A Comparative Study Of Conceptual Metaphor In Chinese And English Business Scandal Coverage

Metaphor has been studied for quite a long time by linguists.Before 1980,studies on metaphor were mainly confined to the rhetoric perspective.It was not until the book Metaphors We Live By(Lackoff and Johnson,1980)first systematically proposed “the conceptual metaphor” that metaphor studies began to turn from rhetoric to the cognitive perspective,thereby the primary theoretical model of conceptual metaphor was established for the school of cognitive linguistics.Later with the publishing of The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor and Philosophy in the Flesh by Lackoff himself,the contemporary conceptual metaphor theory(CMT)was constantly improved and established as a linguistic theory combined with multidimensional elements,such as neuron in the brain,embodiment of the body,inference in the mind,social culture and so on.And this provides remarkable guiding significance for studies on metaphor,paving a new way for cognitive studies,gradually becoming the mainstream theoretical basis for domestic and overseas studies on metaphor.Thanks to the in-depth development of economic globalization and integration,business cooperation and communication become more and more frequent.Therefore there is an increasing demand for business research,undoubtedly including the study of business news discourse.As an important part of business discourse,business scandals are highly targeted and they are generally connotative.Generally speaking,with the help of metaphors,scandal reporters are able to describe a daily entity or event in a vivid way and manage to disclose existing or hidden business problems and dangers.And these metaphors used in scandals not only cover our common sense in ordinary life,but also concern specialized business knowledge as well as specific socio-cultural origins,they are thereby gradually developed into a heated research focus by domestic and foreign scholars.For this reason,this thesis attempts to study conceptual metaphors in business coverage from the perspective of cognitive linguistics for the purpose of following the current business research trend at home and abroad.Besides,this thesis also aims to promote the common readers' understanding between language,thinking and culture in business texts so as to enhance their reading and learning interest.Therefore,based on Lackoff's CMT,the thesis aims to do a thorough and systematic study on metaphor to settle down the following questions:A.What are the main features of conceptual metaphors in Chinese and English business scandal coverage?B.What are the similarities and differences of conceptual metaphors employed in the Chinese and English business scandal coverage?C.Why do these conceptual metaphors employed in business scandal coverage bear such similarities and differences?D.Considering the above questions,this thesis mainly adopts a comprehensive research method that combines both quantitative and qualitative methods with comparative analysis to identify,categorize,organize,compare,and summarize metaphors in business scandals from a multiple of mainstream national and international newspapers as well as their websites,such as People's Daily,Yangcheng Evening News,Washington Post,The Los Angeles Times,Chicago Daily Tribune and so on.Based on the presentation of statistical tables and diagrams as well as the comparative study of those data,this thesis select several typical cases of conceptual metaphors in business scandal coverage to discuss and explain how these metaphors accomplish cross-domain projection to make abstract business concepts concrete and show intrinsic properties of the conceptual metaphor.The thesis is divided into five chapters: Chapter one serves as the introductory part,including the research background,research questions,research methods and layout of this thesis.Chapter two deals with the literature review of previous studies on metaphors in business scandal coverage at home and abroad.Chapter three constitutes the theoretical framework of this study,consisting of the historical development and core concepts of CMT.Chapter four is the key part of this thesis that compares and analyzes the main features of metaphors in Chinese and English business scandals in the form of case studies.And it gives a clear and detailed description as well as explanation on the similarities and differences among them.Chapter five comes to the concluding part of this thesis,focusing on summarizing research findings and providing some implications for the teaching of business English based on the features of conceptual metaphors in Chinese and English business scandal coverage.In addition,the last part of the thesis also points out some limitations and suggestions for future studies.According to the research results,findings of this thesis can be concluded as follows:1)Despite that the number and type of metaphors used in Chinese and English business scandal coverage are various,the main types of metaphor concerned in business scandals are almost the same.These metaphors are set in the identical structure that is able to turn strange,abstract business concepts into daily,ordinary experience.Though there are a lot of similarities in these metaphors,there are also different preferences for language expressions between them.Hence,even if the type of metaphor used in Chinese and English business scandals is the same,it can be expressed in different words at final.In the meantime,metaphors are actually based on linguistic relativism because there are a good number of cultural-specifically unique metaphors among Chinese and English business scandals.To some extent,this accounts for the situation of "unity in difference" on metaphor studies in all business scandals;2)The universality of metaphor leads to the frequent application of metaphors in Chinese and English business scandal coverage.Due to our common physiological structure,we human beings own the same sensori-motor system that we can gain similar bodily embodiment.Additionally,metaphors are grounded in the interaction with our physical environment;therefore the main types of metaphor used in Chinese and English business scandals are alike.Apart from the universality and interactional property of metaphor,the asymmetry of metaphor indicates that conceptual metaphors are mapped from the routine,specific,experiential meaning of source domain to the abstract,obscure,business meaning of target domain.So the linguistic structure of metaphors in all business scandals is identical;3)Metaphor is interactional with cultural environment,which makes metaphor culturally unique in Chinese and English business scandal coverage.Different socio-cultural environments bring about different cognitive embodiment,leading to the different thinking and expressions.And this is presented and projected in the form of metaphor.Thus there comes into being unique metaphors in respective business scandals.So do the using habit and expressional preference of metaphor.Furthermore,it can also be verified by the systematicy of metaphor and the hierarchical inheritance principle of cross-domain mapping that the linguistic expressions of metaphor can be different in spite of the same type in both two sides.