National Image Construction In The Political Discourse From Critical Metaphor Analysis Perspective

National image is the stable perception of a nation,which is jointly constructed by the nation itself as well as others in the international community.It is the result of the joint action of social activities,language and other symbolic systems,reflecting the international influence of a country to some extent.The study of China’ s national image construction has been attached great significance to political and academic domains.Xi Jinping: The Governance of China is the very essence of Xi Jinping’ s thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.Its multilingual versions serve as not only the national text for China to share the “China experience” of national governance,but also the international text bearing the concept of international governance.At present,the English version,as the epitome of foreign publicity translation political discourse,has produced great impacts abroad.Therefore,national image constructed through the foreign publicity translation political discourse has become a research hot spot.Metaphors are abundant in political discourse,and there exists plenteous ideology in political metaphors whose persuasive function has always been a matter of great concern.Critical Metaphor Analysis(CMA)tends to delve into the ideology entailed in metaphor choice and the role of metaphor in the discourse,which helps to exploit the value in the construction of discourse function built by metaphor resources.Studying the metaphor in the political discourse of the English version of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China(Volume Ⅲ)from this perspective and penetrating into the ideology underlying it can be conducive to correctly interpretating China’ s political ideas and to better telling the Chinese story,thus exerting a profound realistic significance for innovating the international political discourse system and enhancing Chinese international right of speech,which contribute to shaping the national image of China positively.At present,a few scholars have explored the close links between metaphors and the portraying of national image in political discourse from the perspective of CMA.Nevertheless,the research objects rarely involve the foreign publicity translation political discourse,and the research on the self-shaping of the national image are relatively scarce.Most studies are qualitative analysis or employ self-built corpus in it while quantitative methods haven’t been widely applied.In order to further enrich the research,this paper,adopting the corpus of Xi Jinping:The Governance of China established by the Corpus Research Institute of Shanghai International Studies University,conducts the study on the basis of the English Version of Volume Ⅲ from the viewpoint of critical metaphor analysis,probing into the following three research questions: 1)What categories of conceptual metaphor are there in the English version of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China(Volume Ⅲ)? And what are the dominant categories of conceptual metaphor? 2)How do these dominant categories of conceptual metaphor work to construct China’s national images? 3)What are the influencing factors for the metaphor choice in constructing China’s national images?According to Charteris-Black’s procedures of Critical Metaphor Analysis,namely,metaphor identification,metaphor interpretation and metaphor explanation,this thesis utilizes a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies for holistic and in-depth exploration of such a context-specific(the English version of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China(volume Ⅲ)which belongs to political discourse)phenomenon.In the first stage of metaphor identification,data collection and statistics are carried out with the help of corpus and the EXCEL software.Quantitative analysis is mainly used here to calculate the frequency of categories of conceptual metaphor and their distribution in the overall use so that the dominant categories of metaphors can be retrieved.Qualitative analysis is also integrated when identifying major categories of metaphors.During the subsequent stages of metaphor interpretation and metaphor explanation,qualitative analysis is thoroughly applied.Metaphors are interpreted with specific instances which focus on how conceptual metaphors evoke emotions and communicate ideologies,as well as how metaphors contribute to the construction of national images in the process.Finally,in the metaphor explanation stage,metaphors are emplaced in the context of social practice to explore the relationship between metaphors,ideology,and social structure,thus to identify the factors that influence the choice of metaphors and to verify the role of metaphors in the construction of national images.It is found that all 13 categories of conceptual metaphor are represented in the English version of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China(Volume Ⅲ),namely,human metaphors,building and construction metaphors,war metaphors,journey metaphors,plant metaphors,machine and tool metaphors,object metaphors,water metaphors,health and illness metaphors,family metaphors,weather metaphors,metal metaphors,and animal metaphors.Among them,human metaphor,building and construction metaphor,war metaphor,journey metaphor,and plant metaphor are absolutely dominant in use.In this regard,Chinese ideology can be effectively conveyed through the above five dominant metaphors,in which the metaphors play potential persuasive and emotional functions,internally portraying China as a bold and capable fighter pursuing lofty political ideals and practical interests for Chinese people,a tireless explorer progressing towards a bright future and adhering to the original aspiration,a development seeker keeping pace with the times.Externally.China is shaped as a righteous supporter of a community with a shared future for mankind,a constructor with credible actions,and a reliable companion promoting cooperation and peace.Instead of expressing the images in a straightforward manner,the publicity workers construct China as a responsible nation through metaphors and articulate China’s ideology in a subtle way.Finally,in the social context,the influencing factors for the choice of metaphor are elucidated and they are ideological,cultural and historical factors,among which ideology is essentially decisive.By pointing out the dynamic role of ideology on social structure in the social context,and the influence of social structure on social and discursive practices,this thesis gives a further illustration on the relationship between metaphor and the national image.This study,for one thing,expands the application scope of a synthesis of theories related to Critical Metaphor Analysis.Hopefully the construction path through metaphors found in this thesis can provide linguistic references for the construction of China’s national image.For another,it provides some insights for the researcher to fathom China’s national image construction in the English version of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China(Volume Ⅲ),contributing to lay the foundation for better “telling the Chinese story” in the context of the external communication and facilitate the profound understanding of the theory and practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics.