A Comparative Study Of Metaphors In English And Chinese Economic News Reporting

The theory of conceptual metaphor initiated by Lakoff and Johnson in their seminal work Metaphors We Live By views metaphor as a way of thinking or reasoning rather than simply a rhetorical device or deviant use of language.This theory has been applied to the study of metaphor in a variety of genres,among which systematic study of conceptual metaphors in economic discourse is far from enough.This thesis aims to find out the typical metaphors concerning economy in the English and Chinese languages and how these metaphors realize their mappings from source domains to target domains through systematic and comparative analysis of these typical metaphors.Qualitative approach was adopted in the process of data analysis.The data used in this thesis were collected from the latest economic news reports from authoritative newspapers and magazines like New York Times,Financial Times,Reuters,Economy Daily,Modern Bankers,Nanfang Daily,and Economy Observer etc.The data were then classified and typical metaphors were found out in Chinese and English economic discourse and they are ECONOMY AS WAR,ECONOMY AS PERSON,ECONOMY AS JOURNEY,ECONOMY AS BUILDING,ECONOMY AS MACHINE,ECONOMY AS UP/DOWN SPACE,ECONOMY AS PLANT/ANIMAL,ECONOMY AS CONRTAINER,ECONOMY AS WEATHER and ECONOMY AS STREAM.From three case studies which reveal the mapping processes of these conceptual metaphors,we can conclude that despite certain cultural discrepancies,English and Chinese have similar basic mapping processes in the three common economic conceptual metaphors.This again demonstrates that metaphors are not arbitrary,but are primarily rooted in common human bodily experience.The study also has pedagogical implications.The findings in the study can be applied to the teaching of economics and business writing.