A Survey On Metaphors In English Headline From The Perspective Of Presupposition Theory

When people read newspapers, they would take a look at theheadline at first. They will pick up some reports which they are interestedin, because people usually do not have enough time to read every piecesof news. They only take a glance at the news headline, in order to obtainmore information in as possible as a short time.Therefore, the news headline is the key point of whether a piece ofnews will successful or not. In order to attract the reader, the headlineshould be made colorful and interesting. The writers usually use a lot ofmetaphors in headline. The abstract concept can be concrete by the use ofmetaphor. The news which has difficult expressions can be accepted bythe reader.This thesis tries to analyze the English news headline from asystematic and comprehensive perspective. It analyzes the characteristicof the news headline under pragmatic theory.This thesis presents a qualitative study of metaphors in Englishheadline. The descriptive method and qualitative study are combinedtogether to describe some approaches to metaphor and headline and thebasic notions of presupposition theory as the theoretical foundation of this thesis. The analytic method is used in the presupposition-theoreticalaccounting for metaphors in English headline. As for the samples, theEnglish headline is mainly selected from famous magazines, books,through the Internet, while a small proportion of the study corpus isquoted from other publications. Data analysis is involved to bridge up thegap between theory and practice. Besides, a number of examples are usedto better illustrate the assumptions proposed in this thesis.There are six chapters. Chapter One serves as a general introductionto the whole thesis. Firstly, it brings the study object from the necessity ofthe research. It is the metaphor in the news headline. Secondly, itsummarizes the main point, basic structure and research method. ChapterTwo is a literature review which consist two parts. In the first part, itbrings the definition, function and demand of the news headline. Itreviews the development situation and home and abroad research currentsituation of the news headline. In the second part a general review of themain studies on metaphors is given. Basically, metaphor is only a kind offigure of speech and a form of language and which is being thought todistort the conventional meaning. The American scholars Lakoff&Johnson bring their researches to the concept of metaphor, which largelyimprove the development of metaphor research. Nowadays, metaphor isthe subject of domestic and foreign scholars. Different scholars do theirresearch from Cognition and Pragmatic perspective. In Chapter Three, presupposition Theory is outlined. The previousstudies show that presupposition has context sensitivity. They bringpresupposition into the category of Pragmatics. In the reality,presupposition is not only a simple phenomenon of language which refersto the sentence itself. It is a major part where the speakers show theirsubjectivity and build the conversation process. It describes the pragmaticpresupposition; the properties of pragmatic presupposition; thepresupposition trigger; the presupposition in headline. Chapter Fourserves the characteristic and function of headline metaphor withpresupposition and the headline metaphor production with presupposition.Presupposition is not only a kind of known information with specificforms of language expression hypothesis. It is also a background ofcommon knowledge. It is used to stimulate the appropriate doubt ofreader about the report. It is the major way to the author’s attitude andwriting intention.In Chapter Five, the author attempts to apply the PresuppositionTheory into the analysis of how metaphors in English headline areprocessed. A number of specific headline are analyzed within theframework of the Presupposition Theory. It gives the headline metaphorunderstanding in the perspective of presupposition in the perspective ofmetaphor structure and communicative dynamism. The last partsummarizes the thesis with retrospect and prospect, concluding its main findings, implications and limitations and indicating the direction inwhich further researches can be carried out.Thus the study could help journalists make better application ofmetaphors in headline. It helps the reader search for cognitive efficiencyand better understanding of metaphorical headline. So the readers canobtain the information about politics, economy, culture and science andwe can get better understanding of the news.