A Cognitive Approach To The Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In Chinese China-U.S. Strategic And Economic Dialogues

Metaphor is widely used to illustrate abstract concept,so as to achieve the effect of promoting understanding.Political discourses are abstract for most of citizens.The rapid development of Internet has made the public access to any form of political language.Since the sensitivity of international relations and cultural differences among countries,many politicians are inclined to resort to metaphors to convey their political ideas.Conceptual metaphors in political discourse also have drawn scholars' close attention.Admittedly,China-US relation is one of the most important and complex bilateral relations.It is not only related to the fundamental interests of China and the United States,but also affects the peace,stability and development of the whole world.However,the conceptual metaphor study about China-US relations in political discourses is rare.Taking Chinese leaders' eight rounds remarks delivered in Chinese China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogues from 2009 to 2016 as corpus,this thesis applies the methods of quantitative analysis,qualitative analysis and Metaphor Identification Procedure(MIP)proposed by Pragglejaz Group to identify conceptual metaphors in corpus and classify them on the basis of the same source domain.By analyzing the working mechanism of the major types of conceptual metaphors,this thesis also tries to explore China-US relations contained in these conceptual metaphors.This thesis identifies 1451 conceptual metaphors in Chinese leaders' remarks and classifies them into nine major types according to the same source domain,which are PERSON metaphor,GAME metaphor,BUILDING metaphor,JOURNEY metaphor,WAR metaphor,MACHINE metaphor,WATER metaphor,BODY metaphor and FAMILY metaphor.In virtue of the analysis of meaning construction and mapping processes of four major types of metaphors,this thesis gives a specific interpretation of China's foreign policy and China-US relations.At the same time,this study finds that these metaphors have the functions of constructing China's foreign policy,motivating public's emotion and bridging China-US relations.A detailed illustration indicates that although Chinese China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogues shares a bulk of common conceptual metaphors with other political discourses,there are some distinctive conceptual metaphors used in Chinese China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogues.For example,for usual games,at the end of game,the players may win the game,lose the game or it may be a draw.There is a different point in the game metaphor of China-US relation in Chinese China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogues,players(China and America)can also achieve a win-win or lose-lose results.There is also a huge difference in journey metaphor of China-US relation in Chinese China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogues compared with other political discourses,which can only be realized by both nations(China and America).If one of the travelers stops moving,the final destination of this journey can never be arrived.However,for usual journeys,if one of the travelers or all travelers can arrive the destination,then,the journey is successful.Apart from these conventional conceptual metaphors,some creative metaphors are also constructed in Chinese China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogues,among which some metaphors are typical.For instance,China-US relation is conceptualized as husband and wife.Therefore,China and the United States should enhance understanding and mutual trust to cultivate common life foundation.Through the usage of creative metaphors,the public can comprehend abstract China-US relations readily.This study demonstrates that conceptual metaphor theory can be applied to the analysis of Chinese China-U.S.Strategic and Economic Dialogues,which enriches Lakoff's conceptual metaphor theory and enhance the practicability and universality of this theory,what is more,it could make us gain a better comprehension of the discourse and its language features and typical conceptual metaphors which are different from other metaphors in common political discourses.