Metaphorical Approach To The Analysis Of Reading Texts In The High School English Textbooks Published By Chongqing University Press

As the way of thinking,metaphor has been popular for a long time,especially in cognitive linguistic field.It has been regarded as a powerful cognitive tool for our conceptualization of the world.It is omnipresent and can be realized in language variously,including in any theme of human being’s life,in all kinds of genres,in texts,in sentences,even in a single word.It is well known that reading texts in textbooks are various not only in terms of the theme or topic,but also in terms of the genres of the reading text.We can see that language materials in the textbooks are very rich.However,little researches on the analysis of the reading texts in textbooks has been done.Therefore,this thesis aims to analyze the reading texts in textbooks under the conceptual metaphor approach,including the working-mechanism of conceptual metaphors,conceptual metaphors within the specific language patterns and the corresponding functions.Based on the conceptual metaphor theory,thesis has employed the descriptive,inductive and deductive method aiming to figure out a)the working-mechanism of conceptual metaphor in reading text,b)the metaphorical representing ways of language patterns in reading text and c)the functions of conceptual metaphor in reading text.And the main findings of the thesis have been summarized as the following:The working-mechanism of conceptual metaphors in reading texts is to establish a conceptual connection between a source and a target concept which is the universal rule of conceptual metaphors.However,there is an obvious feature making the conceptual metaphors in reading text vary from the others.That is the conceptual metaphors,to a large extend,characterize the whole organization of the reading text.Conceptual metaphors represented in the reading text are very various and rich.It could be realized in genre,theme and title,lexis,phrases,sentences and texts.Conceptual metaphors have played a vital role in the text-construction both on the symbolic meaning or main idea level of the whole text and on the language expressions within the text.It has made the language expressions in the reading text more vivid and also made the language expressions easier to understand by readers.This thesis has set a good example to study the conceptual metaphors in reading text in textbooks which will make a great contribution to the teaching and acquisition of reading texts and enrich the conceptual metaphor theory.Therefore,the study in conceptual metaphor approach to the analysis of reading texts in the textbooks,from language acquisition and cognitive linguistic perspective,is of theoretical and practical importance.The findings of this thesis are expected to enlighten the further studies both on conceptual metaphors and reading texts in textbooks.Meanwhile,it is prospecting for providing some suggestions in language acquisition.