A Comparative Study Of Conceptual Metaphor In Chinese And American Political Discourses

With the development of cognitive linguistics,more and more scholars began to study the application of conceptual metaphor in political discourse,aiming to reveal the political intention and hidden ideology of the country.However,previous studies have mostly focused on case studies,which have not paid enough attention to the diachronic comparative studies of conceptual metaphors in Chinese and American political discourses in recent years.This thesis is conducted on the basis of Chinese Report on the Work of Government and the State of the Union Address from 2018 to 2020,which consist of three texts respectively.Under the guidance of Charteris-Black’s Critical Metaphor Analysis and with the help of ROSTCM6 and Antconc3.5.7 for statistical analysis,this thesis aims to explore the main types of conceptual metaphor used in Chinese Report on the Work of Government and the State of the Union Address.Meanwhile,the similarities and differences between the two corpora and the political intention,ideology and cultural differences reflected from them will also be explored.The study has found that: 1)Journey metaphor,construction metaphor,war metaphor,plant metaphor and machine metaphor are used in both Chinese and American political discourses;examination metaphor and circle metaphor tend to appear more frequently in Chinese discourse while religion metaphor tends to abound in American discourse.2)The similarities lie in the fact that the conceptual metaphors between Chinese and American political discourses have the functions of motivation and persuasion,which aim to build a positive image that promotes national development.But the main differences lie in the two aspects: one is the different connotations of metaphorical expressions in two political discourses and the other is the different grammatical structures.Chinese focuses on collectivism and common development,adhering to the holistic and overall view of the Chinese traditional culture,which often uses short sentences and declarative sentences without a subject,while Americans focus on individualism and the realization of the American Dream.With the implementation of “America First”,Americans earnestly strive for the interests of their own party,which highlights the ideological opposition and contradiction under the game of the two-party system in the United States.Regarding the syntactic structure,it uses sentences with the subject of “we”.3)The similarity in the use of conceptual metaphor in Chinese and American political discourses reflects shared experience of human cognition of the world since in the process of generating meaning,physical sensory experience and other embodied factors play an indispensable role.The differences in the use of conceptual metaphors mainly arise from the different political foundations,ideology,and cultural experience.The comparative analysis of conceptual metaphor in Chinese Report on the Work of Government and the State of the Union Address reveals cultural foundations and hidden ideologies,which will help the public to better understand the national policies.Moreover,it is conducive to English learners’ metaphorical thinking ability,so as to better understand Sino-US relations,which will play a certain reference role for Chinese and western intercultural communication and English teaching.