A Study On The Functions Of Metaphor In American Presidential Inaugural Addresses

Metaphor has been studied from different perspectives, from traditional rhetorical view to cognitive and pragmatic views. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) put forward the cognitive approach to the study of metaphor in their book Metaphors We Live By in which they argue that metaphor can constitute basic schemas by which people conceptualize their experience and the external world. That is to say, metaphor can play an important role in our understanding of language and the world we describe through language. Powerful as it is, metaphor is pervasive in American Presidential Inaugural Addresses (APIAs). The inaugural addresses take place after the successful elections, and the newly-elected presidents are eager to voice their aspirations, to deliver their messages, thus they will use lots of positive metaphorical expressions in their addresses to make people fully comprehend their addresses so as to achieve the goal of persuading and inspiring people.In the cognitive linguistic view, metaphor primarily refers to conceptual metaphor (K?vecses, 2002:29). Conceptual metaphor has been explored from various perspectives, from its features, classifications and functions. And the four basic functions of conceptual metaphor are rhetorical, cognitive, communicative and textual. A lot of research have been done on the former three functions, but few studies have focused attention on its textual function in discourse, that is, cohesive and coherent function,let alone in political discourse. In fact, the use of conceptual metaphor in discourse can contribute to the coherence of discourse and make discourse more vivid and much easier to understand. Although some linguists such as Ricoeur(1975/1986) Gibbs(1994) and Cameron(2002) have pointed out that metaphor has a textual function, detailed analysis and exploration is still less.Thus this study makes an exploration of the cohesive and coherent functions of conceptual metaphor in APIAs. The data is taken from APIAs after WWâ…¡and two specific addresses are given a detailed analysis. The research takes the cognitive metaphor theory, as well as cohesion and coherence theory as its theoretical foundation. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are applied in the research. With the exploration and analysis of the APIAs, the study has arrived at the following findings: There are altogether 10 types of conceptual metaphors used in the data among which POLITICS IS CONFLICTS and POLITICS IS A JOURNEY are widely used.The mappings from the source domain to the target domain can not only realize the discourse coherence, but also build a bridge between the presidents and the mass; at the same time, through the vivid metaphors, the listeners can build certain mappings to recall relevant facts and the underlying concepts. Besides, the use of conceptual metaphors makes people better understand the messages of the addresses, persuades people to accept and support the intended policies. Various cohesive devices such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction etc. and thematic progression structure appeared in the use of conceptual metaphor so as to better fulfill the ambition and political mission of APIAs.The author also explores the application of the findings in English learning and teaching of vocabulary, culture, and reading comprehension. It is sincerely hoped that this study can shed light on further research and exploration of the application and function of conceptual metaphor.