; Augé, 2023; Ramos Ruiz, 2023; 2024a; 2024b; Lu & Yu, 2024), which justifies their interest as an object of study.
Metaphors about natural phenomena also possess a clear ideological dimension, as they guide media interpretation and contribute to reinforcing evaluations, reading frameworks, and discursive biases (Morales Pérez, 2019; Piromalli, 2021; Musolff, 2023). In the economic sphere, metaphors of natural disasters tend to evoke scenarios of crisis, collapse, or loss of control, intensifying the perception of risk and threat (Ho, 2019; Besomi, 2021; Zhang & Yang, 2023). From a political perspective, these metaphorical frameworks also play a relevant role in legitimizing decisions and strategies by activating shared mental images that reinforce the emotional interpretation of events. Since the analyzed corpus comes from the digital mainstream press and circulates in a hybrid information environment, it is pertinent to consider how these rhetorical frameworks in journalism guide interpretation and stabilize assessments surrounding Brexit.
Following this line of thought, recent communication literature emphasizes that discursive frameworks not only organize interpretation but also condition the reception and evaluation of content, especially when emotional stimuli and credibility heuristics are activated in digitized information ecosystems (Barrientos Báez & Caldevilla Domínguez, 2022; Barrientos Báez et al., 2022; Sánchez García, 2023). This conditioning becomes visible in dynamics of accelerated circulation, Simplified interpretation and exaggerated evaluation contribute to the spread of fake news and the solidification of polarized narratives. In this context, rhetorical frameworks influence the perception of message reliability and the construction of otherness, reinforcing dichotomous readings of events (Barrientos Báez et al., 2022; Caldevilla Domínguez et al., 2023). Given that the digital press participates in this same hybrid ecosystem of circulation, it is pertinent to analyze how certain figurative resources, including metaphors of natural disasters, not only fulfill a conceptual function, but also operate as persuasive devices that guide inferences, intensify valuations and contribute to establishing socially shared reading frameworks in journalistic coverage.
In the case of Brexit, the metaphorical orientation is usually negative. Therefore, metaphors of war, disease, or perilous journeys predominate in the British press (Tincheva, 2020). For example, in the Financial Times, frames such as "SHIP IN A STORM" stand out, consistent with a pro- Remain stance (Landmann & Ganz, 2024). This tendency can be explained by the fact that metaphorical selection is conditioned by the sociopolitical context (Morales Pérez, 2019) and that lexical choices tend to stabilize evaluative orientations in discourse, as shown by studies on semantic prosody (Ahmad & Saleem, 2026; Hauser and Schwarz, 2022, 2023; Ramos Ruiz, 2022). In this sense, these metaphorical choices not only conceptualize the event but can also operate as delegitimizing strategies in the political discourse surrounding Brexit within the digital communication ecosystem (Vogiatzis, 2025). Therefore, the term “evaluative orientation” or “semantic prosody” is understood here as the tendency of certain lexical units to recur in contexts that are evaluated positively or negatively, which establishes their evaluative connotation in discourse. In this regard, it has been noted that semantic prosody can also function as an indicator of stance, since, by interacting with figurative resources such as metaphor and metonymy, it contributes to condensing positions and ideologies around socially contested terms (Kitis, 2024). It is important to distinguish between the lexical connotation of a term and its semantic prosody. While connotation refers to the associative value that a unit can relatively stably activate within the linguistic system, semantic prosody depends on its recurring behavior in context and the co-occurring environments in which it appears (Grabowski & Trklja, 2024). Consequently, the evaluative orientation of a metaphor cannot be deduced solely from the prototypical meaning of the term used, but rather from how it is integrated into discourse and the evaluative effects it projects in each occurrence. In this sense, it can be stated that certain seemingly neutral lexical units can activate evaluative associations through their habitual patterns of co-occurrence, which reinforces the need to distinguish between lexical value and contextual prosody (Hauser & Schwarz, 2023). This distinction is especially relevant in the analysis of Brexit, since the same metaphorical term can acquire different orientations depending on the co-text in which it is embedded. Given that these metaphorical choices shape the interpretation of the event, it is worth considering that certain lexical and discursive patterns may help to solidify shared assessments and interpretive frameworks regarding players or events (Ramos Ruiz, 2026).
