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Beastly: What Makes Animal Metaphors Offensive?

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Journal of Language and Social Psychology
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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.
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).
... Seeing a woman as a «bitch», first and foremost, implies her dehumanization-which has been linked to the promotion of negative attitudes and even violent behaviors (Goldernberg et al., 2009;Haslam et al., 2011;Kteily & Landry, 2022). Secondly, her animalization is embedded within a hierarchical structure-The Great Chain of Being (Lakoff & Turner, 1989;Rigato & Minelli, 2013)-in which people are placed above animals due to the ideology of human superiority to beasts (Goatly, 2006). ...
... The identification of people with animals entails a degradation in the status of humans since the former are attributed with the instinctual and brutal qualities of the latter. Most animal metaphors describe contemptuous human characteristics and behavior (Haslam et al., 2011;Waśniewska, 2018). Calling someone «a pig», «a rat», «an ape», «a whale», or «a leech» carries a derogatory meaning (Baider & Gesuato, 2003) and a strong emotional and moral charge (Lacalle et al., 2024). ...
... No to dirty, bitch, slag, slut, and nympho». As research has pointed out, turning women into objects and animals may result in abusive behaviors towards them since females are deprived of their human condition (Haslam et al., 2011). ...
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... Guided by Conceptual metaphor theory, this study argues that animal metaphors advertising has a significant impact on tourists' waste classification behavior (Slingerland 2004). Animal metaphors have been widely used, which have been demonstrated by some studies that can affect individual behavior (Haslam et al 2011). However, previous studies have mainly focused on the impact of animal metaphors on individual cognition (!!! INVALID CITATION !!! ), and few studies have explored how animalistic metaphorical advertising about waste classification in scenic spots affects tourists' waste classification intention. ...
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... However, this strategy may backfire when the animal metaphor is used to describe a human being rather than a nonhuman object (e.g., a brand or the flu). Although certain animal metaphors do capture positive characteristics and can be employed for praising people (e.g., using the phrase "busy as a bee" to convey industriousness), the most commonly used animal metaphors are negative (Aliakbari & Faraji, 2014;Haslam et al., 2011). Metaphorical animalbased expressions are often used to disparage others Huang & Hsieh, 2023). ...
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... For instance, recent research indicates that animalistic slurs increase harm because they induce attribution of less socially desirable traits and more undesirable traits to the victims (Enock and Over, 2023). Indeed, many animal metaphors that are considered dehumanizing are also associated with negative perceptions (Haslam et al., 2011;Over, 2021), making it hard to disentangle these biases when animal slurs are offensively used. In that case, changing the perceptions of animals may not reduce blatant dehumanization since the evaluation of humanity is not being driven by the perceived humanness of other animals. ...
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