Look closer - Metaphors’ role in the construction of identity.

Constructivism in IR, moderate and radical versions alike, suffers from a superficial understanding of language: Looking only at argumentation and content (what is being said), it overlooks that reality is also being constructed below the surface of texts: it does make a difference, how I say something. Style matters! The proposed paper will point to the crucial role metaphors play in this regard: Metaphors create reality by projecting everyday life-worlds onto international relations. They make sense of and give meaning to strange material phenomena such as the fall of the Berlin wall or the WTC-towers. My paper will come up with a method of analysing metaphors that builds on two strands of literature: post-structuralist theories of discourse on the one hand and sociology of knowledge on the other. In order to illustrate how the method works on the empirical ground, it will be applied to the discourse on EU-enlargement, showing that and how enlargement-metaphors construct European identity. Against this background the paper will finally reflect upon linguistic mechanisms of identity construction more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]