A Critical Metaphor Analysis Of Obama’s Weekly Address

The domestic and foreign studies show that the study of metaphor mainly experiences three stages:the stage of rhetoric, the stage of semantics and the stage of cognitive linguistics. Since the publication of the book Metaphors We Live By written by Lakoff and Johnson in 1980, the study of metaphor has undergone the qualitative change, which changes from the perceptive of rhetoric to the perceptive of cognitive linguistics. This paper is to conduct the study of metaphors existing in 40 texts of 2013 Obama’s Weekly Address from the perceptive of Critical Metaphor Analysis based on the self-built corpus. Critical Metaphor Analysis is a new way of metaphor analysis which was put forward by Charteris-Black in 2004, which is to analyze the metaphors with the integration of the Critical Metaphor Analysis, Corpus Linguistics, Pragmatics and Cognitive Linguistics. There are three steps to Critical Metaphor Analysis:1) Metaphor Identification. This step is to collect the examples of metaphors, select the candidate metaphors and metaphor keywords.2) Metaphor Interpretation. This step is to find out the relationship between metaphors and their cognitive and pragmatic factors, including identifying conceptual metaphors and conceptual keys.3) Metaphor Explanation. This step is to find out the social factors causing the metaphors and the persuasive functions of metaphors.Based on the three steps of Critical Metaphor Analysis, this thesis attempts to address the following questions:1) What types of metaphors exist in Obama’s Weekly Address? 2) What are the common conceptual metaphors in Obama’s Weekly Address and what are the process of meaning construction of these metaphors? 3) What are the ideological functions of metaphors in Obama’s Weekly Address?By analyzing the collected data with the combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, the findings are as follows:there are mainly three common types of metaphors.1) DIRECTION and MOVEMENT Metaphor. The metaphor keywords can be categorized into "UP" word group, "DOWN" word group and "MOVEMENT" word group.2) BUILDING Metaphor. The metaphor keywords can be categorized into "BUILDING PRCESS" word group and "BUILDING PARTS" word group.3) PLANT Metaphor. The metaphor keywords can be categorized into "GROWTH" word group, "ROOT" word group and "POSITIVE RESULTS" word group. Besides, the common conceptual metaphors are as follows:1) GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN.2) AMERICA IS A BUILDING.3) AMERICA IS A PLANT. Then the process of meaning construction of these metaphors are further analyzed to find out the underlying ideological functions. Based on the data analysis, the author concludes the following three ideological functions of metaphors:the functions of information selection, the functions of encouragement and persuasion, and functions of unity.This paper is intended to help readers understand the underlying ideologies of news discourses better and establish the appropriate reading evaluation system.