走和平發展之道路：中華人民共和國代表在聯大的政治隱喻用法

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學國際與僑教學院東亞學系碩士論文 DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES COLLEGE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES AND EDUCATION FOR OVERSEAS CHINESE NATIONAL TAIWAN NORMAL UNIVERSITY MASTER THESIS. Walking the Path of Peaceful Development: Metaphor Usage in International Speeches by Chinese Government Representatives in the United Nations (2003-2012) 走和平發展之道路：中華人民共和國代表在聯大的政治隱喻用法 . Mejfang Wang (王美芳) Student no. 699810090. Supervisor: Dr. Eugene Kuan (關弘昌). JANUARY 2013.

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(3) 3. Abstract. This thesis examines three categories of metaphors used by the Chinese representative in international contexts. It focuses on speeches made at the General Debates of the United Nations General Assembly, and draws on the methods of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, as articulated by scholars including George Lakoff, Zoltan Kövecses and others. Through a systematic examination of the speeches used by the CCP, I identify and sort the metaphors into common types and utilise the aforementioned theory to analyse them. In so doing, I highlight the functions of metaphor usage in Chinese political discourse and its underlying cognitive mechanisms. Keywords: metaphor, political discourse, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, United Nations General Debate, journey metaphor, war metaphor, construction metaphor. 摘要本論文以Lakoff、Kövecses以及其他學者所發展的概念隱喻理論嘗試探討中文裡面的政治隱喻。分析資料為中華人民共和國代表每年於聯合國大會一般性論上發表的演講，而分析部分針對旅行、戰爭及建築等三種隱喻類別。通過精細的檢查，筆者將辨識的三種隱喻分為最常見的類型，及應用概念隱喻理論來分析結果。分析的意義在於凸顯中文政治隱喻的功能及起底下所存在的認知機制。關鍵詞：隱喻，政治話語，概念隱喻理論，聯大一般性論，旅行隱喻，戰爭隱喻，建築隱喻.

(4) 4. Table of Contents 1. Introduction. 5. 1.1. Research Questions and Methodology. 6. 1.2. Thesis outline, Limitations and Significance. 8. 2. Literature Review. 9. 2.1. Metaphors. 10. 2.1.1. What Is a Metaphor?. 10. 2.1.2. Metaphor Identification Methods. 16. 2.1.3. Close Cousins of the Metaphor. 18. 2.1.3.1. Simile. 18. 2.1.3.2. Metonymy. 19. 2.1.4. How the Metaphor Functions. 20. 2.2. Political Discourse and Discourse Analysis. 22. 2.3. Metaphors in Political Discourse. 25. 3. Data Set Description and Metaphor Identification. 35. 3.1. Data Set Description. 35. 3.2. Results. 36. 3.2.1. Journey Metaphors. 37. 3.2.1.1. Common Types of Journey Metaphors. 38. 3.2.1.2. Less Common Types of Journey Metaphors. 39. 3.2.1.3. Manifestations of Journey Metaphors and Their Conceptual Metaphors. 40. 3.2.2. War Metaphors. 43. 3.2.2.1. Common Types of War Metaphors. 44. 3.2.2.2. Manifestations of War Metaphors and Their Conceptual Metaphors. 44. 3.2.3. Construction Metaphors. 47. 3.2.3.1. Common Types of Construction Metaphors. 48.

(5) 5 3.2.3.2. Manifestations of Construction Metaphors and Their Conceptual Metaphors. 48. 4. Discussion. 51. 4.1. Metaphor Usage in the Analysed Material. 51. 4.1.1. Journey Metaphors. 51. 4.1.1.1. Meaning and Function of the Conceptual Metaphor in the Journey Category. 51. 4.1.2. War Metaphors. 55. 4.1.2.1. Meaning and Function of the Conceptual Metaphor in the War Category. 55. 4.1.3. Construction Metaphors. 57. 4.1.3.1. Meaning and Function of the Conceptual Metaphor in the Construction Category. 57. 4.2. Words and Phrases of Unclear Nature. 60. 5. Conclusion. 62. 5.1. Suggestions for Improvement and Further Research. 63. 6. References. 65. Appendix: Speeches from Data Set. 69.

