Critical Analysis Of Metaphor In Obama’s Weekly Addresses In 2014

Since the publication of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By, metaphor study has shifted from focusing merely on linguistic dimension to a dual dimension of language and cognition. Cognitive linguists see metaphor as an influential factor in framing human thoughts and perception. Due to this characteristic, politicians employ a lot of metaphors in their political discourse to activate emotional associations and communicate their social values or beliefs.In this thesis, critical metaphor analysis will be used as a framework to identify, interpret and explain President Barack Obama’s metaphorical language in his weekly addresses in 2014 while conceptual metaphor theory helps to complement the interpretation procedures with detailed demonstration of the metaphor construction processes. With the blending of these two theories, this thesis aims at identifying the conceptual metaphors embodied in Obama’s 24 pieces of addresses, interpreting the President’s covered intention and explaining how Obama’s ideology and social context affect his use of metaphors.From the data analysis, it can be inferred that metaphor is pervasive in Obama’s weekly addresses. Dominant in his political discourses are four metaphor categories such as journey metaphor, human metaphor, construction metaphor and war metaphor. Within these four groups, twelve conceptual metaphors are generated in relation to three target domains including politics, economy and terrorism. These three topics are conceptualized through various attributes of journey, human, construction and war. Obama’s use of these four metaphors groups is closely related to his ideological structure which can be divided into two parts:political myth and heroic myth. Political myth is revealed through his construction metaphor and heroic myth is uncovered by his war metaphor and journey metaphor. Besides, social context also plays an important role in the President’s metaphorical choice. After economic recession in 2008-2009, the year 2014 still suffers from a slow pace in economic development. American people lack confidence in Obama. In order to rebuild confidence, Obama employs journey metaphor, human metaphor and construction metaphor to deliver positive emotion and portray a prosperous economic situation in his political discourses.