| As a special genre, political discourses have become the focus of language research. Nowadays, scholars have mainly studied political discourses from the perspective of linguistics; some have made researches from the perspective of politics, psychology and communication; some have focused on the researches from the interdisciplinary perspective. Researches in previous studies show that all of them have their own merits in that they make it possible for scholars to have access to various perspectives to analyze political discourses. Although a certain cognitive turn takes place in the study of political discourses from a linguistic perspective, few scholars analyzed political discourses from the perspective of audience and the dimensions of cognition and thinking. And few researches focus on the systematical comparison and diachronic analysis on State of the Union Address. Framing Theory is Lakoff s latest theory on the studies of political discourses in recent 10 years. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Framing Theory can help us conduct a better analysis of political discourses from the perspective of audience and on the dimensions of cognition and thinking. Meanwhile, Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Framing Theory play a decisive role in providing opportunities for political parties when using linguistic strategies to achieve political goals. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, the author tries to make a systematic research on the State of the Union Address of the American parties from 1946 to 2014 by using Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Framing Theory.With the publication of Metaphors We Live By (1980), Lakoff and Johnson put forward Conceptual Metaphor Theory. With the focus on the mapping shifting from the source domain to the target domain, the nature of the theory is to understand the abstract in terms of the concrete. "Frame" is originally a concept in Artificial Intelligence. Based on theories of "frame" in cultural sociology and linguistics raised by Goffman (1974) and Fillmore’s (1975) respectively, Lakoff (2002,2004,2008) takes the lead in introducing the above theories into Cognitive Linguistics and employs them to the analysis of political discourses, which exerts significant impact on linguists, thinkers and politicians. In fact, Framing Theory is the development and extension of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and the source domain and target domain in conceptual metaphor correspond to two frames. The mapping from the source domain to the target domain could be understood as the mapping from one frame to the other. Frame is a certain scenario which we utilize to understand things. Its operation mechanism is framing interaction. Frame can be divided into surface frame and deep frame. The highest level of frame in political discourses is morality.This dissertation selects 12 American presidents’ Annual State of the Union Addresses from 1946 to 2014 as the basic corpus, of which the aspects of education, employment, taxation and health care are treated as the research object. The total number of articles is 71, of which 35 pieces are from the Democratic Party, and 36 pieces from the Republican Party. The total number of words is 446810 in the State of the Union Addresses, including 262947 words of the Democratic Party and 183863 words of the Republican Party. Through key words searching, corpus of education, employment, taxation and healthcare is generated. There are 25861 words in education, including 15985 words of the Democratic Party and 9876 words of the Republican Party; 32876 words in employment, including 21476 words of the Democratic Party and 11400 words of the Republican Party; 31998 words in taxation, including 16162 words of the Democratic Party and 15836 words of the Republican Party. There are all together 23397 words in health care, including 14510 words of the Democratic Party and 8887 words of the Republican Party.The research questions of this dissertation are as follows:(1) Is there any richness of the metaphorical surface frames in the Union Addresses of two parties?(2) What are the similarities and differences in the surface frames and deep frames in the Union Addresses of the two parties? What are the reasons? Can those frames reflect the different moralities of the two parties?(3) How about the evolution of political patterns in the aspects of education, employment, taxation and healthcare of the two parties from 1946 to 2014?(4) Are there any similarities and differences in the using of deep frames in the speeches on education, employment, taxation and health care in the Union Addresses? How about the acceptance of the two parties’ speeches? What are the reasons?(5) Do metaphors and frames have both persuasive force and explanatory power in political discourses?The frames in political discourses are extracted mainly from two hierarchies:surface frames and deep frames. The surface frames can be divided into metaphorical surface frames and non-metaphorical surface frames. Non-metaphorical surface frames are produced directly by high frequency words. For the metaphorical frames, we identify metaphors by using the Metaphor Identify Procedure (MIP) proposed by the Pragglejaz Group (2007). There are two metaphor identification participants:identification participant A and identification participant B. In this research, we follow the example of Cienki’s method (2005) named kappa in SPSS to check the metaphor identification accuracy. The coherence is preferable through the checking. The deep frames could be evoked by the surface frames, and also exist in the speeches of those four aspects.The dissertation mainly uses Conceptual Metaphor Theory to analyze the conceptual metaphors in metaphorical surface frames. By using Framing Theory, the author makes an overall comparative analysis, period-divided comparative analysis and diachronic analysis on surface frames, and carries out an overall comparative analysis on deep frames.Through the metaphorical framing analysis on American presidents’ States of the Union Addresses from 1946 to 2014, the conclusions are as follows.