A Study Of Ecological Metaphors In Chinese Political Discourse

In November 2012,the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China set out from a new historical starting point and made a strategic decision to“vigorously promote the construction of ecological civilization（eco-civilization）”.The construction of eco-civilization is an important content of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.It is related to the well-being of the people and the future of the whole nation.General Secretary Xi Jinping issued a series of speeches and reports on the construction of eco-civilization,which attracted the attention of many scholars at home and abroad.The author has read closely the 18^th and 19^th National Congress of the Government Work Report and found that a lot of metaphors were applied on ecological-related issues,and the study of metaphors has always been a hot spot in the academic field.At present,the research on ecological metaphor in Chinese political discourse is quite rare.Therefore,this article takes“ecological metaphor”as the starting point of this research,and applied Lakoff and Johnson’s（1976）Conceptual Metaphor Theory as the theoretical basis,and adopted Critical Metaphor（Charteris-Black,2004）analytical perspective,with the help of corpus tools,to study the ecological metaphors in Chinese political discourse.Specific research questions were included:（1）What are the types of ecological metaphors in Chinese political discourse?（2）What features do these ecological metaphors have in Chinese political discourse?（3）What functions do these ecological metaphors realize in Chinese political discourse?This study defines“ecological metaphors”as metaphors related to ecology and ecological protection and management.A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis research methods was involved in this study,and analyzes the Chinese political discourse of 160 thousand words from 2012 to 2021 with the help of AntConc 3.5.9,a corpus tool.The source of the corpus is the government work report of the 18^th National Congress Government Work Report,Xi Jinping’s Excerpts on the Construction of Socialist Ecological Civilization and the ecological column in the database of Xi Jinping’s important speeches.Qualitative analysis is mainly embodied in the use of corpus tools to identify and mark the metaphorical keywords that motivate ecological metaphors.Put the marked metaphor keywords to the original text and identify whether they constitute ecological metaphors from three dimensions which are linguistic,cognitive,and pragmatic.Ecological metaphors are classified according to the category of source domains,and their features and functions are further analyzed.Quantitative analysis is mainly reflected in the calculation of the use of different types of ecological metaphors based on Charteris-Black’s Resonance formula.Through this research,following conclusions are drawn:（1）A total of 13 types of ecological metaphors were identified in the observed corpus,including:COLOR eco-metaphors,BODY eco-metaphors,FORTUNE eco-metaphors,FAMILY eco-metaphors,JOURNEY eco-metaphors,PRODUCT eco-metaphors,WAR eco-metaphors,EMOTIONAL eco-metaphors,BUILDING eco-metaphors,KNOWLEDGE eco-metaphors,FOOD eco-metaphors,PLANT eco-metaphors,and WEAPON eco-metaphors.Calculated based on the Resonance formula:the use frequency of COLOR eco-metaphors is 41.29%,the use frequency of BODY eco-metaphors is 19.62%,the use frequency of FORTUNE eco-metaphors is 11.66%,the use frequency of FAMILY eco-metaphors is 11.19%,the use frequency of JOURNEY eco-metaphors is 6.43%,the use frequency of PRODUCT eco-metaphors is 3.62%,the use frequency of WAR eco-metaphors is 2.10%,the use frequency of EMOTIONAL eco-metaphors is 1.48%,the use frequency of BUILDING eco-metaphors is 1.28%,and the use frequency of KNOWLEDGE eco-metaphors is 0.89%.The use frequency of FOOD eco-metaphors is 0.25%,the use frequency of PLANT eco-metaphors is 0.19%,and the use frequency of WEAPON eco-metaphors is 0.01%.（2）Analyzing the eco-metaphors in the observed corpus from linguistic and cognitive dimension,and found that it has systematicity and creativity features.（3）Analyzing the eco-metaphors in the observed corpus from discoursal and pragmatic dimension,and found that it has realized the function of coherence and highlighting the theme meaning.This study applied the Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Lakoff and Johnson（1976）to the analysis of eco-metaphor in Chinese political discourse,and analyzes it from three dimensions which are linguistic,cognitive,and pragmatic,which will help to expand the application of Conceptual Metaphor Theory in Chinese.At the same time,this research helps to promote people’s in-depth understanding of Xi Jinping’s eco-thoughts construction,and provides a linguistic evidence for the eco-civilization thoughts conveyed in Chinese political discourse.