A Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In Queen ElizabethⅡ’s Christmas Broadcast

Traditionally,people hold the view that metaphor is a rhetoric method of beautifying language.However,with the development of researches on cognitive metaphor studies,scholars asserted that metaphor’s nature is cognitive.In 1980,Lakoff and Johnson put forward the Conceptual Metaphor Theory in their book Metaphors we live by.According to their opinion,metaphor is not only a rhetoric method of language,but also a way of thinking.It exists not only in language but also in thoughts and action.Therefore,metaphor is an important cognitive tool and method for understanding the world and building a conceptual system.Charteris-Black proposed a new theoretical framework on metaphor,that is,Critical Metaphor Analysis,which aims to analyze the metaphor by using critical discourse analysis,corpus linguistics,cognitive linguistics and pragmatics to reveal the potential ideology,emotion and attitude of the speaker and to explore the relationship between thoughts,language and society further.After reading the relevant literature,it can be found that there are plenty of studies focusing on Critical Metaphor Analysis.However,it founds that the corpus of the current research is mainly concentrated in political,economic discourse.And other areas rarely involved.The speech of Queen ElizabethⅡis an important way to spread the her ideas to public.And the Christmas Broadcast is the most representative and traditional one.The speech covers most aspects of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.Therefore,the Queen’s Christmas Broadcast is chosen as a corpus in this thesis.Based on the conceptual theory,together with diachronic and synchronic analysis method,the thesis aim to find the application motivation and functions by analyzing the conceptual metaphors with the Critical Metaphor Analysis approach.The study found that the conceptual metaphors appeared in the Broadcast is mainly including the metaphor concerning journey,family,friends and bright and dark which appeared frequently in each period.Besides,the conceptual metaphors applied in specific period and varied with the time are the metaphors concerning the Queen’s status.The application of certain metaphor is based on the history of United Kingdom,religion,political environment,reflecting the Queen’s main idea that to maintain the stability of the British and the Commonwealth.In addition,she also uses the application of the metaphors to made people work together to overcome the difficulties and to build the united Kingdom and the Commonwealth into a strong and stable family.This study enriches the corpus of metaphorical research,embodies the applicability of critical metaphor analysis,and lays attention on the relationship of thoughts,language and society from the perspective of linguistics.