A Contrastive Study Of Conceptual Metaphor In Chinese And American Political Discourses

Metaphor has always been a hot topic for linguists throughout the world. Metaphor studies have developed by leaps and bounds in the past few decades. According to contemporary cognitive linguists such as Lakoff and Johnson (1980), metaphor is not just a rhetorical device, but more importantly it is a universal way of thinking, as well as a cognitive instrument. Metaphor is pervasive in our everyday life, and it abounds in our thinking and everyday language. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. Thus, political language is also metaphorical in essence.Since Aristotle, a great number of theoretical researches have been conducted on metaphor from various perspectives. The two well-known books The Poetics and The Rhetoric of Aristotle mark the beginning of systematic studies on metaphor, in which he argues that "metaphor are pleasing words that make us learn something"; "a command of metaphor is the mark of genius" (Aristotle,1954:22). Unfortunately however, Aristotle underestimates metaphor as nothing more than a figure of speech and an ornament to language. In the 1930s, with the publication of The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Richards is considered to be the pioneer that illustrates the cognitive nature of metaphor systematically and explicitly. He stresses that "thought is metaphorical"; "we cannot get through three sentences of ordinary fluid discourse without metaphor" (Richard,1936:94). However, the most distinctive development of metaphor research is accomplished by Lakoff and Johnson. In 1980, with the publication of Metaphors We Live By, the study of metaphor turns to a new page, transferring from the ornamental function of metaphor and the linguistics aspects of metaphor to the cognitive nature of metaphor. From late 1970s, metaphor has been studied from different perspectives by linguists throughout the world (Honeck & Hoffman,1980; Lakoff & Turner,1989). However, little systematic study on metaphors in political discourses can be found up until now, not to mention the contrastive study of metaphors in political discourses of different countries.Political discourses are, more often than not, abstract and hard for people to understand. Owing to the fact that political discourses abound in ideology, of which metaphor becomes a natural vehicle. By creating similarity and association, language users map people's experience of the source domain onto the target domain so as to promote the ideological orientation and willingness of themselves or that of the group he represents, and to give an impact on the value concepts of the masses. Metaphor in political discourses is not an objective reflection of political reality but a representation of political prejudice, which manipulates standpoints and ideological inclinations of readers or listeners. Only by enhancing our political sensitivity of the underlying ideologies and values can we have a deeper understanding of political discourses.In this study the author attempts at applying the conceptual metaphor theory to political discourse analysis. Through the contrastive analysis of the conceptual metaphors in the public speeches of the Chinese and American state leaders, the author tries to find out the similarities and differences and discuss the roles that conceptual metaphors play and the underlying ideologies hidden behind the metaphors.The results of this study are summarized as follows:there are similar metaphors in both data:journey metaphors, war metaphors, building metaphors and family metaphors. Conceptual metaphors that are unique to the Chinese data are circle metaphors, while religion metaphors are unique to the American data. Although there are some similar conceptual metaphors in both American and Chinese data, their linguistic expressions are distinct. The similarities are mainly due to the common physical experience and perception of the world and the differences result from different social, political and cultural orientations. Besides, the author finds out that metaphors are powerful with reference to constructing ideologies. Both Chinese and American state leaders like to employ metaphors to express their own political ideas and standpoints to persuade, infect and motivate people by means of mapping concrete familiar concepts onto abstract political concepts.This study can help the Chinese students to have a deeper understanding of American culture, thus enhancing their ability in Sino-American cross-cultural communication. At the same time, it can also shed light on the translation of Chinese and American political discourses. Besides, in the field of English teaching especially the English vocabulary teaching, it can help the Chinese students have a better and more rapid mastery of the English vocabularies and the English language by means of a deeper understanding of conceptual metaphors.