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This study examines cognitive representations of Ethiopia and Egypt's hydro-political stances on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Data were analysed using image schema theory and conceptual metaphor theory to identify how political leaders deploy conceptual structures to construct, maintain, and reproduce (counter-)hydro-hegemony for water management and international relations broadly. Results suggest that the gerd represents physical and symbolic boundaries constructed/activated to block and animate power. Egypt prefers multilateralism on gerd matters; whereas, Ethiopia acts unilaterally in its national interest. The findings indicate that international public opinion can be cognitively and discursively manipulated to legitimise (in)action sanctioning (counter)hydro-hegemony using original metaphor mappings and mini-narratives. This study posits that interstate hydro-disputes can be viewed as either a journey or trial. While Egypt suggested a family-threat-journey-destination script where all regions correlate to garner power, Ethiopia invoked a victim -threat-defendant-plaintiff-trial narrative to defend confrontational move(s) and motivate the illegitimate jury to dismiss the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the pervasive socio-political implications of the refugee crisis in the language and narrative structure of the interactive fiction of Little Amal: The Walk. Hermeneutics and semiotic compositional elements contribute to the on-going meaningful interaction between the interlocutors within the context of the successive narrations in the story. In this paper, we investigate the multimodal semiotic elements in conjunction with the cultural and political implications intended. The study contributes to interactive fiction through the modelled methodological framework. Using the Four-Legged Stool hermeneutical approach (Mburu 2019) and a hybrid of two approaches, namely, Visual Grammar (Kress and Van Leeuwen 2006) and Semiotic Elements (Machin and Laden 2018), the study pursues approaching Little Amal to delve into its hidden implications. The study adapts Mburu’s approach to become a three-legged stool, where the language and the narrative structures support the cultural, theological, and biblical interpretation of the narrative, hence the political implication in any literary text, especially the interactive ones. The study results confirm that Britain invades both ‘first- and third-world’ cultures, linking it to Brexit and British superiority over the world. The Walk, reveals how Brexit can be viewed as a British nostalgia for the lost empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]