(6) 6. 1. Introduction Political rhetoric is in Western countries most closely associated with the origins of democracy and the great philosophers of ancient Greece. The techniques and strategies of their time have been passed on to modern-day politicians, also mostly thought of in Western terms, and much has been written on the use of figurative speech and rhetorical strategies by politicians who speak European languages. But how about in other parts of the world? Are these methods universal, meaning they can be found even in the speech of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politician? There seems to be little written on the use of rhetorical figures in Chinese political speeches, though a quick search in a Chinese scholarly database such as CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) yields a significant number of literature and translation studies relating to such tropes, as well as many studies on American and European political discourse (by Chinese scholars).1 However, since one of them – the metaphor – is commonly found in everyday Chinese speech, it merits a small examination of how they are used in Chinese political speeches, in particular in an international context. I believe that an international context provides an interesting setting where not only does the speaker need to convince all the other countries and their present representatives of the validity in their arguments, but he or she also has to show to the domestic audience that the arguments are valid (perhaps more valid) in relation to other international representatives’ arguments. There are of course many other types of rhetorical strategies, such as alliteration, allegory, metonymy etc, which are also common in Western languages, and which are all utilised to convey the speaker’s ideas and ideology in order to obtain agreement or consensus from the receivers through the medium of language (be they the audience present at the 1. http://www.cnki.net.

(7) 7 venue, the newspaper reader, or someone reading the news on the internet etc). However, in order limit the scope of the analysis in this thesis, only metaphors will be examined, and more specifically, metaphors pertaining to the source domains JOURNEY, CONSTRUCTION and WAR.. 1.1. Research Questions and Methodology The aim of this thesis is to examine the nature of JOURNEY, CONSTRUCTION and WAR metaphors used in speeches made by CCP officials in an international setting. My research questions for this thesis are therefore:. 1. What types of JOURNEY, CONSTRUCTION and WAR metaphors appear most frequently? 2. How are they utilised? In other words, what do the speakers wish to convey when using these particular metaphors? 3. What cognitive mechanisms are behind these particular metaphors?. The selected category of metaphors I have looked for in the data set is based on a previous paper I have written,2 which in turn is based on the study by Huang & Wu, described in the Literature Review chapter below. In my paper, I found that JOURNEY, CONSTRUCTION and WAR metaphors are very commonly used in speeches by the Chinese representative at the UN General Assembly Debates. The method used to indentify metaphors in the data set material 2. Mejfang Wang, “Chinese Rhetorical Strategies in Political Addresses: A Minor Analysis of Speeches Made by Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao at UN General Assembly Debates” (term paper, National Taiwan Normal University, June 2012)..

(8) 8 in this paper will be a blend of one utilised by the Pragglejaz Group, who developed a specific procedure for systematically identifying metaphors in a text, and another described by Charteris-Black in his work on critical metaphor analysis (see the Literature Review section for details). After identifying the metaphors, they will be sorted into categories of conceptual metaphors and summed up into tables for further analysing. My analysis method will mainly draw from Lakoff’s and Kövecses’ works, with small additions of other scholars as well. In the examples that are given throughout the paper, I will be using underlining to mark metaphorical linguistic expressions in Chinese, and italics for those in English (or translations into English). The statement of conceptual metaphors will be marked by. SMALL CAPITALS.. The purpose of using small capital letters is to indicate that the particular wording does not occur in language as such, but that it underlies conceptually all the metaphorical expressions listed underneath it. Conceptual domains will also be marked by SMALL CAPITALS. To restrict the pages of this thesis, only some instances of metaphors will be quoted as examples. In order to avoid missing out on any potential metaphors, each speech will be read through three times. To clarify, all translations from Chinese to English in this paper are my own, and three dictionaries will be used to look up Chinese words: nciku Dictionary,3 Wenlin software for learning Chinese,4 as well as the fifth edition of the Modern Chinese Dictionary, edited by the Institute of Linguistics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).5 For convenience, I will also be using simplified Chinese in the thesis, as all Chinese sources are written in this form. Finally, the language ‘Chinese’ in this thesis refers strictly to (Mainland Standard). 3. nciku Dictionary, accessed June 23, 2012, http://www.nciku.com/. Wenlin software for learning Chinese, developed by John DeFrancis and the Wenlin Institute, version 3.4.1, http://www.wenlin.com/. 5 現代漢語詞典（第5版），中國社會科學院語言研究所詞典編輯室編，北京：商務印書館，2005。 4.

