A Study Of The Metaphors In President Trump's Speeches From The Perspective Of The Conceptual Integration Theory

Metaphor is a type of mental activity.The study on it can be retrospected to Aristotle's Poetics(1995)and Rhetoric(1954).Metaphor was widely studied as a rhetorical device at that time.Metaphor,as a linguistic phenomenon,was utilized to enhance the effect of language expression.Lakoff and Johnson redefined metaphor in their book Metaphors We Live By(2003).As a result,the concept of an unknown domain was obtained through experience in a known field.The operational mechanism of conceptual metaphors is a one-way mapping from the marginal domain to the conceptual domain,which can only be projected from the source conceptual system to the target conceptual system.Conceptual integration theory,also known as concept synthesis theory,is a theoretical frame to explore meaning construction,particularly in the real-time meaning-building information integration(Fauconnier & Turner,2002).It is a systematic exposition of mapping and interacting each psychological space during the process of language communication.Its purpose is to explain the language cognitive behind the real-time construction of verbal meaning.The conceptual integration theory was originated from the “conceptual metaphor theory” proposed by Lakoff and Johnson in 1980.And this theory was first formalized in the monograph of Fauconnier and Turner,Mappings in Thought and Language(1997).Political speech,as a special form of communication,is an essential way to spread the political values and correct social perspective.Metaphor mainly involves the single-scope network in political speeches.Based on the theory of conceptual metaphor,under the frame of conceptual integration theory,this study analyzes the conceptual metaphors in 38 Weekly Radio Addresses by President Trump,using quantitative and qualitative research methods to answer the following 3 questions:(1)The frequency of metaphorical practice of President Trump in the Weekly Radio Address.(2)The categories of metaphorical practice of President Trump in the Weekly Radio Address.(3)The functions of conceptual metaphors in Trump's speech.The process of integrated network model used in this paper can be divided into three steps:(1)identifying input spaces;(2)performing cross-space mapping,performing restricted projection in the generic space,and synthesizing in the composition space;(3)forming an emergent structure after the combination processing,refinement,and refinement.The following findings and results are obtained:(1)the frequency of metaphors in Trump's Weekly Radio Address.(2)10 prominent categories of metaphors in Trump's Weekly Radio Address: journey metaphors,person metaphors,business metaphors,illness metaphors,religion metaphors,conflict metaphors,friendship metaphors,family metaphors,light metaphors,and buildings metaphor;(3)the functions of metaphors in Trump's Weekly Radio Address are analyzed based on the features of American social and political background.Interestingly,most of Trump's speeches targeted on medical and tax problems,which is the key themes stressed by his predecessor President Obama.Trump should be careful when making speeches relating to these problems.In this situation,using metaphors in his speeches not only enables Trump to express himself correctly,but also shows respect to his former president.Meanwhile,after integration of these metaphorical concepts,the metaphorical political speech discourses can be understood better in a vivid and less serious way.