This study presents a corpus-based analysis of political discourse in contexts of conflict in West and Central Africa. It investigates how figurative language and hostile rhetoric are combined to handle armed conflicts and other forms of violence. The analysis mainly relies on van Dijk’s critical sociocognitive approach and cognitive linguistics’ analyses (Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Chilton and Schäffner (2002), Chilton (2004), among others). The investigation of our corpus (33,912 words of presidential speeches – Sketch Engine word count) reveals a recurring interplay between figurative language and discursive constructions such as polarization, foregrounding, (de)legitimation, as illustrated respectively in the following examples : 1) Contre notre bonne foi, on engage la guerre. Eh bien, je vous le dis aujourd’hui : quiconque vient vers moi avec un rameau d’oliviers à la main, je lui donnerai un baiser et je l’embrasserai. Mais quiconque vient avec une épée, je sortirai une épée et nous nous battrons. (L. Gbagbo, Côte d’Ivoire, 2002) 2) Nous savons tous que c’est l’ancien Président François BOZIZE qui a conçu la rébellion, réuni les moyens et mis le feu au pays… (F. A. Touadera, Central African Republic, 2021) 3) Le Conseil Militaire de Transition n’a pas d’autre objectif que d’assurer la continuité de l’État, la survie de la nation et l’empêcher de sombrer dans le néant, la violence et l’anarchie. […] Notre pays est au carrefour de son histoire. (M. I. Deby, Chad, 2021) Our hypothesis is that although these constructions are used to influence the hearer/reader’s opinions, attitudes and actions, they also reveal underlying subjective representations of political leaders and their personal fragility through discourse. When talking about their opponents and certain entities, political leaders often use metaphoric and metonymic conceptualizations. Furthermore, the analysis of collocations has shown that entities such as rebels, terrorists, country, nation, government are used in metaphoric or metonymic constructions which make more salient their positive or negative attributes, aiming at (de)legitimizing and polarizing actors’ attitudes in the conflict. In both subject and object positions, they are structured in such a way that the hearer/reader can perceive who acts how and toward what goals. Thus, on the one hand, metonymic conceptualization such as GOVERNMENT FOR PRESIDENT/MINISTERS (65%), NATION/COUNTRY FOR THE PEOPLE (59%), etc. are frequent in subject positions as actors/agents of positive things. On the other hand, REBELLION FOR REBELS and TERRORISM FOR TERRORISTS are rare in this position, respectively 43% and 24% of their metonymic uses. And when they appear as agents (mostly in their non-metonymic forms), the speaker tends to present them as doers of negative actions such as attack, menace, reject, refuse, etc. References Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Chilton, P. and C. Schäffner (Eds) (2002). Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. (2003 [1980]). Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Van Dijk, T. (2009). Critical Discourse Studies: a sociocognitive approach. In Ruth Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. Second edition, pp. 62-86. London: Sage.