Is Franken Food Food
for Thought?
1
Introduction and Background

Previous research

Public attitudes to biotechnology in Britain

Metaphor as argument and interaction in the debate

Metaphor in a critical perspective
2
Public attitudes to biotechnology
(e.g. Frewer et al. 1995, 1997; Hviid Nielsen et al. 2002)

Risk

Benefits

Ethics

Two segments
Modernist ‘green’
Traditional ‘blue’
3
Conceptual Metaphor Theory
(e.g. Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993; Lakoff & Turner
1989; Chilton 1996; Musolff 2000)

Metaphor is primarily cognitive, but realised
linguistically

Metaphors are coherent, systematic and pervasive

Metaphors are conceptual, while at the same time
strategic and intentional
4
The Socio-Cognitive Approach
(e.g. Van Dijk 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002)

Combining the social and the cognitive

Group structure and schema

Consequences for the study of metaphor
5
The UK GM debate

UK national debate on GM issues

Metaphorical mappings in the first report
Battle & Invasion
Personification
Liquids & Paths
6
Metaphors in the GM Science Review
Report
Battle/Invasion





Invasion
Counterparts
Aliens
Colonisation
Establishment
Personification
Fitness
Survival
Thriving
Escape
Behaviour
Parent plants
2nd generation
plants
 Descendents







Liquids/Paths
 Gene flow
 Gene transfer
 Movement
7
GM metaphors in the media
Objects and Substances
 Contamination
‘the contamination threat’
‘the potential to contaminate
non-GM crops’
‘GM crop contamination’
‘Supernatural’
personification
 Frankenstein foods
 Superweeds
‘All this talk of Frankenstein
food is misleading’
‘the irresponsible journalist
who labelled them
“Frankenstein foods”’
‘genetically modified superweeds
rampaging’
8
Concluding remarks

Metaphors as deliberate choice

Metaphor as reflecting and influencing public
attitudes
9