The paper aims at demonstrating the creative perlocutionary potential of interdiscursive production and interpretation of conceptual metaphor used in socio-political persuasion, simultaneously interpreted as mental phenomenon and discursive practice that is historically entrenched and highly ideological.
The Critical Metaphor Analysis model is used to investigate the interdiscursive application of two PLAGUE metaphors (COMMUNISM IS A PLAGUE and LGBT IS A PLAGUE) as an example of deliberate transcending of genre boundaries in the increasingly intertextual and interdiscursive world of both socio-political and religious discourses. The empirical part provides a qualitative study of the historical background, structure and persuasive effects of the rainbow plague metaphor (Pol. tęczowa zaraza), publicly used by the Archbishop of Cracow, Marek Jędraszewski, in reference to the LGBT community in Poland, conducted in relation to the original text on which it draws, namely the more historically entrenched red plague (Pol. czerwona zaraza) metaphor made popular by the Polish poet Józef Szczepański in his poem composed during the Warsaw Uprising 1944.