Sports metaphors - war images and narratives: the use of sports language in the journalistic coverage of the USA versus Iraq war

Abstract

This article focuses on the use of sports expressions in the press coverage of the war between the United States of America and Iraq. It is supported by an assystematic observation of the TV coverage during the war, presenting parts of the material aired by announcers, commentators and reporters, and trying to reflect on the risk of mixing the languages on the media, particularly on TV, and the dangers to the society when authorized speeches produce “reality effects”, in the sense used by Bordieu (1997a), and a “truth” with a language that wanes the pain and the death, or in one word, the barbarianism