A Critical Metaphor Analysis of Reports on South China Sea Dispute A Case Study of People s Daily and Philippine Daily Inquirer
An unprecedented attention has been paid to metaphor research due to the rise of cognitive linguistics which holds that metaphor is not only a language phenomenon and a rhetorical mean, but also an important way of thinking and a cognitive tool. Charteris Black (2004) puts forward critical metaphor analysis which analyzes metaphor in language use and its cognitive way so as to reveal the language user's pragmatic intention and ideology. This method inherits the results of traditional rhetoric research, but also takes in the theory of cognitive linguistics. It provides a whole new perspective on critical discourse analysis. On the basis of conceptual metaphor theory, news reports about South China Sea dispute are first selected, and then they are analyzed within the framework of critical metaphor analysis. Also, this study focuses on the similarities and differences among conceptual metaphors that occur in Chinese and Philippine media in order to reveal the covert intention and ideology hidden the choice of metaphor. After the qualitative and quantitative analyses, this thesis achieves these findings. First, the frequently used source domains in People's Daily are conflict, war, journey, family and plant, while the frequently used source domains in Philippine Daily Inquirer are conflict, journey, war, building and plant. And the similarities of conceptual metaphors in the two newspapers result from the same living experience and cognitive system. On the other hand, due to the different ideology, culture and religion, there exist differences in conceptual metaphors in news reports in the two newspapers.