Study On Metaphors In New Year Editorials Of People’s Daily(1978-2015) From Perspective Of Critical Metaphor Analysis

Scholars have studied metaphor from different perspectives for more than 2,000 years. Metaphor is not merely a rhetorical device, but also a cognitive way and thinking mode. Cognitive linguists believe that human’s language is fundamentally metaphorical. Metaphor can help people comprehend complex and abstract concepts by building cross-domain mappings. Metaphor is persuasive, with no exception in political discourse.Critical Metaphor Analysis, an interdisciplinary approach incorporating critical discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, pragmatics and cognitive linguistics, is proposed by Charteris-Black in 2004 and used to reveal the underlying ideologies, emotions and attitudes of the speaker and explore the relations among thought, language and society.Most scholars conduct synchronic studies on metaphors in English political discourses. With high authoritativeness, New Year Editorial of People’s Daily summarizes the achievements in the last year and arranges the tasks in the coming year, reflecting the policies and governing philosophies of the Party.By combing Critical Metaphor Analysis with Conceptual Metaphor Theory, this thesis attempts to conduct a diachronic study on metaphors in New Year Editorials of People’s Daily since Reform and Opening Up. There are three stages in Critical Metaphor Analysis: metaphor identification, metaphor interpretation and metaphor explanation. Firstly, main metaphorical patterns in this thesis are identified and classified according to CMA. Then these metaphorical patterns are analyzed from the perspectives of the cognitive and the pragmatic. Finally, their diachronic distributions are drafted to explore the elements affecting employment and variations of metaphors and reveal the governing philosophies and underlying ideologies of the Party since Reform and Opening Up.The following conclusions are drawn:(1) There are eight main metaphorical patterns, namely journey metaphors, building metaphors, war metaphors, organism metaphors, machine metaphors, navigation metaphors, writing metaphors, and family metaphors. Journey metaphors, building metaphors and war metaphors are frequently used. (2) The trend of the application of journey metaphors and family metaphors is relatively stable. The distributions of building metaphors and organism metaphors are in evident undulation. War metaphors undergo a change trend from fall to stabilization. The amount of navigation metaphors decreases in undulation. The amounts of machine metaphors and writing metaphors increase in undulation. (3) Many elements affect the employment and variations of metaphorical patterns. The application and frequency variations of journey metaphors, building metaphors, navigation metaphors, and machine metaphors coincide with change of social reality. The application of war metaphors contains its historical reason. The application of family metaphors is related to Chinese traditional culture. The application of organism metaphors and writing metaphors is based on people’s self-experience. (4) The underlying ideologies and governing philosophies of the Party since Reform and Opening Up are uncovered. The application of journey metaphors, building metaphors, machine metaphors and writing metaphors suggests that socialist construction and national development are the top priorities in contemporary China. The goal of the Party is to realize economic promotion, political stability, cultural prosperity, improve people’s living standards and construct socialist country with Chinese characteristics. The employment of war metaphors, navigation metaphors, family metaphors, and organism metaphors reveals the Party’s philosophies of sticking to peace and development and building a harmonious society. By applying metaphors in New Year Editorials, the Party guides and encourages Chinese people to devote themselves to socialist construction and national development.This thesis makes contributions to diachronic studies on metaphors in Chinese political discourse, reflects the explanatory power of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and proves the applicability of Critical Metaphor Analysis in analyzing Chinese political discourse. By exploring the relations among thought, language and society from the perspective of linguistics, this thesis helps people profoundly understand Chinese political language and governing philosophies of the Party and provides guiding significance for political discourse teaching.