An Analysis Of Metaphors In Obama's State Of Union Message In2011

This paper uses Obama's State of the Union Message in2011as a corpus. In thispaper, the major four conceptual metaphors are categorized and analyzed: JOURNEY,BUILDING, COMPETITION, and FIGHT metaphor. These metaphors reflectObama's different highlighting and hidings, metaphor frames behind metaphorexpressions, and the function of metaphor. Each category has many subtypesconsistent or coherent to the system. Furthermore, the coherent system of these fourmetaphors is established is clearly figured out based on the concept of to win thefuture.In this paper, the conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Johnson and Lakoff isadopted as the framework. According to the analysis, we can understand how Obamauses metaphors to express the abstract political problems into specific ones to makethe public understand and accept. The use of metaphor not only process and screenpolitical views, but also persuade the American people working together. Through theanalysis, we can better grasp the political social problems, the achievements and thedifficulties they are still facing since Obama administration took office.