4. CORPUS AND METHODOLOGY
The corpus selection was based on criteria of representativeness and audience reach. The second wave of the General Media Study[1](2019) was used as an operational reference point, serving as an intermediate benchmark within the analyzed period to identify the most widely read general-interest newspapers in Spain: El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, and ABC. Although the exact composition of these newspapers may have fluctuated between 2016 and 2020, the selected publications maintained a central position in the Spanish media ecosystem, justifying their inclusion as a representative sample of the leading general-interest press. These newspapers also cover a broad ideological spectrum, ranging from center-left positions to conservative views and moderate Catalan nationalism.
The texts were collected using Factiva® and span from June 24, 2016, the day after the referendum, to January 31, 2020, the date of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. The corpus comprises 9,035 texts (5.45 million words), including news articles, editorials, columns, and opinion and analysis pieces (Ramos Ruiz, 2026), providing a sufficient basis for observing variations in narrative frameworks, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Number of texts from each newspaper in the corpus (news, opinion and total)
|
NEWSPAPERS |
TEXTS |
WORDS |
|
El País |
2,244 |
1,276,281 |
|
El Mundo |
1,380 |
1,163,630 |
|
La Vanguardia |
1,874 |
1,139,792 |
|
ABC |
3,537 |
1,870,502 |
|
TOTAL |
9,035 |
5,450,205 |
Source: Elaborated by the authors.
Given that the corpus includes journalistic genres with distinct discursive conventions, it is worth noting that this heterogeneity may influence the metaphorical density and evaluative weight of the texts. However, this mixed composition was maintained because the study's objective is not to compare genres with each other, but rather to capture the overall media construction of Brexit in the Spanish press.
The study adopts a lexico-semantic approach that combines quantitative and qualitative techniques. The analysis was developed using a top-down procedure, starting with a list of terms associated with natural phenomena, compiled following methodological criteria previously applied in studies on metaphor in economic discourse (Ho, 2019; I. Ramos Ruiz, 2023). The initial list of potentially metaphorical terms was developed in several stages. As a starting point, the repertoire of terms on natural disasters proposed by Ho (2019) for English was used, translated, and adapted into Spanish. This base was supplemented by consulting popular reference works on natural phenomena (Andrews, 2004; Haven, 2005; 2006) and by incorporating relevant denominative and morphological variants, such as terremoto/seísmo (earthquake).
The inclusion of terms was based on criteria of prototypicality and conceptual representativeness within five semantic domains, following the same methodological principle employed in the author's previous work on metaphor and corpus. In this preliminary phase, candidates with doubtful semantic affiliation, excessive ambiguity not resolveable through immediate context, zero or merely residual frequency in exploratory searches, or poor analytical yield for the purposes of the study were excluded. It should be noted that some terms have fossilized metaphorical meanings. For example, lluvia (rain) includes the meaning of "abundance or large quantity" (Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española, 23rd ed.[2]).
The terms were organized into five conceptual categories according to their degree of representativeness within each domain: atmospheric, hydrological, geological, biological, and astronomical phenomena. This classification does not aim to reproduce a strict scientific taxonomy of the natural sciences, but rather to establish an operational analytical framework for the study of metaphorical projections in journalistic discourse. The grouping was based on the type of phenomenon evoked, its predominant experiential basis, and the affinity of its figurative patterns within the corpus. Therefore, some boundaries between categories may be partially permeable from a physical or encyclopedic perspective, but they were kept separate when their metaphorical behavior and semantic profile proved distinguishable in the analysis. In particular, atmospheric phenomena were distinguished from hydrological ones because, although in some cases both domains overlap in meteorological terms, they activate different conceptual images on the metaphorical level. Atmospheric phenomena tend to be characterized by air forces, visibility, disturbance, or environmental intensity (e.g., wind, storm, hurricane), while hydrological phenomena are usually organized around patterns of flow, accumulation, overflow, waves, or erosion (e.g., rain, flood, tide, wave, torrent). This distinction was adopted for its analytical usefulness in interpreting contextual uses.
