A Cognitive Study On Conceptual Metaphors In Economics Texts

Traditionally, we consider metaphor as a figure of speech and the literal language's derivation. It is just an application of language. With the traditional theory there exist some limitations elaborating on the Generation Mechanism without involving the Cognitive Mechanism in the process of metaphor. However, in 1981 Lakoff & Johnson's book Metaphors we live by marks the beginning of cognitive metaphor study. Since then, metaphor research is coming into a more comprehensive and systematic stage. Lakoff & Johnson put forward the Conceptual Metaphor Theory in the book. They claim that metaphor can be understood as a mapping from a source domain (the concrete concept) to a target domain (an abstract concept) which is based on human's physical experience and reasoning. So the generation of a metaphor can be expressed as"a source domain-cognitive context-a target domain". It reveals that there exists the most basic connection between cognition and language. Metaphor plays a fundamental role in the process of human cognition. It is a cognitive mechanism.Endless metaphor theories and a mass study of Metaphor make metaphor a "significant learning." From the 1990s Chinese scholars started to pay attention to cognitive metaphor. Domestic metaphor studies focus on three main areas: (1) the introduction of various metaphor theories. (2) studies from the semantic, pragmatic, cognitive and cultural aspects (3)the specific corpus study of metaphor. From the beginning of last century, Cognitive metaphor study has caught great attention in China.In the 2000s, Lakoff's conceptual metaphor theory has greatly caught the Chinese scholars'attention. The studies concerned with metaphors in economic texts cover the following aspects. First the studies about metaphors itself in economic texts; then metaphor translation in economic texts; and the comparative study of metaphor in English and Chinese economic texts; last the relationship between metaphors in economic texts and the teaching .These studies indicate that there are a lot of metaphors in the economic texts. All these studies involve the categories, functions, roles, relationship with culture and the impact on teaching. But the study of its working mechanism is far from enough. The author has been enlighted by the before researches .In recent years, metaphors has got great attention.This thesis is going on a research involving three aspects.(1) How many typical conceptual metaphors are there in English and Chinese business news and what are they?(2) What are the typical characteristics of the conceptual metaphors?(3) What is the processes of mapping between the two domains?To answer the questions above, qualitative and quantitative approaches are adopted to analysis the conceptual metaphors in economic texts both in English and Chinese. After the overall study, three major conceptual metaphors are discussed in details. The figures and tables are used to illustrate the mapping process. Meanwhile the following conclusions can be drawn.(1) The results of the overall study show that there are eleven typical conceptual metaphors in business news. Among them, Economy as Person is the most frequent one in occurrences, followed by Economy as War, Economy as Journey etc.(2) variety, systematicity and the cultural relativity are the main characteristics of metaphors in economic tests(3) The abstract economic concepts are understood with the metaphors. There are two cognitive domains in each metaphor. They are the target domain and the source domain .The mapping process involves the feature, the relationship, entity, and then the inference patterns of the source domain. From the research, we can find eleven kinds of metaphors.Meanwhile in the basic metaphorical mapping, there exists a high degree of similarity. There also exist distinctive characteristics respectively because of the cultural differences. Culture has great influence on the metaphors.In brief, metaphors which root in the concrete physical world make the understanding of the abstract concepts in economic texts .The abstract concepts in economic texts are comprehended by the concrete concepts in the physical world.The findings in the research will be of use to business writing or the teaching of economics.