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This article discusses metaphor and irony as discursive strategies employed by the Lithuanian media while construing the imagery of crime, criminal, and criminality. The method applied to analyse metaphor and irony in Lithuanian criminological discourse combines the framework offered by conceptual metaphor theory with corpus linguistics. First of all, metaphorical and ironical expressions were inventoried, and then conceptual paradigms were reconstructed from them. The conceptual-level analysis revealed that the relations between the conceptual domains of metaphor and irony are processed by different types of mapping (similarity [metaphor] vs. dissimilarity [irony]). Despite differences in the processing of cross-domain mapping, metaphor and irony realised in public criminological discourse carry out the same or very similar rhetorical and social functions. The main function of these discursive strategies is the vivid expression of emotional attitudes and values directed at the criminal—the text adresser evaluates the criminal and crime negatively, dissociates from the offender, and isolates him symbolically from our community. In this way, the contemporary Lithuanian media constructs and shapes the community's approach to particular social phenomena—crime, criminal, and criminality.

[abstract in English; full article and abstract in Lithuanian] The rhetoric and the stylistics – the choice of text style, genre, and rhetorical devices – of Soviet badnews discourse is analysed in this paper. This discourse is represented by 193 reports regarding disasters,crimes, and violation of socialistic moral which were published in the daily paper Komjaunimo tiesa (eng.The Truth of the Komsomol) in 1970–1973. It was found that the bad news in the selection of official textsof this period distinguishes by a much lower register of Newspeak – unlike as in the articles of first pages,there is almost no pathos here, the militaristic metaphors are used in the text of the article only, but theycannot be seen in the headings. One of the main rhetorical devices is an irony, which is created by usingphraseology, jargon, famous quotes, dialogues, etc., – everything, which looks like a daily colloquiallanguage. The choice of text form which is more related to fiction than to journalism (essay, satire) maybe treated as one of the pretexts which justify in the eyes of the readers an idea of an author to write ina different language than it was ordinary in the context of ideologized press language of that period. Byusing the corresponding rhetoric, they believed to accomplish the propagandistic aim of these texts moreefficiently – to suggest an image of more safe, democratic, successful, and self-critical country than itreally was. ; [straipsnis ir santrauka lietuvių kalba; santrauka anglų kalba] Straipsnyje tiriama sovietmečio blogųjų naujienų diskurso, kurį tyrime reprezentuoja 1970–1972 m. dienraštyje "Komjaunimo tiesa" paskelbti 193 pranešimai apie nelaimes, nusikaltimus ir socialistinės moralės pražangas, stilistika ir retorika – tekstų stiliaus, žanrų ir retorinių priemonių pasirinkimas. Nustatyta, kad to laikotarpio oficialių tekstų masyve blogosios naujienos išsiskiria kur kas žemesniu naujakalbės registru – skirtingai nei pirmųjų puslapių straipsniuose, čia beveik nėra patoso, militaristinės metaforos vartojamos tik straipsnio tekste, bet jų nematyti antraštėse. Viena pagrindinių retorinių priemonių – ironija, kuri kuriama pasitelkiant frazeologiją, žargoną, žinomas citatas, dialogus ir pan. – visa tai, kas primenakasdienę šnekamąją kalbą. Beletristikai nei publicistikai artimesnės tekstų formos (apybraižos, satyros) pasirinkimą galima traktuoti kaip vieną iš pretekstų, skaitytojo akyse pateisinusių autoriaus sumanymą rašyti kitokia kalba to meto ideologizuotos spaudos kalbos kontekste. Manytina, kad atitinkama retorika tikėtasi efektyviau įgyvendinti propagandinį šių tekstų tikslą – įteigti saugesnės, demokratiškesnės, sėkmingesnės, nei yra, ir savikritiškos šalies įvaizdį.

The rhetoric and the stylistics – the choice of text style, genre, and rhetorical devices – of Soviet bad news discourse is analysed in this paper. This discourse is represented by 193 reports regarding disasters, crimes, and violation of socialistic moral which were published in the daily paper Komjaunimo tiesa (eng. The Truth of the Komsomol) in 1970–1973. It was found that the bad news in the selection of official texts of this period distinguishes by a much lower register of Newspeak – unlike as in the articles of first pages, there is almost no pathos here, the militaristic metaphors are used in the text of the article only, but they cannot be seen in the headings. One of the main rhetorical devices is an irony, which is created by using phraseology, jargon, famous quotes, dialogues, etc., – everything, which looks like a daily colloquial language. The choice of text form which is more related to fiction than to journalism (essay, satire) may be treated as one of the pretexts which justify in the eyes of the readers an idea of an author to write in a different language than it was ordinary in the context of ideologized press language of that period. By using the corresponding rhetoric, they believed to accomplish the propagandistic aim of these texts more efficiently – to suggest an image of more safe, democratic, successful, and self-critical country than it really was.

The rhetoric and the stylistics – the choice of text style, genre, and rhetorical devices – of Soviet bad news discourse is analysed in this paper. This discourse is represented by 193 reports regarding disasters, crimes, and violation of socialistic moral which were published in the daily paper Komjaunimo tiesa (eng. The Truth of the Komsomol) in 1970–1973. It was found that the bad news in the selection of official texts of this period distinguishes by a much lower register of Newspeak – unlike as in the articles of first pages, there is almost no pathos here, the militaristic metaphors are used in the text of the article only, but they cannot be seen in the headings. One of the main rhetorical devices is an irony, which is created by using phraseology, jargon, famous quotes, dialogues, etc., – everything, which looks like a daily colloquial language. The choice of text form which is more related to fiction than to journalism (essay, satire) may be treated as one of the pretexts which justify in the eyes of the readers an idea of an author to write in a different language than it was ordinary in the context of ideologized press language of that period. By using the corresponding rhetoric, they believed to accomplish the propagandistic aim of these texts more efficiently – to suggest an image of more safe, democratic, successful, and self-critical country than it really was.