Furthermore, in line with recent studies applying computational techniques to the analysis of metaphors in large financial corpora (Mao et al., 2023), this work adopts a corpus-assisted approach, complemented by systematic manual analysis. Thus, the choice of metaphor as the analytical unit is particularly suitable for studies with a temporal dimension, as it allows for abstraction beyond the strictly lexical level and the comparison of discourse patterns even when the available lexicalizations change at different times (Taylor, 2022). The resulting list was structured as follows:
- Atmospheric phenomena: breeze, storm, cyclone, mirage, hurricane, gust, lightning, typhoon, tornado, thunder, gale, wind.
- Hydrological phenomena: slide, deluge, avalanche, mist, rainstrom, overflow, downpour, flood, rain, tide, swell, fog, mist, snow, cloud, wave, surge, flash flood, tempest, storm, torrent.
- Geological phenomena: epicenter, tidal wave, earthquake, drought, tectonic, earthquake, tsunami, volcano.
- Biological phenomena: epidemic, fire, wildfire.
- Astronomical phenomena: aurora.
The astronomical category was represented solely by the term "aurora," as it was the only candidate in that domain with sufficient presence in the exploratory searches and verifiable metaphorical relevance in the corpus. Therefore, its inclusion is primarily due to a criterion of methodological traceability of the selection process, rather than the identification of a productive or interpretively relevant conceptual domain within the analyzed repertoire. Thus, its results should be understood as residual and not comparable, in terms of explanatory power, to those of the hydrological, atmospheric, geological, or biological categories.
Regarding the category of biological phenomena, this is used here in a broad analytical sense and not as a strictly naturalistic classification. Under this label, processes characterized by dynamics of propagation, impact, or alteration of living systems and the environment, such as “epidemic,” “fire,” and “wildfire,” were grouped. In particular, “epidemic” was included due to its clear association with biological expansion, while “fire” and “wildfire” were included because they share a metaphorical pattern of extension, intensification, and loss of control. This is, therefore, an operational grouping aimed at capturing functional affinities in the metaphorical behavior of these terms within the corpus, rather than a closed scientific taxonomy.
Occurrence retrieval was performed using a semi-automatic procedure based on lexical searches in SketchEngine® (Kilgarriff et al., 2014), while the identification of metaphorical uses was carried out through a systematic manual review of concordances, following criteria inspired by the MIP (Crisp et al., 2007). This process made it possible to distinguish between literal and metaphorical uses, as well as to resolve borderline cases. It also made it possible to exclude lexicalized or fossilized meanings and those occurrences in which the contrast between basic and contextual meaning could not be sufficiently justified.
To reduce the bias inherent in the top-down approach, bottom-up exploratory searches were also conducted to detect unforeseen metaphors. The initial repertoire was considered saturated when these exploratory searches ceased to yield new relevant conceptual categories or new lexical forms with sufficient recurrence and clear analytical value to modify the initial inventory. Thus, as other studies on metaphor and corpus analysis have pointed out (Crisp et al., 2007; Taylor, 2022; Mao et al., 2023), the identification and retrieval of metaphors constitutes one of the central methodological challenges in large text sets; hence the desirability of combining systematic procedures (e.g., based on the MIP) with rigorous contextual verification.
The retrieval unit was the candidate term included in the initial list, while the unit of analysis and coding was each manually reviewed contextual occurrence. Therefore, the analytical procedure was structured in three phases. First, occurrences of candidate terms were detected through lists and corpus searches, using WordList and Concordance in SketchEngine® to observe actual usage in context. Second, a metaphorical identification criterion inspired by the MIP (Metaphorical Information Processing) was applied to confirm the shift between a basic (physical or literal) sense and a contextual sense applied to the political-economic sphere. Only cases in which the contrast between basic and contextual sense was explicitly justifiable based on the immediate context were counted as metaphors. Third, the evaluative orientation (negative, positive, or neutral) of each metaphorical occurrence was coded. This coding was based on contextual indicators (proximate lexical evaluators, evaluative verbs, adjectivation, attributed effects, anticipated consequences) and on co-occurrence patterns.
