Abstract

In October 2019, the so-called ‘social outbreak’ took place in Chile, a major socio-political conflict that led to an unprecedented constitutional change in the country. Under this context, the feminist movement takes on a prominent role, not only because of the massiveness of its demonstrations but also because of its influence on the achievement of gender parity in the constitutional process.The experiences of the protests were captured in the countless graffiti that have propagated in urban spaces since the social outbreak and which, even today, abound in certain areas. The aim of this study is to analyse the conceptual metaphors expressed in graffiti related to the Chilean protest. The methodology includes three instances of analysis: (1) the identification of linguistic metaphors; (2) their semantic-discursive grouping; and (3) the conceptual analysis of the established groups, in which the ‘Basic Scene’ (Rivano, 1999) component is considered. As a result, the conceptual metaphor PROTEST IS WAR is proposed, which conceptualises Chileans as warriors fighting against an enemy, represented by the political institutionality, the economic model and the patriarchal system. It is concluded that the established metaphor sets out a cognitive dichotomy that highlights the opposition between the participants in the Chilean social conflict and the demonstrators’ discomfort with the current system, emphasising its commitment and unity with the reasons to protest.