Expression and functions of the irony in a Lithuanian public criminological discourse of two periods – the Soviet era (1975–1989) and the present (2001–2015) – are being investigated in this article by applying the conceptual analysis and comparative methods. The purpose of the research was to focus on any hypothetic changes of conceptual models and functional level of the irony in the analysed discourse. Ironical phrases the target domain of which is the concepts of a criminal and a crime were investigated to reconstruct the conceptual structures based on them. The same seven conceptual paradigms were determined which ironically structure a criminal and a crime in both ideologically and politically different periods; according to the number of expressions used to realize them, two of them are treated as productive, four – as peripheral ones, and one of them at the Soviet era was a peripheral one, however it has now become very productive. Therefore, some changes and new trends were identified only within the last-mentioned conceptual model – recently traffic offenders are described by some new vivid ironical phrases ("road eagle", "road rooster" as a "road hog") which have become quite common to use. The same three functions are typical to the discourse irony at both periods – (1) a negative evaluation of any crime and criminal, (2) a separation from the community and (3) the irony as a stylistic measure for imagery creation. It suggests that such relative stability of these rhetorical models and functions is determined by a hardly changing assessment for decades in the community for the target domain subject and object (a criminal and a crime).

Crimininology metaphors in Lithuanian public discourse during the Soviet period (1975–1989) and in recent years (2001–2015) were analysed and compared. The purpose of this research was to highlight changes in the level of conceptualization and metaphorical expressions and to identify changes in the concepts of crime, criminal and criminality in linguistic culture. It was found that two models of methaphors made up of two minor metaphors were used for criminal during those periods: A CRIMINAL IS NOT A HUMAN BEING (a criminal is an animal (beast, wolf, reptile) – a criminal is a creature (degenerate, creep, devil, freak, monster) and A CRIMINAL IS A CERTAIN PROFESSION (killer / butcher / hunter / fisher). Analysing criminology metaphors used in recent years the monster metaphor was identified, the levels of metaphorisation were compared and two metaphorical parallels a criminal is a hunter and a criminal is a fisher were identified. TO COMMIT A CRIME was metaphorized TO SATISFY PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS (a criminal is preying on his victim) or TO FULFIL DUTY (punish, persecute,,chase, fish). The last two metaphors were characteristic of current discourse. CRIME was structured as AN OBJECT (hard object) and as A NATURAL DISASTER (earthquake). The conceptual metaphor criminality is a disease appeared only lately because crime issues were avoided in the Soviet period. Thus, the comparison of conceptual crimonology metaphors in public discourse during two ideologically and politically different periods revealed that metaphorical expressions and the level of conceptualization changed insignificantly An explanantion of that is not a Soviet tradition but a negative attitude of society towards a criminal and a crime which does not change.

Expression and functions of the irony in a Lithuanian public criminological discourse of two periods – the Soviet era (1975–1989) and the present (2001–2015) – are being investigated in this article by applying the conceptual analysis and comparative methods. The purpose of the research was to focus on any hypothetic changes of conceptual models and functional level of the irony in the analysed discourse. Ironical phrases the target domain of which is the concepts of a criminal and a crime were investigated to reconstruct the conceptual structures based on them. The same seven conceptual paradigms were determined which ironically structure a criminal and a crime in both ideologically and politically different periods; according to the number of expressions used to realize them, two of them are treated as productive, four – as peripheral ones, and one of them at the Soviet era was a peripheral one, however it has now become very productive. Therefore, some changes and new trends were identified only within the last-mentioned conceptual model – recently traffic offenders are described by some new vivid ironical phrases ("road eagle", "road rooster" as a "road hog") which have become quite common to use. The same three functions are typical to the discourse irony at both periods – (1) a negative evaluation of any crime and criminal, (2) a separation from the community and (3) the irony as a stylistic measure for imagery creation. It suggests that such relative stability of these rhetorical models and functions is determined by a hardly changing assessment for decades in the community for the target domain subject and object (a criminal and a crime).

Crimininology metaphors in Lithuanian public discourse during the Soviet period (1975–1989) and in recent years (2001–2015) were analysed and compared. The purpose of this research was to highlight changes in the level of conceptualization and metaphorical expressions and to identify changes in the concepts of crime, criminal and criminality in linguistic culture. It was found that two models of methaphors made up of two minor metaphors were used for criminal during those periods: A CRIMINAL IS NOT A HUMAN BEING (a criminal is an animal (beast, wolf, reptile) – a criminal is a creature (degenerate, creep, devil, freak, monster) and A CRIMINAL IS A CERTAIN PROFESSION (killer / butcher / hunter / fisher). Analysing criminology metaphors used in recent years the monster metaphor was identified, the levels of metaphorisation were compared and two metaphorical parallels a criminal is a hunter and a criminal is a fisher were identified. TO COMMIT A CRIME was metaphorized TO SATISFY PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS (a criminal is preying on his victim) or TO FULFIL DUTY (punish, persecute,,chase, fish). The last two metaphors were characteristic of current discourse. CRIME was structured as AN OBJECT (hard object) and as A NATURAL DISASTER (earthquake). The conceptual metaphor criminality is a disease appeared only lately because crime issues were avoided in the Soviet period. Thus, the comparison of conceptual crimonology metaphors in public discourse during two ideologically and politically different periods revealed that metaphorical expressions and the level of conceptualization changed insignificantly An explanantion of that is not a Soviet tradition but a negative attitude of society towards a criminal and a crime which does not change.