Cultural Model Of Values Through Conceptual Metaphor

Cultural model is an important branch of anthropology which aims at integrating different parts of culture into a systematic structure. Traditionally, it is mainly approached by means of fieldwork, questionnaire surveys, which usually result in a lack of systematic observation of the internal conceptual structure of culture. The development of cognitive science marked by the categorization of concepts and cognitive linguistics centered on metaphor in the 1970s and 1980s promises a new perspective for cultural model. Regrettably, this new dimension has never been given due attention.In regard to the fact that the present few metaphor-oriented studies of cultural model are constrained by its narrow scope and at the same time, lack a unanimous conceptual framework, this paper, based on the new theories of categorization and conceptual metaphor, makes a relatively comprehensive and systematic analysis of the cultural model of values in the American presidential inauguration addresses as a complement of deficiency in some degree.The categorization of concepts in the paper refers to the new achievements in an empirically-based observation of conceptual categorization by the American cognitive scientist Eleanor Rosch. She holds that the cognitive process of all concepts is characterized by two principles: economical principle (the task of the category systems is to provide maximum information with the least cognitive effort) and structure or system principle (the perceived world comes as structured information rather than as arbitrary or unpredictable attributes.). In this sense, people always tend to take the prototypical concepts and the basic level concepts as their referent points.Similar to the afore-mentioned prototypicality of concepts, the American cognitive semanticist, George Lakoff, argues that metaphor (cognitively known as conceptual metaphor) is conceptually structured. To be exact, the structure of conceptual metaphor involves the mapping of the prototypical part in the source domain to the target domain; at the same time, a hierarchical structure holds between metaphorical concepts. In this sense, metaphor is no longer identified with rhetorical expressions, but a cognitive conceptual system consisting of a group of metaphorical expressions.For George Lakoff, as a conventionalized way of human thinking and action underlying its superficial language form, metaphor is intimately connected with culture and plays a significant role in cultural studies, especially studies on values by alluding to different culturally-orientated dimensions.This paper makes a tentative exploration into the American cultural model of values in the light of the cognitive theories of metaphor and categorization of concepts through a detailed study on the American presidential inauguration addresses. The discussion falls into three aspects. First, national cultural values covers a variety of aspects. The American cultural values are encapsulated into four core values: economics, law, religion and politics. Second, cultural values are categorized at physical, social and scientific levels. Third, this paper initiates to attribute the prototypical concepts in the two domains to the physical and social levels separately. Finally, based on the above ideas, the paper illustrates the American cultural model of values at three major levels: material values (physical strength means/regulations/instruments), socicl values (independent existence + power balance), and scientific values (natural rights+ natural law and individualism).The investigation in this paper provides another case of the multidisciplinary significance of metaphor, which not only contributes to a deeper understanding of cultural values but also plays a part in second language acquisition and intercultural communication.