A Study Of Metaphor In Mergers And Acquisitions Texts Through The Lens Of Rhetorical Criticism

Ever since Aristotle,metaphor had always been treated as a classic trope,with the function of language-polishing.However,with the development of cognitive linguistics in 1970s,people started to pay more attention to the cognitive aspects of metaphor instead of its rhetorical aspects.Cognitive linguists believe that metaphor is not only a classic trope,but an important way of thinking and perceiving the world.It not merely has an explanatory function but also a strong and unobtrusive persuasive power.Previous research on metaphor often focuses more on political and economic general texts while specific texts,like M&As texts,have gained little attention.In addition,previous research on metaphor primarily applies conceptual metaphor theory,critical discourse analysis and corpus-assisted or corpus-based approach.However,in recent years,the academic field has their serious doubts about the compatibility between these theories and approachesIn light of the limitations above,this thesis makes an attempt to integrate Critical Metaphor Analysis within the framework of rhetorical criticism.By virtue of this theory,this thesis discloses ideology and rhetorical motive hidden behind metaphors in M&As texts.And then on the basis of textual analysis,the author concludes the characteristics of each metaphor variety.Meanwhile,with corpus-assisted approach,the present study explores metaphor varieties,the proportion of each metaphor variety and the reason that causes great disproportion between metaphors.The linguistic data of this study are selected from the 21st Century Business Herald from 2014 to 2018First,it is found that there are a total of four metaphor varieties in M&As texts of 21st Cenrury Business Herald.They are metaphor of war,metaphor of marriage.metaphor of struggle&hunting and metaphor of game respectively.Metaphor of war accounts for a large proportion of all metaphor varieties.Metaphor of marriage comes to the second while metaphor of struggle&hunting and metaphor of game take up the third and the last place,respectively.The serious man-oriented culture is the primary reason for causing unbalanced proportion between metaphor varieties in M&As texts.For the purpose of attracting attention,journalists usually adopt war metaphor and"violent" metaphor of marriage which are favored by male readers.And the constant appearance of these metaphors reversely reinforces man-oriented culture and further aggravates gender gap.Secondly,it proves that journalists often select metaphors with which audiences are familiar so as to achieve persuasion and identification.Meanwhile,achieving persuasion and identification is also the rhetorical motive hidden behind metaphors.Finally,each metaphor variety in M&As texts has its own features and the four metaphor varieties in M&As texts are often interwoven,forming lots of metaphor clusters in order to strengthen persuasive power.This study exhibits the feasibility of critical metaphor analysis for research on metaphor,improves readers'awareness of critical reading,and provides audiences with a new perspective to interpret M&As texts and M&As activity.