A Comparative Study On Conceptual Metaphors In English And Chinese Food Advertisements

Based on the food advertisements in English and Chinese,this thesis applies Conceptual Metaphor Theory to make a eomparative study on the features,similarities and differences in using conceptual metaphors between English and Chinese food advertisements.The 600 food advertisements are randomly collected from online and offline resources.This research compares the application of conceptual metaphors in two different languages by using qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.According to the definition,characteristics and classifications given by Conceptual Metaphor Theory,advertisements that contain conceptual metaphors are marked,and the analysis classifies them into 3 kinds,including structural metaphors,orientational metaphors and ontological metaphors.Quantitative analysis includes descriptive statistics and Chi-square test.Descriptive statistics is able to reveal the research questions about universality of existence,similarities and differences in distribution of conceptual metaphors by frequencies within the samples;and Chi-square test anticipates if the observed results are also applicable in whole English and Chinese food advertisements register.The results show that conceptual metaphors are commonly used and universally applicable both in English and Chinese food advertisements,and the distributions of conceptual metaphors of each type exist similarities and differences.At the meantime,by simulate people’s cognitive process with examples,the research demonstrates that conceptual metaphors do influence a lot on producers’ introduction to consumers and the promotion of products;and it also influences on consumer’s cognition to food advertisements.And conceptual metaphors can really advertise products more fully,vividly and precisely.At the same time,due to the reason that language is the reflection of language users’cognition,the similarities and differences in using conceptual metaphors in different languages actually reflect the similarities and differences in American and Chinese people’s ways of thinking,which are concerned with non-cognitive factors,such as culture,history,geography and the working mechanism of conceptual metaphor itself.Therefore,according to the similarities and differences in language usages,the research chooses the intercultural communication angel to find out the contributing factors for the similarities and differences in language usages and in cognition.