(1) In the Union Addresses, rich metaphors and frames are used extensively by all presidents. Through analyzing the distribution of the metaphorical surface frames and the closeness degree of metaphors, we find that the journey frame is dominant in the speeches on education, employment, taxation, and commercial frame is dominant in the speeches on health care in the Union Addresses. Differences also exist in the use of other frames. The metaphor closeness degree of the Republican Party is slightly larger than that of the Democratic Party.(2) Through the overall comparative analysis on surface frames, there are no moral differences in metaphorical surface frames on education, employment, taxation and health care between the two parties. Though it can reflect the morality of the two parties of the usage of a few words in the frames, the proportion is very small. The similarities of non-metaphorical frames are dominant. Through the period-divided comparative analysis of surface frames, it is found out that the use of metaphorical political discourses?The frames in political discourses are extracted mainly from two hierarchies:surface frames and deep frames. The surface frames can be divided into metaphorical surface frames and non-metaphorical surface frames. Non-metaphorical surface frames are produced directly by high frequency words. For the metaphorical frames, we identify metaphors by using the Metaphor Identify Procedure (MIP) proposed by the Pragglejaz Group (2007). There are two metaphor identification participants:identification participant A and identification participant B. In this research, we follow the example of Cienki’s method (2005) named kappa in SPSS to check the metaphor identification accuracy. The coherence is preferable through the checking. The deep frames could be evoked by the surface frames, and also exist in the speeches of those four aspects.The dissertation mainly uses Conceptual Metaphor Theory to analyze the conceptual metaphors in metaphorical surface frames. By using Framing Theory, the author makes an overall comparative analysis, period-divided comparative analysis and diachronic analysis on surface frames, and carries out an overall comparative analysis on deep frames.Through the metaphorical framing analysis on American presidents’ States of the Union Addresses from 1946 to 2014, the conclusions are as follows.(1) In the Union Addresses, rich metaphors and frames are used extensively by all presidents. Through analyzing the distribution of the metaphorical surface frames and the closeness degree of metaphors, we find that the journey frame is dominant in the speeches on education, employment, taxation, and commercial frame is dominant in the speeches on health care in the Union Addresses. Differences also exist in the use of other frames. The metaphor closeness degree of the Republican Party is slightly larger than that of the Democratic Party.(2) Through the overall comparative analysis on surface frames, there are no moral differences in metaphorical surface frames on education, employment, taxation and health care between the two parties. Though it can reflect the morality of the two parties of the usage of a few words in the frames, the proportion is very small. The similarities of non-metaphorical frames are dominant. Through the period-divided comparative analysis of surface frames, it is found out that the use of metaphoricalis very small. The the period-divided ise of metaphorical frames and non-metaphorical frames do not always reflect the different moral models, especially in the use of metaphorical surface frames. Through the comparative analysis on deep frames, we find that the Republican Party reflects the Strict Father Model, and the Democratic Party reflects the Nurturant Parent Model.(3) Through the diachronic analysis of metaphorical surface frames and non-metaphorical surface frames in the speeches on these four aspects of the Union Addresses, it is found out that metaphorical frames and the non-metaphorical frames change a little bit as time elapses amid the corresponding historical backgrounds.(4) Through the comparative study of deep frames in the Union Addresses, the author explores the acceptability of the two parties’ speeches and the reasons behind that. It is found out that the frames used by the Democratic Party are unstable. It is likely that the Democratic Party will fall into the Republican Party’s trap. However, whenever using frames of their own party or using the frames when talking about the Democratic Party, the Republican Party can activate frames that are easily supported by the audiences. The Republican Party’s ruling ability and acceptance of frames is better than The Democratic Party.(5) Through the comparative study of deep frames in the Union Addresses, it is found out that metaphorical framing has strong persuasive function. Meanwhile, it also has strong explanatory power on political discourses.This research conducted in the dissertation bears important theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications, which will have significant influence on the study of relative fields. Theoretically, this research analyzes the State of the Union Addresses by using Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Framing Theory, which are the frontier theories of cognitive science and will deepen the understanding of the State of the Union Addresses and broaden the vision of the researches on political discourses. Methodologically, this research analyzes 12 presidents’ Annual State of the Union Addresses from 1946 to 2014 in multiple dimensions by virtue of respective analysis, overall comparative analysis, period-divided comparative analysis and diachronic analysis. These methods employed here will expand the scope of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Framing Theory. Pedagogically and help people to achieve a better understanding of political discourses. Meanwhile, it provides a reference for politicians to construct political when publicizing their political views. |
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