AFFECTIVE MEANINGS OF METAPHORICAL TERMS IN M&A LANGUAGE

Denotative and affective meanings of metaphors can be explained by their realising conceptual metaphors.

1) Metaphorical model ACQISITIONS ARE MIDIEVAL TOURNIQUETS

M&A terms ...recalls the days of chivalry (Slater, 1999: 14). Sub-model COMPANIES ARE KNIGHTS

1. WHITE KNIGHT

A White knight is a company that is invited to make a friendly takeover offer to a target company that is being faced with a hostile takeover from a separate party and thereby prevent its acquisition by the hostile bidder, a so-called black knight. ... a friendly buyer who is the modern-day parallel of the swordcarrying fellow arriving at the castle, dramatically mounted on a horse hence he was known as a white knight (Slater, 1999: 14). A White knight (the "good guy") gallops in to make a friendly takeover offer to a target company that is facing a hostile takeover from another party (a "black knight"). The white knight offers the target firm a way out with a friendly takeover.

In retellings of the Arthur legends, many times the heroes wore light-coloured armor. Literal meaning of the term white knight: " Tell me, my sister, " said Vasilissa, " who was the white knight that passed me in the forest? " " He was the bright day. " (BNC)

If Marc was the ogre guarding the crock of gold, then Peter had to be cast as the white knight, saving her from the dreaded dragon! (BNC)

The metaphorical meaning of the M&A term white knight has obviously a positive meaning, which can be defected through the collocates come along, galloped to the rescue, rescuer...to thwart this move, act as...to form a strong British company, headhunted to fight off, come along and protect in the following citations from BNC and COCA: A whiteknight could come along and make a more friendly offer, but this hasn't happened yet.(BNC) A WHITE Knight has galloped to the rescue of TVS Entertainment, the southern operator that lost its money-spinning TV franchise in the shake up.(BNC) December 1985, attempted to merge with Guinness, using it as a white knight (ie a friendly rescuer) in an attempt to thwart this move.(BNC) During the takeover battle, it was suggested that Cadbury Schweppes should act as a white knight to Rowntree, in order to form a strong British company able to compete effectively with the Swiss. (BNC) Barrow was a White Knight -- headhunted to fight off a corporate raider -- for whom Kennecott had to pay over $1m. in order to match a clause in Barrow's contract with Exxon (BNC) A white knight to come in and protect them from IBM. (COCA)

A White knight is considered as a rescuer, called out to save struggling companies. As a non-term, it also possesses metaphorical meaning with positive connotations in the following citations:
But a potential white knight emerged last night in the shape of President Bill Clinton who, it emerged, would hold talks with Mr Patten in May.(BNC) As for the beleaguered Top Of The Pops, there's talk of a white knight riding in to lead one last dash at the ratings. Jimmy Savile has offered to return and save the show.(BNC)

+ the relatively small distance between the words white knight and save
She'd dreamed of a white knight who would rescue her. Someone who would never hit her. (COCA)

BUT as it was found in this BNC citation, white knight doesn't only have a positive meaning of a rescuer: The shares, however, rose 6p to 648p, indicating that the market continues to expect either a higher offer or the intervention of a white knight, possibly from continental Europe.(BNC)

This can be explained by the fact that a business white knight doesn't save companies disinterestedly as its source domain's counterpart, a white knight gets some benefits from his saving work though it acquires the firm that is in crisis, after acquisition, the knight then rebuilds the firm, or integrates it into itself.

2. BLACK KNIGHT

A Black knight is a company that makes a hostile takeover offer on a target company. An allusion to the evil villain of many fairytales, this term demonstrates how a targeted company sees its adversary.

In literature the villains wear black-coloured armor: A black knight appeared, as though out of profound shadow, on the surface of the ultimately narrow board. (BNC)

Affective negative meaning of the metaphorical term black knight can be traced in citations through its collocates such as against and evil in these citations: Added poison pill against possible black knight, Harold Simmons (which see). (COCA) While not particularly welcome, the black knight is considered the lesser of two evils. (BNC) Thus, the metaphorical terms white knight and black knight create metaphorical networks of antonyms.

2) Animal metaphors in M&A terms

1. BEAR HUGS

The bear hug is a hostile takeover attempt that is done in such a ways that the board of directors of the company find it impossible to not accept the bid.

This metaphorical term has a discernible affective meaning, which can be observed through collocations in the following GRC examples:
Some bear hug announcements are mainly designed to be disruptive to rivals Bear-hug proposals start with an unsolicited offer for a company that is generous enough to make the target consider it and prompts the target to make it public.

the bear hug is used to bring the proposal to the attention of target shareholders in the hope that shareholders will pressure the board to negotiate with the bidder.
the target board withstood the pressure from the bear hug proposal and the public and private agitation from some of its shareholders, forcing SABMiller to take its proposal directly to shareholders by way of a hostile takeover bid.

In contrast, general meaning of bear hug can have rather positive connotations as well as connotations of intensity in COCA citations: He looks me up and down and then grabs me in a bear hug, and that's my next surprise, the way he squeezes the air right out of me, and not just because he's stronger now. His response? He caught me up in a near ribcracking bear hug, then turned and left. I launched from the hatch and grabbed Tab in a bear hug, squeezing her as tightly... He wrapped her in a bear hug and leaned down to kiss the top of her head have strong arms and a soft heart, who wrap us in a smothering bear hug that makes everything seem all right. I started laughing and gave him a big ole bear hug. the man whod always greeted her with a smile and a big, warm bear hug.

Though, there are occurrences of negative connotations of bear hug:

He presses me to his chest in a murderous bear hug as we roll. whooshed out of her lungs as he squeezed her upper body in a fierce bear hug against the floor

Collocations with the lexeme BEAR (COCA):

This lexeme doesn't have many negative connotations as can be seen on the table. Thus, we may conclude that metaphorical senses may have stronger affective meanings than their literal counterparts.
1

POLAR

951

3410

27.89

12.47

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

BLACK GRIZZLY BROWN BIG GREAT WHITE YOUNG GOLDEN STUFFED SLEEPING GUMMY BERENSTAIN RUSSIAN

851 625 240 217 131 123 119 112 100 60 46 41 35

176914 1707 66058 207428 215493 208277 160331 23317

0.48 36.61 0.36 0.10 0.06 0.06 0.07 0.48

6.61 12.86 6.21 4.41 3.63 3.59 3.92 6.61

10
11 12 13 14 15

7092
16484 349 82 27279 31133

1.41
0.36 13.18 50.00 0.13 0.10

8.16
6.21 11.39 13.31 4.71 4.39

WILD

32

2. SHARK REPELLENT

That is a term for any one of a number of measures taken by a company to fend off an unwanted or hostile takeover attempt, e. g. poison pills, scorched earth policies, golden parachutes and safe harbor strategies. Metaphor ACQUIRING COMPANIES ARE SHARKS In this metaphor we can also observe transference of affective meaning from the source domain to the target domain: A Tenneco buyback, announced in the face of takeover threats, was described by Business Week as " potent shark repellent (COCA) Saturday night specials were pitted against white knights and corporate managers who fended off their attackers with poison pills and shark repellent.(COCA) There are some COCA examples of usage of the lexeme SHARK to prove its negative connotations: reminding people about the two fatal shark attacks of last year hundreds of men being attacked and eaten by sharks. had witnessed terrifying shark attacks on crew members. Now swimming harder, I yet try to avoid marauding sharks. Worldwide there were twelve deadly shark attacks last year

CONCLUSIONS
It was shown that a conceptual metaphor has an important role in determining metaphorical affective meaning studied here through lexical sets and connotations.