Conceptual Metaphors In English And Chinese Economic Discourses

Before the publication of The Metaphors We Live By in1980, metaphor wasconsidered as a figure of speech. It is in the book The Metaphors We Live By that theAmerican linguists Lakoff and Johnson put forward “the conceptual metaphor theory”,which claims that metaphor is not only a rhetoric phenomenon but also a kind ofcognitive mechanism in people’s mind. The nature of metaphor lies in understandingand experiencing one kind of thing by way of another. It projects the mapping of thesource domain onto the target domain. This new cognitive approach gives a fresh lightto interpret metaphors. In1997, Fauconnier and Turner brought forward “theconceptual blending theory”, which is a complement of the conceptual metaphortheory and can interpret the metaphors that the conceptual metaphor theory can notexplain at all or can not explain comprehensively.Economy is of great significance to our world and conceptual metaphors becomemore and more frequently used both in English and Chinese economic discourses.Therefore, this thesis will interpret conceptual metaphors in English and Chineseeconomic discourses through Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory andFauconnier and Turner’s conceptual blending theory to see the problems as well as themore powerful explanation of CBT. At the same time, the merits and demerits of CMTand CBT applied to the interpretation of conceptual metaphors in economic discoursewill be discussed.The sources of English discourses are from the online editions of newspapersThe Economist and Wall Street Journal. The sample consists of15articles from TheEconomist and19articles from Wall Street Journal; while the Chinese samples are34articles chosen randomly from China Business and Economic Observation.The research method of this thesis is the qualitative and quantitative analysis,qualitative method combines data description and explanation, quantitative method isapplied to the statistical description of the data and frequency calculation.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one is introduction, introducing thebackground, objectives, significance of this research and organization of this thesis.Chapter two is the literature review, including the classical views on metaphorand cognitive metaphor theories which contain Conceptual Metaphor Theory andConceptual Blending Theory. The cognitive metaphor theories are the theoretical frameworks of this research. Besides, the previous studies of conceptual metaphors ineconomic discourses will be reviewed to find out the limitations of the previousstudies so as to address the necessity of this thesis.Chapter three is the research methodology. In this part, the conceptual metaphorsin English and Chinese economic discourses are classified. Then is the statisticanalysis of the data in this research.Chapter four is the application of CMT and CBT to the interpretation ofconceptual metaphors in English and Chinese economic discourses.Chapter five is the discussion. The first is the discussion about the reasons ofsimilarities and differences of conceptual metaphors in English and Chinese economicdiscourses. The second is discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of CBTin explaining conceptual metaphorsThe last chapter is the conclusion. In this chapter, the major findings, limitationsof the study and suggestions for future research are pointed out.