A Corpus-based Study Of Gender Differences In The Use Of Metaphors In Commencement Speeches

The present study explored gender differences in the use of metaphors on the basis of a commencement speech corpus of forty-two males' speeches and forty-two females' speeches.With the help of results from Wmatrix semantic analysis and previous studies,three source domains and their domain words were chosen as the starting point for a systematic metaphor study.The domain words were concordanced with AntConc and metaphoric use of them were manually identified.Log-likelihood tests were run on the numbers of the metaphoric expressions used by females and males.Finally,the study manually identified specific conceptual metaphors represented by metaphoric expressions of high-frequency source domain words,compared gender differences in them and explored the potential reasons for the differences.The major findings of the present study are:1)There were no significant differences in the overall number of metaphors used by females and males;2)In terms of specific source domains,females used fewer WAR metaphors than males did.Females used more "fight","lose" and"win" while males used more "victory","peace","campaign" and "fail" metaphorically.In terms of conceptual metaphor,females used eleven conceptual metaphors for the selected WAR source domain words,which was more than males'(8 conceptual metaphors).Females used much more LOVE IS WAR while males used much more PLITICAL/SOCIAL ACTIVITY IS WAR and STUDY/SCHOOL LIFE IS WAR;3)Females used more JOURNEY metaphors than males did.Females used more "lead","way","path" and "goal" metaphorically than males did.In terms of conceptual metaphor,both females and males used six conceptual metaphors for the selected JOURNEY source domain words.However,females used much more COMPANY DEVELOPMENT/CAREER LIFE IS JOURNEY and LIFE IS JOURNEY while males used much more WORLD DEVELOPMENT IS JOURNEY and SOCIAL/POLITICAL/ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IS JOURNEY;4)Females used more LIGHT/DARK metaphors than males did.Females used more "dark","bright" and "shine" metaphorically while males used more "darkness" metaphorically.In terms of conceptual metaphor,both females and males used fourteen conceptual metaphors for the selected LIGHT/DARK source domain words.Females used much more THE UNKNOWN IS DARK and UNJUSTNESS IS DARK while males used more UNHAPPINESS IS DARKNESS.The present study revealed gender differences in the use of metaphors in speeches and by adopting a eorpus approach,it provided a new possibility for a systematic study of gender differences in metaphors.