A Comparative Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In Sports News Headlines Between English And Chinese

As the window of sports news story, headlines play a significant role. Previous studies of news headlines mostly focused on the stylistic features and writing techniques. Lakoff and Johnson proposed that metaphor is taken not only as a rhetoric device, but also as a way of thinking. This study intends to make a comparative study of conceptual metaphors in sports newspaper headlines between English and Chinese by finding out the similar and different conceptual metaphors, and then discussing the original reasons from cultural aspect.In this study, a lot of sports newspaper headlines are collected at first. After analyzing the collected data, the conceptual metaphors in them are sorted out and divided into different types by the researcher, followed by a comparative analysis of the conceptual metaphors in sports newspaper headlines between English and Chinese. The theoretical framework of the study is the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The research approach is mainly based on quantitative study with the aid of data collection. The study finds that conceptual metaphor pervades in sports newspaper headlines. There are four similar conceptual metaphors in Chinese and English sports newspaper headlines which are SPORT IS WAR, SPORT IS JOURNEY, SPORT IS NATURAL PHENOMENON and SPORT IS SHOW. At the same time, conceptual metaphors SPORT IS TEST and SPORT IS ROMANCE are mainly distributed in Chinese sports newspaper headlines, while orientational metaphors GOOD IS UP, BAD IS DOWN mainly in English sports newspaper headlines. Besides, the study gives the mapping ways from the source domain to the target domain (SPORT) in different conceptual metaphors, and finds that the mapping from the sorce domain to the target domain (SPORT) is partly but systematical. The reasons why there are similar and different conceptual metaphors in Chinese and English sports newspaper headlines are discussed from the perspective of culture. Because of the same cognition of the same world and cultural overlapping, there are more similar metaphors between the two languages than different metaphors originating from different traditional cultures and different social types. This study has both theoretical significance and practical significance. It provides evidences for the universality of metaphorical thinking and cultural diversity of conceptual metaphors and enriches the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Besides, the study contributes to the intercultural communication and research between English and Chinese.