The Conceptual Metaphors In The Political Discourse

Political discourse aids in expressing political view to the public,persuading the people to accept their view and putting their policy intoeffect. However, political discourse is difficult to understand off and on.It is somewhat complex and abstract which does not have muchrelation with people’s experience. Thus the politicians have to exertevery effort to make their points understandable and clear by applyingdifferent methods. In order to solve those problems, politicians employconceptual metaphors in their political discourses which can serve thepurpose of persuading the public, stirring emotions, making their pointsconcrete and acceptable so as to achieve their goals. Therefore it isclear to find that conceptual metaphors are largely available inpolitical discourse.The collected data of this thesis is based on the State of the Union inAmerica and two other passages, which all belong to the politicaldiscourse. The author has applied both qualitative and quantitativemethods to identify and analyze the conceptual metaphors in thecollected data. They are family metaphor, journey metaphor, warmetaphor, light metaphor, building metaphor and religion metaphor.Family metaphor, journey metaphor and building metaphor reveal alarge proportion of all the metaphors in my data. Besides, the functionsthat the conceptual metaphors have brought about have beendiscussed in this thesis. Finally, the cultural elements are also included inthis thesis.This paper mainly discusses the conceptual metaphors in politicaldiscourse which has blended with cultural analysis. The suggestion isthat further discussion about conceptual metaphors can contribute toother fields, including language teaching and science.