Analysis On Conceptual Metaphors In Political Text Based On Richards' Interaction Theory—A Case Study Of Report On Work Of Government 2013 To 2017

As a common linguistic phenomenon,metaphor is widely used in our daily life.As a famous English rhetorician,Richards(1936)once put it: “Every three sentences in oral communication are metaphorical.” Metaphor is so pervasive that it has started to attract scholars' attention since the 1970 s.However,due to the insufficient significance attached to metaphor,the research on metaphor was only limited to the rhetoric aspect.Thereafter,the conceptual metaphor theory was introduced by Lakoff and Johnson,who held that metaphor was not only a linguistic means to express ideas,but also a way to perceive,think and act.To be more specific,metaphor reflected a mapping device in which a source domain was projected to a target domain.So far,guided by Lakoff and Johnson's the conceptual theory,a great number of researchers have engaged in studies on metaphors in various aspects.Nevertheless,the research on conceptual metaphors in political texts has long failed to attract much attention.As a result,some scholars started to shift their focus on the metaphors in political field with an aim to classify metaphors and interpret the mapping conditions in which how metaphors are organized.For example,Thompson(1996)once wrote an essay named Politics without Metaphors is like a Fish without Water,in which he mentioned that it was not difficult for us to explore the important relationship between metaphors and politics.Besides,metaphors could help statesmen to reconstruct the reality and create a metaphorical world.According to Mandelblit(1995),metaphors translation refers to three cognitive schemes of the real world and cultural experience mapping,namely similar mapping conditions,similar mapping condition but different lexical forms and different mapping conditions according to the cognitive approach.Comparing bilingual versions of Report on the Work of the Government,it is not difficult to find that the similar mapping conditions exist both in English and Chinese.In this way,literal translation or literal translation plus addition is the best strategies in translating these metaphors.If the mapping conditions are inconsistent,free translation and omission should be adopted in such situation.However,literal translation is not always suitable for the similar mapping conditions and it is also true that metaphors with different mapping conditions shall not always be translated freely.Some other translation strategies should also be taken into consideration.This thesis,based on the interaction theory proposed by Richards(1936),aims to make a systematic classification of metaphors selected from Report on the Work of Government 2013 to 2017.The thesis is composed of six chapters,which are listed as follows: Chapter One marks the introduction of this paper,which sheds light on the background of metaphor research,the significance of the research,the data and relevant methodology involved as well as the layout of this thesis.Chapter Two covers the literature review and gives a historical review of the metaphor and previous research concerning metaphors in political text both home and abroad.Chapter Three provides a theoretical framework for the whole thesis,which mainly introduces Richard's interaction theory.Chapter Four and Five are the main parts of the whole thesis.It turned out that there are mainly six types of conceptual metaphors in political texts,namely,war metaphor,plant metaphor,family metaphor,journey metaphor,building metaphor and circle metaphor.How politicians apply the familiar and concrete concepts to explain the complex and abstract political activities and the role of metaphor in political texts is analyzed in this part.Different translation strategies are further discussed in Chapter Five based on Richards' interaction theory,which only promotes people's understandings of the metaphorical thinking pattern in political discourse,but also helps interpreters and translators better transfer the meaning of source language.Chapter Six comes to the conclusion.It summarizes the whole thesis and discusses significance and limitations of its research and proposes further possibilities for future study.