A Comparative Study Of Speech-Gesture In Multimodal Metaphors In Chinese And American Public Educational Speeches

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of gesture metaphor and the metaphoric competence of English learners,aiming to promote their expression in English speeches and provide them learning directions and methods.The study of metaphors has lasted for thousands of years and has been constantly improved with the times.The study of metaphor has transitioned from rhetoric to linguistics and philosophy.In 1980,George Lakoff and Mark Johnson proposed conceptual metaphors.But now we are in an era where multiple images,sounds,texts and other media are intertwined.Therefore,based on conceptual metaphors,Charles J.Forceville(2009)proposed the theory of multimodal metaphors.Among them,speech-gesture multi-modal metaphor can realize the mapping of abstract concepts from source domain to target domain,which is the basis for constructing and communicating discourse meaning.By combining gesture metaphors with speeches,this thesis attempts to analyze the metaphoric gestures used in TED and the “FLTRP·ETIC Cup” English Public Speaking Contest to explore the similarities and differences of speech-gesture multimodal metaphors in Chinese and American educational speeches.The previous studies generally focus on political discourse analysis,but this thesis uses Elan 5.7 to analyze educational speeches,striving to find breakthroughs in the improvement of second-language learners’ metaphorical ability under the guidance of multimodal metaphor theory.This thesis is planned to discuss the following three questions:1.What are the types and frequencies of gestures in public educational speeches between China and America?2.What are the similarities and differences of metaphorical gestures in Chinese and American public educational speeches?3.What are the construction modes of metaphoric gestures in China and America?What are their similarities and differences? And what are the causes for the differences?Based on the theory of conceptual metaphors and multimodal metaphors,this thesis selects six speeches by Chinese high-level second-language learners and American native speakers,and analyzes them through Elan5.7 software to draw the following conclusions:Firstly,there are six types of gestures in educational speeches between China and America,including beats,indicates,deitics,metaphorics,iconics,and sentiments.The average frequency of metaphorical gestures in Sino-US speeches was 14.6% and17.5%,respectively.Secondly,metaphorics can be divided into four categories: ontological metaphorics,orientational metaphorics,metonymics,and temporal metaphorics.Educational speeches in China and America accounted for 47.3% and 55.5%,35.7%and 28.2%,8.5% and 12.4%,8.5% and 3.9% respectively.Americans use more ontological metaphorics and metonymics to express complex concepts.Comparedwith Americans,Chinese prefer to use orientational gestures,so orientational and temporal metaphorics are used more frequently.Thirdly,the significance of speech-gesture multimodal construction in Chinese and American educational speeches is rather similar.In the process of multimodal meaning construction,ontological metaphorics and orientational metaphorics have similar construction patterns,and the metonymics and temporal metaphorics have similar constructions modes.Reasons for the differences include gesture inertia,speech environment and cultural differences.This thesis will further develop the multimodal metaphor theory,and also provide relevant enlightenment for educational speech and language teaching.