A Contrastive Study Of Metaphors In Chinese And American Leaders’ Public Speeches

According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, metaphor is regarded as a way ofcognition and a figure of thought, and is pervasive in human beings’ daily life. This thesis,based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory put forward by Lakoff, makes a contrastiveanalysis of conceptual metaphors in Chinese leader Hu Jintao and American leaderBarack Obama’s political speeches, aiming to find out the differences and similarities ofconceptual metaphors in both data and distill and deep cause of them from culturalperspective. Four research questions are discussed in the paper:(1) What are the root metaphors in the English and Chinese speeches?(2) In which type of speeches do metaphors bear more considerable significance?(3) What are the similarities and differences of metaphors in Chinese and Americanleaders’ speeches?(4) What is the relationship between metaphorical expressions and fundamentalcultural values in Chinese and English data?Four major findings are worked out in this study:(1) In Chinese data, there are eight categories of conceptual metaphors concerningJourney, Family, Building, Human, Circle, War, Origin and Art. In English data, there aresix categories of conceptual metaphors concerning Journey, Family, Building, Human,Drama and Religion. It is obvious to see that there are four categories which exist in bothChinese and English data, and there are also unique metaphors belonging to each data.(2) Conceptual metaphors bear a more considerable significance in persuasivespeeches.(3) There are at least three kinds of relations between conceptual metaphors in thetwo data. The first situation is that there are identical metaphors in both data which sharethe same source domains, target domains and mapping process. Secondly, there are some metaphors sharing the same source domains but with different entities of target domains.The last one is that there are unique metaphors in each data and the conceptualization ofthem is deeply rooted in the bodily experience under the corresponding culture.(4) The reason for metaphor universals in metaphors concerning journey, family,building, and human underlying two languages lies in the experimental bases of peopleliving in China and America, who are all human beings with some common properties. Inaddition, differences between conceptual metaphors are related with people’s differentpractical experience in their physical world which distinguishes their ways of cognitionand metaphorical expressions. Different cultural backgrounds and fundamental socialvalues play great role in concept grounding and metaphorical using. What kind ofenvironment people live in has a great influence on people’s metaphorical system inwhich the establishment of key concepts is embedded in cultural values.By analyzing conceptual metaphors, we can get more familiar with thecorresponding culture, which is beneficial for us to get a better comprehension of politicallanguages in that culture and promote the cross-cultural communication.