Therefore, metaphors associated with scenarios of deterioration, risk, or lack of control were considered negative; those linked to processes of improvement or opportunity were considered positive; and those that functioned as descriptive structuring resources without explicit evaluation were considered neutral. In mixed uses, in cases where the same occurrence showed signs of ambivalent evaluation, the coding was resolved by considering the dominant orientation of the immediate context. To this end, explicit evaluative indicators were prioritized, such as adjectives, evaluative verbs, and the consequences attributed to the described phenomenon. Thus, for example, in expressions like "a whirlwind of freedom that swept across Europe," the metaphorical term was coded as positive because it was associated with an idea of favorable change, while in "the political whirlwind sinks the stock markets," it was classified as negative due to its connection with the effects of economic deterioration. When elements of opposing meanings coexisted, the overall discursive effect projected above the prototypical semantic load of the metaphorical term was considered decisive. In cases where it was not possible to clearly establish a predominant orientation, the neutral category was chosen to avoid overinterpreting the contextual evidence. To make this procedure more transparent, the results section includes some representative examples of positive, negative, and neutral coding taken from the corpus. This approach, therefore, follows the methodological practice established in other studies, where polarity is determined from the immediate discursive environment (Rojo & Orts, 2010).
In contrast, the coding was performed by a single analyst based on predefined criteria, with repeated review of doubtful cases before the final count. It is worth noting that semantic prosody annotation inevitably involves interpretive decisions. In fact, a recent study has shown that categorization procedures can exhibit modest levels of inter-rater agreement even with established guidelines. Therefore, it would be advisable to incorporate inter-coder reliability measures in future replication studies (Russnes, 2025).
5. RESULTS
The quantitative analysis of the corpus reveals a consistent distribution of metaphors for natural phenomena across the four major Spanish newspapers. The metaphors are grouped into the five established conceptual domains and are also analyzed according to their evaluative content. Furthermore, the newspapers maintain a similar distribution in the frequency with which they use each metaphorical category. First, Figure 1 reveals that the hydrological domain is the most prominent, accounting for 48% of occurrences (684 cases). This metaphorical group, which includes images associated with water, constitutes the main rhetorical resource used to represent the Brexit process. This is followed by atmospheric metaphors, at 24% (338 cases), reflecting a second discursive family characterized by references to meteorological phenomena such as storms, winds, or clouds. At a lower level are biological (14%, 204 cases) and geological (13%, 177 cases) metaphors, both frequently present, although less decisive in the overall corpus. Finally, astronomical metaphors are practically nonexistent, representing only 1% (7 cases).
Figures 1 and 2. Percentage of Each Metaphorical Category in the Corpus and Their Average Frequency
Source: Elaborated by the authors
Figure 2 confirms the metaphorical presence of each category according to its average frequency. In this case, biological metaphors reach the highest value (68 occurrences), followed by hydrological (32) and atmospheric (28) metaphors. Geological metaphors register an average of 22 occurrences, while astronomical metaphors barely reach 7. This trend reinforces the idea of a diversified, but clearly hierarchical, metaphorical repertoire, in which images related to living organisms, water, or atmospheric conditions constitute the dominant axes of media representation.
Regarding the evaluative orientation, the results in Figure 3 show a clear predominance of metaphors with negative coding. Out of a total of 1,410 metaphors analyzed, 1,054 metaphors classified as negative (75%), 226 were positive (16%) and 130 were neutral (9%). Negative metaphors outnumbered positive ones by more than four to one and neutral ones by eight, highlighting a strong tendency towards the adverse portrayal of the Brexit process in Spanish journalistic discourse. Positive metaphors occupied a secondary position, while neutral ones represented a minority group.
