A Contrastive Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In Both Chinese Editorials And English Editorials

The thesis sets out to apply conceptual metaphor theory to the study of political discourse especially editorials. Based on the editorials from both American and Chinese most influential newspaper and magazine, the study is intended to make a contrastive study on conceptual metaphors between English and Chinese in order to find similarities and differences. And the factors underlying these similarities and differences have been explored tentatively.Metaphor has been the study focus of linguists for a long time. Although many a linguist has done researches on metaphor from different perspectives, there is no systematic study on metaphor in political discourse until now. Lakoff has made some researches on American political metaphors in recent years, such as terrorism metaphors, war metaphors, metaphors in foreign affairs, etc. The study of metaphors in political discourse testifies metaphor's wide application in political discourses and its great importance in polishing these discourses. This thesis is on the use of metaphors in editorials. Someone has done research on metaphors in editorials while contrastive study of metaphors in editorials of different languages is rarely conducted. In this thesis, three purposes are meant to be achieved: 1) to verify the universality of conceptual metaphor by applying it to Chinese editorials as well as English editorials.2) to find the similarities and differences between Chinese conceptual metaphors and English conceptual metaphors used in editorials. 3) to explore the causes underlying these differences and similarities from a cultural perspective, which is to further testify that conceptual metaphor is culture specific. Lakoff's theory didn't touch more about the description of cultural coherence of metaphor, therefore, it is hoped that this study can enrich the theory.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is literature review, in which the development of metaphor study from home and abroad is presented. Linguists at different stages have made great contribution to the development of metaphor study while at the same time there still exist limitations in their research which has also been noted in the thesis. Chapter two mainly introduces Lakoff's Conceptual Metaphor Theory which constitutes the framework of this thesis. According to Lakoff, metaphors are classified as follows: orientational metaphors, ontological metaphors and structural metaphors. Three main characteristics of conceptual metaphors, namely, universality, systematicy and cultural coherence, are also elaborated in details in this chapter. Chapter three mainly deals with the methodology of this thesis. Quantitative and qualitative methods are both applied in the thesis. The data source is from People's Daily, one kind of influential newspapers in China and TIME magazine which is the most representative in America. In chapter four, contrastive analysis is made on conceptual metaphors both in Chinese and English editorials with a view to exploring similarities and differences between them. From the data collected, in Chinese data there are 115 metaphors, while in English data 109 metaphors are identified. Second, the author tries to abstract the conceptual metaphors from the data according to Lakoff and Johnson's theory of conceptual metaphor. In Chinese data, the author got 14 main conceptual metaphors of which there are 9 most frequent conceptual metaphors: Human Metaphor, Journey Metaphor, War Metaphor, Building Metaphor, Climbing Metaphor, Container Metaphor, Resource Metaphor, Machine Metaphor and Drama metaphor. While in English data, 11 main conceptual metaphors are obtained and 9 of them are most frequently used conceptual metaphors: War Metaphor, Human Metaphor, Sports Metaphor, Business Metaphor, Drama Metaphor, Journey Metaphor, Resource Metaphor, Court Metaphor and Driving Metaphor. Similar conceptual metaphors are both applied in Chinese and English data; however, the percentage these metaphors take up is not the same. Some metaphors are unique in English or Chinese data. The last chapter talks about findings and limitations of the thesis. Firstly, the contrastive study provides evidence for the embodied nature of metaphor. Secondly, this study verifies the universality of Lakoff's conceptual metaphor theory. The result of this study provides evidence for cultural coherence for conceptual metaphors. Fourthly, through contrastive study of these conceptual metaphors in the data, the author also explores the factors underlying these differences and similarities of conceptual metaphors. Although the results of this study prove to be fruitful, there still exist several drawbacks in this research due to the author's limited knowledge and time.The results of this study are of great help theoretically and practically. Firstly, the study of conceptual metaphors in Chinese data offers evidence for Lakoff's conceptual metaphor theory. Secondly, the findings are beneficial to the research of culture and culture teaching in language teaching and learning. Thirdly, the study of conceptual metaphors in Chinese and English editorials can be supplements to systematic study of conceptual metaphors in political discourse. Finally, the findings of the study are of great significance to language teaching which can help the language learners master target language more easily and conveniently.