A Study On Metaphors In Chinese And American Political Discourses From The Perspective Of Critical Metaphor Analysis

As a linguistic form,metaphor is not only a rhetorical device,but also an important cognitive mechanism and a way of thinking for human beings.As we all know,the language of leaders in political discourse is more abstract.The mapping of metaphors from the source domain to the target domain can express the abstract political concept more concretely and intuitively for the public to understand and accept easily,which is conducive to conveying the government’s ruling philosophy.Critical metaphor analysis is a new metaphor research proposed by Charteris-Black in 2004.Based on the conceptual metaphor theory of Lakoff & Johnson(1980),critical metaphor analysis combines critical discourse analysis with corpus quantitative analysis,which aims to reveal the ideology,attitudes and beliefs in political discourse.It also combines language analysis,cognitive understanding and social culture to analyze the impact of metaphor on human thinking and ideology.As an emerging research method,critical metaphor analysis deeply studies the relationship among language,thinking and social culture,which is widely used in political discourse and economic reports and is attracting more and more Chinese and foreign scholars.The paper selects Report on the Work of the Government(2018)and President Donald J.Trump’s State of the Union Address(2018)as corpus.Firstly,the metaphors in the two corpora are identified and classified,and the similarities and differences of the metaphor types are contrasted based on Lakoff’s conceptual metaphor theory and three steps of critical metaphor analysis-metaphor identification,metaphor interpretation and metaphor explanation.Secondly,the ideology conveyed by each type of metaphor is analyzed qualitatively.Finally,the cognitive,pragmatic,cultural history and other factors in the specific metaphorical choices are contrasted in Chinese and American political discourses.The study finds that there are a large number of metaphors used in Chinese and American political discourses.The domain metaphors in Report on the Work of the Government(2018)are journey metaphor,construction metaphor,machine metaphor,war metaphor and plant metaphor.The main metaphors in Trump’s State of the Union Address(2018)include journey metaphor,war metaphor,construction metaphor,family metaphor and religion metaphor.The contrastive analysis shows that journey metaphor occupies the highest proportion both in Chinese and American political discourses,and the similar conceptual metaphors in the two corpora are journey metaphor,construction metaphor and war metaphor.Even though,the common conceptual metaphors are similar in source domain,there are some certain differences in target domain.Circle metaphor is the novel metaphor in Chinese political discourse while religion metaphor is the novel metaphor of American political discourse.The analysis shows that the similarities of metaphor are based on people’s similar perceptions of the external world and common practical experience.The differences are mainly due to the different social,cultural and ideology foundation hidden in the choice of certain metaphors.Political leaders employ conceptual metaphors to construct their political discourses,win effective support from the audience and effectively convey the government’s ruling philosophy.The paper selects the emerging method of critical metaphor analysis as a framework to contrast and analyze conceptual metaphors in Chinese and American political discourses.Revealing the implicit ideology and social and cultural foundation behind the metaphor is beneficial for us to better understand the Chinese government’s ruling philosophy,grasp the ideology of the US government and promote cross-cultural communication between China and the United States.At the same time,it is hoped that this article will provide a new perspective and support for the study of critical metaphor analysis and have a positive effect on the government’s better implementation of its own political ideasand the people’s better understanding of the government’s policies.