Figures 3 and 4. Percentage of the Evaluative Load in the Total Corpus and in Each Metaphorical Category
Source: Elaborated by the authors
The detailed distribution by metaphorical categories, shown in Figure 4, reinforces this negative trend. The hydrological domain has the highest proportion of metaphors with an unfavorable connotation (539 cases), followed by the biological (177), atmospheric (176), and geological (156) domains, while the astronomical domain barely reaches six cases. Metaphors with a positive evaluative orientation are concentrated mainly in the atmospheric domain (127 cases), followed by the hydrological domain (74), and to a lesser extent in the biological (15), geological (9), and astronomical (1) domains. Neutral metaphors show a more balanced distribution, although with much lower numbers: 71 in the hydrological domain, 35 in the atmospheric domain, 12 in both the biological and geological domains, and none in the astronomical domain.
As an example, this evaluative distribution is also evident in specific uses of the hydrological domain. Thus, expressions like “riding the crest of the wave of economic recovery” were coded as positive, associating the metaphor with a favorable evolution, while in “Brexit has already generated a first wave of unease,” the coding was negative due to its link with an effect of worry and instability. On the other hand, cases like “now has the capacity to provoke great emotional waves” were considered neutral, as the metaphor functions mainly as a descriptive intensification without a clearly predominant evaluative orientation. These examples demonstrate that the classification does not depend on the metaphorical term in isolation, but rather on the co-text in which it is inserted and the evaluative effects it projects.
To better understand this overall distribution, the lexical behavior of the most frequently occurring terms was also analyzed. Within the hydrological domain, the metaphors of “tide,” “avalanche,” and “rainstorm” account for more than three-quarters of the occurrences. This predominance of images linked to overflowing and accumulation suggests a conceptualization of Brexit as an expansive and difficult-to-contain process. In contrast, other hydrological metaphors of a more episodic or specific nature, such as “downpour” or “flood,” are few and far between, representing only 2% of the total. This points to a preference for metaphors that evoke broad and sustained dynamics over those that refer to more limited or momentary episodes.
The lexical details confirm this negative orientation: terms like “mirage,” “hurricane,” “gale,” and “tide” show over 90% of occurrences with a negative evaluative connotation. Only “wind” introduces some evaluative compensation, with a majority of positive uses (116 versus 75 negative), generally associated with ideas of change or renewal. This contrast shows that the negative polarity is not evenly distributed, but rather depends on the semantic field of each metaphor within its conceptual domain.
Figures 5 and 6. Percentage of Metaphorical Domains in Each Newspaper and Percentage of Metaphorical Connotation in Each Medium.
Source: Elaborated by the authors
All normalized frequencies were calculated by applying the same procedure to the four diaries (number of occurrences per 10,000 words), which allows for a homogeneous comparison between media outlets. Therefore, the results indicate a homogeneous distribution, with small variations (Figure 5). El País presents the highest metaphorical density (2.8), followed by La Vanguardia (2.64), El Mundo (2.52), and ABC (2.45). The differences between media outlets are minimal, barely 0.35 points, which confirms a general convergence in the use of metaphors of natural phenomena to discursively construct Brexit.
Regarding the distribution per category and newspaper (Figure 5), the data indicate that hydrological metaphors are the most frequent across all publications. La Vanguardia has the highest value (1.36), followed by El País (1.27), ABC (1.22), and El Mundo (1.19). Atmospheric metaphors are the second most common, with greater variation among publications: El País registers 0.86, El Mundo 0.63, La Vanguardia 0.55, and ABC 0.49. Geological metaphors show virtually uniform values—between 0.31 and 0.34—while biological metaphors vary slightly, with an upward progression from El País (0.31) to ABC (0.42). Astronomical metaphors, on the other hand, show marginal use across all publications (between 0.01 and 0.03). The differences between publications may be linked to the internal distribution within each domain. In hydrological metaphors, for example, El País and La Vanguardia most frequently use "tide" and "rainstrom," while ABC features a notable presence of "avalanche." In contrast, atmospheric metaphors are concentrated on "wind" in all the newspapers.
