https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:37529 doi:10.11649/sm.3384 ISSN: 2392-2400 Mine Your Own Business: The Functions of Metaphor in Serbian Anti-Lithium Mining Discourse 2025 Slavia Meridionalis volume: 25 startpage: Article 3384 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode From the perspective of Critical Metaphor Analysis, the paper examines how the topic of lithium mining and extraction is metaphorically conceptualized in the Serbian political and media discourse, particularly focusing on the ways anti-lithium activists and politicians use metaphor in the argumentation of their viewpoints. Based on a dataset collected from various electronic news media in the period June–September 2024, we aim to investigate the functions of the two metaphors manifested in the anti-lithium discourse, i.e., WAR and COLONIALISM, and how they help shape attitudes against Rio Tinto’s lithium mining and extraction in the Jadar river valley in Western Serbia. Our analysis shows that these two metaphors exhibit three main functions: the persuasive one, to convince the various audiences of the seriousness of the issue and mobilize the public against the Jadar lithium-mining project; the affective one, to create a sense of urgency in the public and deepen their emotional reaction to the project; and the evaluative one, to provide a negative judgment of opponents and belittle their arguments. The third function becomes particularly evident when anti-lithium activists and politicians use the ideologically charged COLONIALISM metaphor. The paper highlights the irreplaceable role of metaphor in structuring reasoning about controversial and contentious issues Silaški, Nadežda Đurović, Tatjana eng info:eu-repo/semantics/article Keywords: anti-lithium mining discourse; WAR metaphor; COLONIALISM metaphor; functions of metaphors; Serbian language application/pdf 380600 bytes