A Study Of Conceptual Metaphor In Putin’s State Of The Union Message

Metaphor is widespread in our daily life and affects our thoughts and actions.As a rhetoric means,it uses a word or phrase to indicate a common object or concept to replace another object or concept on the basis of similarity.This rhetorical means has been paid attention to by Aristotle and other scholars more than two thousand years ago.However,as a way of thinking and cognitive means,it was not until 1980 that American scholars G.Lakoff and M.Johnson put forward theory of conceptual metaphor from the cognitive perspective and that gained widespread attention and became one of the research hot topic in the academic circle in recent years.Conceptual metaphor theory holds that metaphor is a systematic mapping from a concrete conceptual domain to an abstract conceptual domain.At the same time,the use of conceptual metaphor is based on certain culture and experience but metaphors are not completely identical across culture.Based on the conceptual metaphor theory of G.Lakoff and M.Johnson,this paper will study the conceptual metaphor in Russian President Putin’s state of the union message from 2012 to 2020,and discuss how V.Putin used conceptual metaphor to visualize complex and abstract political topics,so as to win the understanding and support of Russian people.This paper mainly adopts quantitative and qualitative research methods,through metaphor analysis and classification in the state of the union message,we find out metaphor keywords and count their frequency of different metaphor types to learn the main types of conceptual metaphor,specific conceptual metaphors related to Russia’s domestic and foreign policies,to feel conceptual metaphor characteristics based on Russia’s unique cultural and historical background,to analyze the political functions in the Putin’s state of the union message.Through the research,it is found that the conceptual metaphors used by V.Putin in the state of the union message involve all three types divided by G.Lakoff and M.Johnson,namely,orientation metaphor,ontological metaphor and structural metaphor.These conceptual metaphors visually and appropriately expressed the internal and external policies of the Russianstate,reflected the culture and history of the Russian society as well as the unique verbal charm of President V.Putin.They not only contain President V.Putin’s statecraft,emotional state and ideology,but also shape people’s emotional awareness,value orientation and behavior trend.The conceptual metaphors used in Putin’s state of the union message can effectively promote the new national policies and ease audiences’ s burden of understanding;Enhance the persuasiveness of language and arouse people’s sense of identity;Stimulate the cohesion of the Russian nation,strengthen its affinity to the people,so as to achieve his political appeal.