Finally, Figure 6 analyzes the evaluative polarity of the metaphors by newspaper. In all cases, negative connotations predominate, although with slight percentage differences. La Vanguardia presents the highest value of negative metaphors (78.7%), followed by El País (76.2%), ABC (74.5%), and El Mundo (69.3%). On the other hand, metaphors coded as positive are considerably less frequent; thus, ABC leads this group with 19.4%, followed by El Mundo (17.1%), El País (13.7%), and La Vanguardia (12.6%). Neutral metaphors constitute the smallest set, with values ranging from 6.1% in ABC to 13.6% in El Mundo. This distribution confirms the existence of a common tendency among the four newspapers towards a predominantly negative representation of Brexit, with minor differences that do not alter the general orientation of the metaphorical discourse.
6. DISCUSSION
The systematic presence of metaphors from natural phenomena in Spanish Brexit coverage reveals a characteristic way of interpreting political complexity. These metaphors do not function as stylistic embellishments, but rather as cognitive frameworks that structure the reader's perception and lend emotional coherence to a highly technical geopolitical process. Their recurrence in ideologically distinct publications suggests the circulation of convergent interpretive frameworks through which Brexit tends to be presented as an uncertain, unstable, and potentially disruptive phenomenon.
From the perspective of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the primacy of hydrological and atmospheric domains confirms the press's tendency to resort to universal referents—water, storms, tides, winds—which facilitate the understanding of complex processes by associating them with natural forces beyond human control. As observed in previous studies on the representation of Brexit in the British press (Tincheva, 2020; Landmann & Ganz, 2024), meteorological or geodynamic images activate ideas of risk or threat, intensifying the emotional impact of the narrative. Thus, rather than marked differences between newspapers, the data point to a convergent discursive trend toward metaphorical frameworks of crisis, which favor an adverse interpretation of the process. In the Spanish corpus analyzed, expressions such as “Seven southern countries meet in Madrid amid the Brexit storm” (El País), “the economic earthquake can still wait” (La Vanguardia) or “growing disruptive winds” (ABC) illustrate this tendency by describing the process through intense or destructive phenomena.
Thus, it can be seen that, in the case of El País, the “Brexit storm” is presented as a phenomenon that erupts upon political players and forces them to react, which can diminish the visibility of political agency and hinder the identification of specific individuals responsible. In contrast, the metaphor of “disruptive winds” in ABC introduces a dynamic force associated with human decisions, since the newspaper attributes its origin to political movements that deliberately “blow” in a particular direction. Here, the metaphor intensifies the dramatic tone and directs the interpretation toward the intervention of specific actors. For its part, when La Vanguardia speaks of the “economic earthquake,” it positions the economy as the victim of a shock caused by political uncertainty, with a narrative stance that emphasizes the impact rather than the agents that generate it. These metaphorical variations show that the newspapers combine expressive intensity and interpretive orientation to articulate their account of Brexit.
The predominance of negative connotations, consistent with the semantic prosody described by Louw (1993) and Sinclair (1996), reinforces this orientation. Associating Brexit with tides, floods, or storms activates affective frameworks linked to fear. Negativity not only depends on vocabulary but also acts as the axis of the media narrative, in line with what Morales Pérez (2019) points out regarding political metaphors. Instead of simply reflecting the instability of the process, journalistic discourse tends to intensify and symbolically dramatize it, in accordance with the journalistic communication contract (Charaudeau, 2005; Beciu & Lazăr, 2021), which compels the media to stage events in an emotionally significant way.
The scarcity of positive or ambivalent metaphors—except for isolated cases like "wind," associated with change—reveals the media narrative's resistance to introducing less alarmist perspectives, in line with the contemporary trend of aestheticizing politics through crisis narratives. This dramatization effect aligns with findings on the emotional escalation of Brexit discourse through the interplay between figuration and hyperbole, which enhances affective impact and fosters polarized readings (Musolff, 2021). From this perspective, the reiteration of negative metaphorical frameworks not only shapes the cognitive interpretation of Brexit but can also contribute to broader processes of discursive polarization. As Porto and Romano (2025) point out, certain terms and evaluative frameworks act as " superwords " that concentrate complex meanings and valuations, facilitating the crystallization of polarized interpretations in contemporary media discourse.
