Grammatical Metaphors And Their Hidden Persuasive Appeal

On the basis of Fairclough's three-dimensional model,the thesis tries to find out the grammatical metaphors and their hidden persuasive appeal in the American presidential campaign commercials.The paper aims to solve the following three questions:(1)What kinds of grammatical metaphors are widely used in the selected American presidential campaign commercials?(2)How does each type of grammatical metaphors realize the persuasive function in the selected American presidential campaign commercials?(3)In American presidential campaign commercials,what are the persuasive appeals hidden by the presidential candidates?The research findings show that there are a lot of grammatical metaphors in the American presidential campaign commercials.Interpersonal grammatical metaphor occupies the highest frequency.The candidates use different metaphors of mood and metaphors of modality to convey their opinions so as to achieve their persuasive goals.Textual grammatical metaphor,in the second place,makes the advertising language richer by using meta-message relation,text reference,internal conjunction and negotiating texture.Ideational grammatical metaphor occupies the least frequency.It can realize objectivity through the transference between different processes and nominalization,which can achieve the goal of persuasion.The use of grammatical metaphors successfully achieves to hide the candidates' persuasive appeals:by presenting a series of domestic and foreign policies,the candidates hope to build a positive and credible image,enhance the public's acceptance about the candidate and the party,solidify his/her domination,imbue his/her thoughts and eventually expand America's influence on international society.Grammatical metaphors in the American presidential campaign commercials could reveal the presidential candidates' purpose of hidden persuasion,and help the audience better understand their political claims that are inexplicitly made in the campaign discourses.