Analysis Of Ralph's Growth In Typical American From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Conceptual metaphors are significant in communication and cognition because they help express and conceive concepts in all aspects of our lives.Since the publication of Metaphor We live by in 1980 by Lakoff and Johnson,researchers are drawn continuously to metaphor analysis in the cognitive study.The study on the literary work from the perspective of conceptual metaphors will extend readers' understanding of the rich and deep implication of the theme and the concepts embedded in the writer's mind from her experience.Typical American by Gish Jen is plentiful in conceptual metaphors due to her living in a cross-culture environment.It is widely studied from the perspective of literary critics.Nevertheless,hardly are there any studies conducted on conceptual metaphor in terms of cognitive linguistics.Hence,this research will be an effort to study the application of conceptual metaphors in this literary course.The thesis will answer the following three research questions:1.What conceptual metaphors are applied in Typical American?2.What CHARACTER metaphors are employed in Typical American?3.How conceptual metaphors help construct Ralph's growth in Typical American?This research takes data from Typical American adopting metaphor identification procedure(MIP)by Pragglejaz Group(2007)also follows Steen et al.'s(2010)manual for identifying metaphor-related words(MIPVU).208 conceptual metaphors are identified and classified into three categories,according to Lakoff and Johnson's classification of conceptual metaphors.Then they are divided into 16 groups according to their source domains so that further analysis based on metaphors of high frequency can be undertaken.Here are the findings of the study.Firstly,Gish Jen utilizes all three basic categories of conceptual metaphors in the novel.From the number of each type,ontological metaphors are most frequently applied with the most OBJECT metaphor;structural metaphors contain most subcategories,among11 of which,FORCE,BUILDING,and CHARACTER metaphors are most applied;ontological metaphors and structural metaphors far outnumber orientational metaphors.Secondly,among structural metaphors,CHARACTER metaphors are found to be a specialty in the discourse.A series of mappings of the characters are triggered during their interaction in different environments.Some CHARACTER metaphors induced by entailment based on the correlation with the experience shaped by certain cultural model;others are based on other metaphors—new mappings fromsource domains into target domains are triggered when relative information is selected and irrelative information covered up from the rich entailment of other metaphors by highlighting and hiding.Thirdly,these CHARACTER metaphors,mainly resulting from Ralph's interaction with the people around him in different stages of his life,and with the abundant metaphorical meanings,reveal the process of Ralph's growth.Namely,CHARACTER metaphors are coherent in terms of Ralph's growth.