Furthermore, the difference in the internal distribution of metaphorical domains also contributes to this effect. The dominant hydrological metaphors (tide, rainstorm, avalanche) construct a narrative of accumulation and overflowing, presenting Brexit as an expansive force difficult to contain, while the high-intensity atmospheric metaphors (hurricane, gale) reinforce the idea of threat. These patterns, consistent with the literature on natural disaster metaphors in economic discourse, transform the process into a sequence of interconnected forces that progressively erodes European stability.
These results also align with the patterns identified by Charteris and Black (2019), which indicate that Brexit metaphors operate as devices for emotional intensification. From this perspective, the recurrence of hydrological and atmospheric metaphors in the Spanish press activates images of overflowing, turbulence, and instability that reproduce the dramatic framing observed in British discourse. This reinforces the idea that Brexit is constructed in the media as a critical phenomenon rather than as a negotiated process.
On the other hand, the overlap between El País, El Mundo, La Vanguardia, and ABC reinforces the idea that these are not isolated stylistic choices, but rather a convergent metaphorical pattern. This convergence can be explained by professional routines—dependence on news agencies, homogeneous circulation of informational frameworks—and by deeply rooted cultural conventions that link political instability with uncontrollable natural phenomena. In practice, this discursive convergence may contribute to stabilizing a shared representation of Brexit as a systemic risk for Europe, in line with studies on its media representation in the Spanish press (Ramos Ruiz, 2022).
From a cognitive perspective, the effectiveness of these metaphors is evident, as they simplify complex processes, facilitate access to information, and allow for the integration of multiple dimensions of Brexit under a single conceptual framework. However, this mechanism also entails an analytical cost. By presenting the conflict in terms of natural forces, these metaphors can shift attention away from political actors toward dynamics perceived as difficult to control. Consequently, Brexit may come to be perceived less as a negotiated decision and more as an event seemingly beyond human control.
7. CONCLUSIONS
The study shows that metaphors of natural phenomena are a consistent resource in Spanish Brexit coverage. The hydrological domain, followed by the atmospheric, biological, and geological, structures the metaphorical repertoire of the four newspapers, while the astronomical domain is marginal. The evaluative orientation confirms the initial hypothesis: a negative semantic prosody predominates, framing Brexit as a crisis, upheaval, and instability, with few variations between newspapers. However, this negativity is not inherent to the natural domains themselves, but rather to the way they are integrated into the media narrative. Some minor elements, such as "wind," allow for positive interpretations linked to change.
The added value of this work lies in combining a top-down approach to prototypical metaphors with the analysis of their semantic prosody in a representative corpus, rather than in the detection of novel metaphors. This combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis allows for the description of the distribution of metaphors by conceptual domains and orientation, as well as the identification of the lexical cores that structure the metaphorical repertoire (e.g., tide, rainstorm, avalanche, wind). However, the design has certain limitations. On the one hand, the use of a predefined list may exclude less conventional metaphors; on the other, the study is restricted to the mainstream press and a specific period (from June 24, 2016, to January 31, 2020).
An additional limitation is that evaluative polarity was coded by only one analyst. Given that the literature has highlighted the challenges of inter-rater reliability in semantic prosody categorization, future research should incorporate dual coding and agreement metrics.
On a theoretical level, the results reinforce the usefulness of linking Conceptual Metaphor Theory with studies of semantic prosody and critical approaches to metaphorical analysis, showing that metaphors of natural phenomena contribute to establishing long-term interpretive frameworks in political communication. On an applied level, the data invite reflection on the role of the press in constructing crisis narratives and in the naturalization of complex political processes. This issue is relevant for media literacy, as well as for training readers capable of recognizing the figurative devices that guide the interpretation of current events.
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AUTHORS' CONTRIBUTIONS, FUNDING AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Authors' Contributions
Financing: This research did not receive external funding.
Acknowledgments: This work is part of the POPULEX research project (PID2024-156770OB-I00), “Analysis of Spanish Populist Political Discourse. A Study of the Lexicon of the New Parties (2014–2024)” at the University of Granada, as well as the activities of the ALTAE (EA 3967, Paris Cité University), FENIX (SEJ-596, University of Seville), and Lexicon and Discourse (HUM 265, University of Granada) research groups.
Conflict of interest: The authors of this article declare that they do not exist.
