Corpus Concept Based On The Economic Reports Title Metaphor

Based on the Corpus of the Economic Reports Article Titles composed of 62307 article titles from three main domestic economic newspapers-21 Century Business Herald, China Business, The Economic Observer Newspaper-from 2003 to 2006, and drawing on the theoretical structure of the conceptual metaphor by Lakoff & Johnson, this thesis is to explore the cognitive disciplines of the conceptual metaphors in the economic reports through the empirical study of the real conceptual metaphorical examples from the corpus.This thesis is composed of five chapters:Chapter One, Introduction, is composed of four sections. Section One is to introduce the object, methodology and target of this study, and the innovative points of this thesis. Section Two is to discuss the definition of the terms related with metaphor based on the analyses of the definitions from four Chinese dictionaries and six English dictionaries, and introduce the traditional metaphor perspectives represented by Aristotle and the cognitive metaphor perspectives represented by Lakoff & Johnson. Section Three is to briefly introduce the study of metaphor in our country through the analysis of the metaphormania phenomena, compare the developing trends of the cognitive metaphorical perspective and the rhetoric trope perspective, and analyze the multi- and cross-disciplinary trend of the metaphorical study. Section Four is to introduce the conceptual metaphor theory by reviewing the long history of the metaphorical study, detecting the conceptual metaphor theory in detail, and discussing the development and application of the conceptual metaphor theory.Chapter Two, The Orientational Metaphors in the Economic Reports, is composed of three sections. Section One is to study the "up/down"(Shang/Xia) orientational metaphors in the economic reports. We discovered ten mapping types such as: Big number or more quantity is up; Little number or less quantity is down / High administrative rank is up; Low administrative rank is down / Develop is up; Decline is down / Being at a status or environment is up; Leaving a status or environment is down / Priority or important is up; Postponed or unimportant is down / Being at a good position in competition is up; Being at a bad position in competition is down / Strong power is up; Weak power is down / High customer group are up; Low customer group are down / Strong degree is up; Weak degree is down/ Good appraisal or high list is up; Bad appraisal or low list is down. The cognitive grounds of these mapping types are also analyzed. Section Two is to study the "high/low"(Gao/Di) orientational metaphors in the economic reports. We discovered eight mapping types such as: Big number or more quantity is high; Little number or less quantity is low / The administrative rank being up is high; The administrative rank being down is low / Good quality, expensive is high; Bad quality, cheap is low / Strong degree is high; Weak degree is low / Strong power is high; (Weak power is low) / Good appraisal is high; (Bad appraisal is low) / (Complex or Intelligent is high); Simple or unintelligent is low / Important position is high; (Unimportant position is low). The cognitive grounds of these mapping types are also analyzed. Section Three is the brief conclusion of this chapter.Chapter Three, The Ontological Metaphors in the Economic Reports, is composed of four sections. Section One is to analyze the entity and substance metaphors in economic reports through the semantic analysis and cognitive analysis of two metaphorical cases: Fortune is Gold, and Fortune is Water. Section Two is to analyze the container metaphors in economic reports through the semantic analysis and cognitive analysis of two metaphorical cases: "Room" metaphors and "Store" metaphors. Section Three is to analyze the human metaphors (personification) in economic reports through the semantic analysis and cognitive analysis of the metaphors taking related concepts of "body", "hand", "head", "limbs movement", "other body parts", "giving birth" as the source domains in metaphorical mappings. Section Four is the brief conclusion of this chapter.Chapter Four, The Structural Metaphors in Economic Reports, is composed of eleven sections. Based on the statistical data from the corpus, we explored ten mapping types of structural metaphors, the listing of which, from high to low frequency, appears as follows: the War Metaphors, the Traffic Metaphors, the Weather Metaphors, the Drama and Music Metaphors, the Games Metaphors, the Food/Dieting Metaphors, the Education Metaphors, the Physics Metaphors, the Medicine Metaphors, the Marriage and Love Metaphors. The semantic analysis and cognitive analysis of the above-mentioned metaphors are done individually in ten sections. Section Eleven is the brief conclusion of this chapter.Chapter Five, The Conclusion, is composed of two sections. Section One is to conclude the main cognitive disciplines of the conceptual metaphors in economic reports. Section Two is to discuss the insufficiency of this study and prospect on the further studies in the future.