A Comparative Study Of Political Metaphors In Xi Jinping’s Internal And External Speeches

As a linguistic phenomenon,metaphors have undergone a long research history of more than two thousand years since Aristotle.However,in 1980,the publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphrs We By symbolized a higher level of metaphorical research.This means that metaphors not only play a rhetorical function but also a cognitive function.In other words,Lakoff advocates to study metaphor as a cognitive means and a mode of thinking.Politicians often make public political statements to inspire people,win the support of the audience,and propagate their political views.However,political concepts are quite abstract and boring.Strong political color and hidden ideology,make the audience feel difficult to understand.Therefore,vivid metaphors favored by politicians,become the carrier of ideology.Studies of conceptual metaphor in political discourse,that is,political metaphors,can help people to understand the ideology and values better and understand the speaker’s political ideas more profoundly.The data for this study come from 112 political discourses of Xi Jinping,from 2013 to 2016.Among the 43 internal speeches,the total number of words is about 230,000,and the contents involve politics,economy,culture,education and other aspects.As for the 69 external speeches,the total number of words is about 220,000,and the contents involve politics,economy,military,diplomacy and other aspects.Guided by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Lakoff,and using Group’s Metaphor Identification Procedure(MIP),this paper makes the identification,collection and statistics of political metaphors in internal and external speeches.It also does a comparative analysis of the main political metaphors,aiming at finding similarities and differences and expounding the social and cultural basis.The internal speeches involve 3981 political metaphors,including 959 JOURNEY metaphors,872 BUILDING metaphors,983 WAR metaphors,663 CIRCLE metaphors,210 FAMILY metaphors,63 BANNER metaphors and some other metaphors.And there are 2611 political metaphors in the external speeches,including 858 JOURNEY metaphors,734 BUILDING metaphors,414 WAR metaphors,311 PLANT metaphors,64 WATER metaphors,51 CONTAINER metaphors and some other metaphors.This shows that political metaphors are universal in Xi Jinping’s internal and external speeches.Meanwhile,there are similarities and differences of political metaphor categories used in internal and external speeches.WAR metaphors,JOURNEY metaphors and BUILDING metaphors are common in both internal and external speeches,however,there are similarities and differences in their specific expressions.Through the comparative study of political metaphors in internal and external speeches,it can be seen that the similarity of the conceptual metaphors in Xi Jinping’s internal and external speeches is rooted in people’s similar perception and experience of the outside world,and the differences is caused by different cultures and social backgrounds.For example,the use of FAMILY metaphors in internal speeches is due to the fact that Chinese people have attached great importance to the family since ancient times;different from the western multiparty system,China implements one-party system,which makes CIRCLE metaphors exist only in the internal speeches;China has always adopted the foreign policy of peaceful coexistence,so in external BUILDING metaphors,words like"equality" and "freedom" are often used,while there is no such vocabulary in the internal BUILDING metaphors.