La construcción de la modernidad: metáfora y política en dos discursos de Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1953-1957)

a lot has been written about the governance regime in venezuela between 1948 and 1958, particularly about its main representative figure, marcos pérez jiménez, who played an important role during that decade dominated by the national military force. this essay aims at offering new interpretations following, on the one side, the guidelines of critical discourse analysis (cda) as stated by ruth wodak, michael meyer and teun van dijk, and on the other, the analysis of metaphor use on the basis of the studies of george lakoff, mark johnson and thays adrián. to do so, two speeches of general marcos pérez jiménez are taken as sample. the speeches were delivered in two different moments and circumstances, so that we can approach the study of the metaphor as linguistic strategy and its function in legitimation and ideologization of political models that attempt to impose hegemony on society. among the conclusions of this study, the scarce presence of war metaphors is to be highlighted in contrast to the repeated use of a metaphoric language of a rather technical nature linked to construction.