The Metaphor Of "Family" And Its Meaning Construction

Facing to the unprecedented scale of the exchange activities between cross-strait political parties in 2005, Mainland's medium had represented the media event completely and timely. It had taken root among the people and had won wide acclaim at home and abroad. Why was this report so successful? What valuable experiences that were worth reviewing? This paper attempts to analyze from the perspective of the news discourse.The paper tries to use the theoretical framework of the modern metaphor,and tries to sample reports feature on visiting the mainland Of the Kuomintang, the People First Party, New Party caucus on People.com and Sina.com, to analyze the use of the concept of metaphor"both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family" in the press, namely in the observation of "seeing two sides of the Taiwan Strait as one family ", try to explore: How does news narrate? How does the metaphor of "family" operate? How does it embed ideology? What is the impact on the audience to accept in such Cultural Context ? how does the metaphor of "family" create collective identity and move people?Firstly,the paper introduces the basic concepts of modern metaphor, reveals the nature of metaphor emphatically. Metaphor is not only a rhetoric way, a better way to understand the world, but also a discourse phenomenon,and as a framework materials that arrange news stories accordingly.Secondly, under the theme of metaphor, Taiwan's political parties and its leaders is shaped in "ourselives" in the media portrait. The press stresses a moving story of "encounter joyfully", in the narrative perspection of "the self" and "differentiated" narrative logic,to prove the affairs of cross-strait is "a family matter",so it must be solved by "ourselives".It also stresses the party that adhere to reunification is the defender of "family",Taiwan independence force is the traitor of "family".Through flexible discourse replacement, news reports strengthened the "family"'s atmosphere of harmony,warmth and unity.This is the main content of the paper.Lastly, the paper reveals that how does the meanings of "family" map to the reality of "two sides of the strait",and given it "family"'s cultural characteristics including coorperation,harmony and integration.The traditional culture context"integration between family and country" makes news understanding conceal the controversy about so-called "country", under the identity of "family", and finally the voice of "one China" occupied discourse dominance ingeniously,thus achieving propaganda purposes on anti-independence.The metaphor of "family" has inconsiderable discourse force.Useing "family" metaphor,is useful to arouse nationalistic feelings, the cohesion of the people, shape recognition and oppose separatism. The successful experience has important meanings to publicity referring to Taiwan.the media should pay sufficient attention to metaphor discourse.