Messermänner and Parasiten: An Analysis of the Role of Metonymic and Metaphoric Patterns in Shaping “Immigrants” Stereotypes in German Political Discourse

George Lakoff was the first to postulate a relationship between metonymic phenomena and social stereotypes (1987: 79). In Schmid’s view (2002: 293), Lakoffs’ idea of stereotype is characterized by the fact that it is strictly connected with the social conventions and beliefs shared within a speech community. There are many studies on political discourse which explore the role of figurative speech in shaping social stereotypes. Most of them though deal mainly with metaphor (cf. Musolff 2004, 2011, 2015; Spieß 2017, 2019). Conversely, the present paper aims at conducting an analysis of the two German expressions Messermänner and Parasiten, with particular reference to the fundamental role of metonymic phenomena in the interaction between metaphoric and metonymic patterns. The abovementioned expressions were used by two AfD politicians to refer to the social category of immigrants. The discussion will highlight differences and commonalities between the two expressions with reference both to metonymic and metaphoric patterns and to their relation to the conceptualization of the “immigrants” in German political discourse. The results will show that, even if in different ways metonymic models play a fundamental role in both expressions in the definition of the negative social stereotype.