A Comparative Study Of Conceptual Metaphor In Chinese And American Commencement Speeches

As a universal linguistic phenomenon,metaphor has attracted the attention of many scholars and experts since Ancient Greece.Conventional scholars consider metaphors to be merely a figure of speech.Cognitive linguists Lakoff and Johnson published Metaphor We Live By in 1980.The book marks the beginning of modern cognitive metaphor,which indicates that metaphor is not only a rhetorical device,but also a means of cognition and way of thinking.As metaphorical studies no longer limited to conventional metaphor theory,conceptual metaphor theory has been developing and enriching itself progressively.While conventional metaphorical studies are within the confines of literature,with the development of modern conceptual metaphor theory,a large number of scholars have extended their conceptual metaphor research to various fields especially the research regarding the application of conceptual metaphor in speeches.However,it is clear that few scholars have made a cross-cultural comparison of metaphor in university commencement speeches as a whole with most of the studies aimed at political and economic speeches.With commencement speeches as the corpus,this thesis conducts a comparative study concerning conceptual metaphor used in speeches in a bid to analyze the characteristics of metaphor and further explore the cultural traits and ideology behind it.This thesis analyzes 20 commencement speeches half in Chinese and half in English of the prestigious universities in China and America.This thesis uses Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory and mapping theory to identify the types of metaphor in the corpus,categorize them in accordance with their source domains,and conduct comparative research via specific examples combined with related theories.Through quantitative and qualitative analyses,this thesis concludes that there are four main types of metaphor in the commencement speeches of China and America: the journey metaphor,the organism metaphor,the building metaphor and the war metaphor.The comparative study's results show that all these four types of metaphor exist in Chinese and English,but there are still some slight cultural differences in the seemingly same metaphors.Apart from that,the family metaphor is unique to China,and the commodity metaphor is typical of America.Those similarities are derived from the similarities in humans' way of thinking and means of cognition,whereas the divergences result from the cultural inclinations among different regions.Through the comparative study of conceptual metaphor in Chinese and American speeches,the first is hoped that it is helpful to the in-depth study of Chinese and American cultures.And it may provide some reference for the translation of Chinese and American speeches.On the other hand,it is hoped that through the comparative study,it may make the students get a deeper understanding of American culture,thereby overcoming cultural diversity and improving the compentence of language learning and cross-cultural communication.