La concettualizzazione metaforica dell’intelligenza artificiale: Analisi del discorso giornalistico italiano contemporaneo

Daša Stanič

doi:10.4312/linguistica.65.1.185-203

Authors

Daša Stanič University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Slovenia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/linguistica.65.1.185-203

Keywords:

artificial intelligence, conceptual metaphor, journalistic discourse

Abstract

The study analyses the representation of artificial intelligence in Italian journalistic discourse in 2025 (corpus CS25, created specifically for this research), comparing it with the linguistic situation up to 2006 (corpus itWaC). The approach is based on the conceptual metaphor model (Lakoff/Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2010), which enables investigation of how AI is understood and represented through metaphorical linguistic expressions. The analysis shows that twenty years ago, the language was predominantly technical and definitional, dominated by the metaphors AI IS A SPACE and AI IS A TOOL, with marginal personification or anthropomorphic representation. In 2025, journalistic discourse presents a more complex and articulated metaphorical system: AI IS A PERSON emerges as the central metaphor, with subcategories such as AI IS AN INTERLOCUTOR (the most frequent metaphor), AN ADVERSARY/ENEMY, AN ASSISTANT and A CREATOR/ARTIST, while new metaphors such as AI IS A NATURAL FORCE and AI IS A GOAL also appear. The results highlight an evolution from technical language to a repertoire rich in anthropomorphic and relational metaphors, reflecting the growing pervasiveness of AI in everyday life and its influence on public discourse, social perception and cultural expectations.

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