A Cognitive Study Of Economic News Headlines In English And Chinese

This thesis is a study of English and Chinese economic news headlines from acognitive perspective. It explains the cognitive mechanism and provides a newperspective for the study of economic news headlines.Traditional rhetoricians view metaphor as a rhetorical device. Lakoff andJohnson believe that metaphor is a way of thinking and behavior patterns. Drawingupon the contemporary theory of conceptual metaphor, this thesis conducts ananalysis on both Chinese and English economic news headlines, focusing on fourconceptual metaphors: WAR metaphor, LOVE and MARRIAGE metaphor, GAMEmetaphor, and EATING metaphor. This study proves that conceptual metaphors existin economic news headlines. This paper also discusses the four principles of usingconceptual metaphors in economic news headlines: the economy principle, attractionprinciple, prominence principle and innovation principle.Like metaphor, metonymy is the basic tools of human thinking, playing animportant role in human lives and communications. Depending on “literalness”,Dirven divides metonymy into three categories:(a) linear metonymy;(b) conjunctivemetonymy and (c) inclusive metonymy. According to Mendoza and Velasco,metonymy can be divided into referential metonymy and non-referential metonymy.This paper also analyzes the lexical features in English and Chinese economic newsheadlines. It is found that acronyms, abbreviations, clipping words and short wordscomply with the requirements of news value: timeliness, readability, proximity andimportance. Under Radden and Kovecses’s classification of metonymy, examples ofconceptual metonymies in economic news headlines have been discussed as well.Fauconnier and Turner’s conceptual blending theory follows a complete andflexible operation mechanism. Its basic operation needs four mental spaces: two inputspaces, a generic space and a blended space. From a cognitive perspective, conceptualblending is the process in which two input mental space connected by the cross-spacepart. After the process of composition, completion and elaboration, the two input spaces are selectively projected onto a dynamic space, the blended space. In this way,a completely new scope of the concept can be established. This thesis uses this theoryto explain the psychological mechanisms involved in the comprehension of economicnews headlines.Based on the figure/ground separation, the information focus and the end focusprinciple in the clause structure， detail analysis on figure/ground relationshipreflected in different economic headlines under the same background have beenoffered. It has also analyzed focus of attention and information focus in variouseconomic news headlines. In addition, with Langacker’s concepts of “trajector”,“primary landmark” and “secondary landmark”, the problem of how to identify theprominent elements has been discussed in detail.