Displays of anger in Turkish political discourse: a hard choice between cultural norms and political performance of anger

Abstract This paper examines the influence of cultural display rules on how high-status individuals, such as political leaders, publicly express anger. Specifically, it focuses on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been the Turkish leader since 2003. The study aims to understand the extent to which Erdoğan’s expression of anger is influenced by cultural display rules, the religious context stemming from his conservative electoral support, and his position as a long-term populist political leader. Using extended conceptual metaphor theory (ECMT) supported by corpus-assisted discourse analysis, the paper seeks to identify the contextual factors that shape anger expressions (both direct and metaphorical) in the political discourse of a populist leader in a collectivist culture. By comparing the conceptualization of ascribed anger and inscribed anger expressions, the analysis reveals that Erdoğan’s discourse presents two distinct scenarios for expressing anger toward ‘us’ and ‘others’. Additionally, it demonstrates how anger is strategically employed in culture-specific ways to navigate the challenges posed by conflicting contextual factors.