A Comparative Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In Economic Speeches Delivered By Chinese And American Leaders

Metaphor is traditionally regarded as a rhetoric device.However,it is treated as a thinking mode and cognitive device in Metaphors We Live By written by Lakoff and Johnson.In everyday life,for example,since economic phenomena and activities are relatively complex and economic terms are abstract,there are many conceptual metaphors in economic discourses.In order to promote the implementation of economic policies and the realization of economic goals,leaders use a large number of conceptual metaphors in economic speeches,which makes people understand their views,attitudes and standpoints easily.This thesis selects economic speeches delivered by the Chinese President Xi Jinping and the American President Donald Trump as corpus.It aims to reveal Chinese and American leaders' intentions and help people understand their views better through analyzing dominant conceptual metaphors in economic discourses.Fifteen economic speeches delivered by Chinese and American leaders were selected from 2017 to 2018.Xi Jinping's economic speeches were collected from http://www.people.com.cn/.Donald Trump's economic speeches were from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/.According to the conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson,the thesis identified conceptual metaphor expressions and categorized them into several typical types of conceptual metaphors based on different source domains in the selected economic discourses.This study will answer the following two questions with the analysis of data collected.(1)Which conceptual metaphors are mainly used in the economic speeches delivered by Chinese and American leaders? What is the frequency of each conceptual metaphor in the two kinds of economic speeches?(2)What are the similarities and differences of the dominant conceptual metaphors between the Chinese and American economic discourses selected in this study? What are the possible reasons that may cause such similarities and differences?On the basis of the conceptual metaphor theory,the thesis adopts quantitative method and qualitative method to compare and analyze conceptual metaphors in Chinese and American economic discourses,which draws the following conclusion:(1)On the one hand,identical conceptual metaphors are used in Chinese and American economic discourses,including journey metaphor,building metaphor,war metaphor,human metaphor,plantmetaphor and up-down metaphor.On the other hand,there exist unique conceptual metaphors in both data.For example,water metaphor and circle metaphor are unique in Chinese data while game metaphor and religion metaphor are unique in American data.Identical conceptual metaphors in Chinese and American economic discourses differ in frequency and forms of metaphorical expressions.In terms of the frequency,the number of journey metaphor in Chinese data is higher than that in American data.The number of war metaphor and plant metaphor in American data is higher than that in Chinese data.(2)Although some metaphorical expressions are similar in identical conceptual metaphors,a few sub-target domains are different.Different conceptual metaphors imply different meanings.Water metaphor mainly used in Chinese economic discourses embodies the fluidity of economy.Circle metaphor shows that people are the center in China.Game metaphor encourages people to win success,and religion metaphor gives people spiritual strength.Differences of conceptual metaphors in Chinese and American economic discourses are caused by different cultures and ideologies,such as history,environment,value and religion.It proves that people's thinking and behavior are influenced by these factors.The comparative analysis of conceptual metaphors in Chinese and American economic discourses shows that the conceptual metaphor plays an important role in language use.This study is not only helpful for people to understand economic discourses better,but also enhances economic and cultural exchanges between China and USA.