A Study Of Political Conceptual Metaphors In American Presidential Inaugural Addresses

Political speech is an important western phenomenon as well as a kind of political discourse style. As it makes clear to the public the political views and stands in domestic and international affairs, it plays an important role in political life and is regarded as a powerful weapon for politicians. The American presidential inaugural address is a typical political speech which is made by the newly elected president on his inauguration day. In the speech the new president will for the first time officially announce that he will take up the responsibility as the highest executive of the country in the next four years. He often takes advantage of this chance to publicize his fundamental political principles and political policies. The inaugural address also sets the objective for the new government and persuades the public to accept his policy.Many scholars are interested in this field and make efforts to do researches of the features of this kind of discourse which shares the characteristics of both spoken and written discourses. Besides, it is imbued with figures of speech such as alliteration, parallelism, repetition and metaphor which can be of great help to persuade and motivate the public.Lakoff and Johnson claimed that"metaphors are pervasive in daily life, not just in language but in thought and action". (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 3) It is described as the mapping of one domain (source domain) onto another (target domain). The source domain which is usually concrete and familiar is the domain that is mapped; and the target domain which is relatively abstract is the recipient of the mapping. The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Metaphor has several functions.This research attempts to apply the conceptual metaphor theory to political discourse analysis. Through the analysis of the 20 speeches made by 12 American presidents, the conceptual political metaphors in these speeches will be made clear and the basis and functions of these metaphors will be investigated. It is a systematic study of the political conceptual metaphors through analysis of typical and authentic data. This will reveal how the metaphors work in the political world. In practice, it can help people understand American politics and cultures in a certain way.