A Study Of Conceptual Metaphor In English Economic Discourse

The study of metaphors began hundreds of years ago. In traditional studies, the metaphor has always been regarded as a figure of speech. But when a new theory of metaphors was put forward by Lakoff and his colleagues, the traditional views of the metaphor which regard it as a linguistic phenomenon were totally overthrown. Lakoff’s new theory considers metaphor from a cognitive perspective which claims that the metaphor is a process of conceptualization or a way of thinking. The language’s core characteristic communication and cognition are emphasized in this new theory. Since Lakoff’s new theory of metaphor, abundant studies of conceptual metaphors in various discourses have emerged.Recently, with the rapid development of the economy, many new and abstract concepts have been spawned in this area. Economic discourses have attracted many scholars’attention in the cognitive linguistic circle, who in turn have made their own contributions from various perspectives. Although people are more concerned with the economic information, the economic phenomena are not simple and concrete enough for ordinary people to comprehend. In order to stimulate the reader’s interest in reading economic discourses, a great number of metaphors have to be put into use in this field. This present thesis, starting from the metaphorical nature of language and based on Lakoff’s theory of metaphors and the fruits of previous researches, studies the conceptual metaphors in economic discourse from three well-known world economic websites in2011. By means of both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the thesis wants to determine how many typical metaphors are employed in economic discourse, what metaphorical expressions are the popular ones, and how frequently they are employed in discourse.This study shows that conceptual metaphors are pervasive in English economic discourse published online; that is to say, economic discourse writers incline to employ a great number of conceptual metaphors to convey the meaning of these economic terms from abstract to concrete. Hence, there are six main conceptual metaphors in economic discourse, UP AND DOWN, WAR, JOURNEY, BUILDING, HUMAN BEING and LIQUID. The quantitative analysis of these metaphors indicates that the frequency of those conceptual metaphors is obviously different. And the different frequencies of these metaphors show the difference in cognitive effects in economic discourse. For example, UP AND DOWN metaphors constitute the largest and most important part of all those metaphors, especially in economic discourse, which generally convey a negative evaluation of the current economy. The study embraces the research of the conceptual metaphors and gives a different perspective for the study of conceptual metaphor in economic discourse. It hopes to help economic discourse readers comprehend abstract economic phenomena and situations and enhance the comprehension of English economic discourse.