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Journal of Language and Social Psychology
30(3) 311 –325
© 2011 SAGE Publications
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X11407168
http://jls.sagepub.com
JLS407168JL
S30310.1177/0261927X11407168Haslam et al.Journal of Language and Social Psychology
1University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
2University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, England
Corresponding Author:
Nick Haslam, Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
Email: nhaslam@unimelb.edu.au
Beastly: What Makes
Animal Metaphors
Offensive?
Nick Haslam1, Steve Loughnan2,
and Pamela Sun1
Abstract
Animal metaphors convey a wide range of meanings, from insulting slurs to expressions
of love. Two studies examined factors contributing to the offensiveness of these
metaphors. Study 1 examined 40 common metaphors, finding that their meanings
were diverse but centered on depravity, disagreeableness, and stupidity. Their
offensiveness was predicted by the revulsion felt toward the animal and by the
dehumanizing view of the target that it implied. Study 2 examined contextual factors
in metaphor use, finding that the offensiveness of animal metaphors varies with
the tone of their expression and the gender and in-group/out-group status of their
targets. These variations influence offensiveness by altering the extent to which the
target is ascribed animalistic properties.
Keywords
dehumanization, gender, metaphor, offensiveness
Metaphorical language allows people to experience and understand one kind of entity
in terms of another. Features of a particular source domain are conceptually mapped
and selectively transferred onto a target domain, allowing target categories to be appre-
hended in novel and often revealing ways. The cognitive processes involved in the under-
standing of metaphor—associative and inferential, pragmatic and semantic, abstract
and embodied—are the focus of an active research literature (e.g., Gibbs, 2006; Ritchie,
2009; Wilson & Carston, 2006).