A Critical Metaphor Analysis Based On The Corpus Tool Wmatrix

The most fruitful and promising field in the cross-research on cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis(CDA)is Critical metaphor analysis(CMA).It mainly analyzes the news discourse.CMA is the combination of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and the CDA,which inquires into the roots of ideology from the linguistic level to the cognitive level.At present,the analysis of CMA is not perfect in terms of the theoretical framework and empirical methods.The main problems are as follows:Firstly,most of domestic studies,which focus on analyzing economic metaphors are mainly rely on Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory(CMT),and the interpretation of metaphors is not flexible enough.In the actual real context,it is difficult for the producer of conceptual metaphor to ensure that the discourse receiver can interpret it according to a fixed metaphor pattern.Secondly,most of previous studies rely on top-down introspective research methods,lacking the support of empirical data,and the credibility and validity of the research results need to be improved.In addition,although the combination of CMA and corpus methods has appeared in recent years,most of corpus methods still use manual selection of "alternative metaphors" and then to do the statistical analysis of word frequency,which reflects a limited amount of information.This research conducts a comprehensive analysis of metaphors in Sino-US trade war news reports.This research is carried out under the framework of CMA:At first,this research employs two self-built corpora which consist of a corpus of China Daily and a corpus of Washington Post.The metaphors are identified by using the corpus tool Wmatrix.Then,based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory(CMT)and Fillmore’s theory of Frame Semantics,the mapping process of metaphors in the two corpora are interpreted in-depth.At last,this research explores the ideologies behind the metaphors of trade war news reports between China and the US.This research attempts to address the following three issues:1)What types of metaphors are constructed frequently in Sino-US trade war news reports?2)What is the conceptual mapping process of the metaphors?3)What ideologies are hidden behind these metaphors?The results are as follows:Firstly,war metaphors,conflict metaphors,journey metaphors,competition metaphors,disease metaphors and crime metaphors are frequently constructed in Sino-US trade war news reports.Secondly,people always understand the abstract target domain of SINO-US TRADE in terms of more concrete domains,such as WAR,JOURNEY,COMPETITION,DISEASE and so on.Different metaphorical frames can also influence people’s views on the Sino-US trade war.Finally,the differences in Sino-US strategic relationships are the main reasons that caused the China Daily and Washington Post adopt different conceptual metaphors to report the Sino-US trade war,and to convey the different ideologies behind them.What’s more,the idea of "a community with a shared future for mankind" can also build a platform for dialogue between different ideologies.