Abstract

This research aims to characterise the appraising role of lexical metaphor in the digital media discourse regarding the Chilean protests from October 2019 to the same month of 2021. The methodology includes the identification of lexical metaphors in ten news publications and their examination under the appraisal system (Martin & White, 2005). Among the results, it highlights the complexity of lexical metaphor as an appraisal linguistic construct, which, for example, can communicate attitudes with graduation values and introduce attributions in discourse. We conclude that such functional diversity contributes to the covert alignment of readers with the axiological dispositions of journalistic media. © 2024 Universidad Catolica Silva Henriquez. All rights reserved.