A Critical Metaphor Analysis Of News Headlines In Column “China” Of The Economist (2013-2014)

Since 1980 s,study on metaphor has entered into cognitive stage.Metaphor has been considered as cognitive tool which is pervasive in everyday life.In 2004,Charteris-Black put forward Critical Metaphor Analysis(CMA)theory,which aims to reveal covert ideologies and speakers' intentions through the analysis of metaphors.This thesis conducts a critical analysis of metaphors in news headlines in Column “China” of The Economist.This British authoritative journal,famous for its intelligent insight and humorous style,is popular with readers around the world.Through a critical metaphor analysis of headlines of news about China,foreign media's attitude towards China will be revealed,which is helpful in promoting China's international image building.There are two basic research questions studied in this thesis:(1)What are the categories of conceptual metaphors in news headlines in Column “China” of The Economist?(2)What are the ideologies underlying these conceptual metaphors?To answer these two questions,the author collected all the news headlines of Column “China” of The Economist(published from January,2013 to December,2014)as the research data.Both qualitative and quantitative analysis approaches are applied in this study.According to CMA theory,the critical research to metaphors are conducted in three steps: metaphor identification,metaphor interpretation,and metaphor explanation.Through a critical analysis of these different categories of metaphors,ideologies underlying them are revealed.Major findings of this study are concluded as follows:(1)Metaphors contained in these news headlines can be divided into 23 categories according to their source domain.Among them,conflict metaphor and human metaphor(or personification)are employed most frequently.“Human” is also the most resonant domain,which means it is more productive in constructing metaphors than other domains.(2)Although the Economist admits the great progress China made in economy and other fields of comprehensive national strength,the journal criticizes and satirizes China about problems in various aspects of society.Most of metaphors contained in headlines of news about China convey negative connotations.Most of these negative descriptions aim at China's human rights issues.These sarcastic and criticizing judgments are mostly prejudice and twisted opinions based on politics or ideology,rather than objective evaluation about the facts of China's human rights issues.The underlying motivation is to enforce pressure on China in order to obtain western countries' benefits to the most extent.This study has both theoretical and practical significance.Firstly,through a critical metaphor analysis of headlines of news about China,western media's attitude towards China will be revealed,thus it is helpful in improving China's international image.Secondly,the critical analysis of conceptual metaphor will enable readers to understand metaphors and our conceptual system from a social cognitive perspective,and reveals how news discourses construct beliefs,attitudes and ideologies through metaphors.Thirdly,the analysis will help English learners to apply knowledge of metaphors in reading and writing,which will improve their reading and writing skills.