(9) 9 Mandarin Chinese, otherwise known as 普通話, and not to any other Chinese languages, since the analysed speeches are exclusively written and spoken in this language.. 1.2. Thesis Outline, Limitations and Significance This thesis begins with an introductory section, followed by a literature review on the subjects of metaphor studies and political discourse analysis. In the third section, the data set material is presented and screened to identify the present JOURNEY, CONSTRUCTION and WAR metaphors. The fourth section contains an analysis and discussion on the findings of section three using the relevant methodologies, while the fifth section will provide a brief conclusion on the results. My thesis is meant to serve as a glimpse into the complex relationship between language and political discourse through the lens of a certain category of metaphors and their employment. It will thus only concern itself with a narrow selection of rhetorical figures and can therefore not be as comprehensive as one could wish. However, I believe that my thesis can still provide an insight into the mechanisms of persuasion and manipulation through language, and perhaps even contribute a little to the Chinese areas of cognitive linguistics and political discourse..

(10) 10. 2. Literature Review Language is not only a means of communicating with other people in everyday life, but also a means for politicians to communicate with the people they lead or wish to lead. In particular, language is for politicians a means of persuasion, and in order to persuade the target audience, they often use rhetorical strategies. These strategies are numerous and have different effects, but according to John E. Joseph “these linguistic resources combine with features of content to produce effects in the hearer that extend beyond the logic of the argument, considered objectively”.6 This was also argued as far back as in ancient Greece, and one of the most well known works on the art of rhetoric is of course Rhetoric by Aristotle. In his book he maintains that “It is clear, then, that rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is concerned with the modes of persuasion. Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated”.7 Obviously, persuasion does not have to be open and explicit, nor does it have to be for a benign cause; in fact, Joseph points out that it could very well be used for misleading the listener, for example when politicians try to make a case for something that is mainly (and perhaps only) beneficial for their own government as something that is also in the interest of the people or other nations.8 In order to know what the rhetorical strategy of metaphor implies when it is used in a speech then, the following sections will go into further details on the nature and structure of it.. 6. John E. Joseph, Language and Politics, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 112. Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 1 (translated by W. Rhys Roberts), http://rhetoric.eserver.org/aristotle/rhet1-1.html. 8 Joseph, supra note 5, 13. 7.

(11) 11. 2.1. Metaphors. 2.1.1. What Is A Metaphor? When it comes to rhetorical figures, metaphor is one of the most frequently used in everyday communication. Most of the time we do not even know that what we utter in a sentence is actually a metaphor, since they are already so integrated into our daily speech and texts that we read. In Lakoff & Johnson’s influential work, Metaphors We Live By, they explain that “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”.9 More precisely, Zoltan Kövecses defines metaphors as consisting of two domains: The conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions to understand another conceptual domain is called source domain, while the conceptual domain that is understood this way is the target domain. […] The target domain is the domain that we try to understand through the use of the source domain.10. To further facilitate the understanding of the structure of a metaphor, consider the following example: (2a) I spent more than one hour waiting for the bus today.. In this sentence Lakoff & Johnson explain its metaphorical concept, i.e. the underlying meaning, as being formed from the subcategorisation of TIME 9. IS. MONEY, TIME. George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 5. Zoltan Kövecses, Metaphor – A Practical Introduction, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 4.. 10. IS A.

(12) 12 RESOURCE, and TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY into one system. This is because in modern society money is a limited resource, and therefore also a valuable commodity.11 From the comparison of time with money, therefore, follows the metaphor of being able to spend time as well, even though in reality we cannot make any type of transactions with time as we can with money. If we apply Kövecses definition of metaphors on the above example, the source domain would be MONEY, while the target domain would be TIME, which would give the same conceptualisation of metaphors as the one provided by Lakoff & Johnson. To further illustrate, consider the following sentence: (2b) He was burning up with rage.. This common way of describing anger or fury draws from the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HEAT. or ANGER IS FIRE, meaning that the source domain ANGER is “mapped” onto the target. domain HEAT or FIRE. We understand the source domain in terms of the target domain because “there is a set of systematic correspondences between the source and the target in the sense that constituent conceptual elements of. B. correspond to constituent elements of. A.. Technically, these conceptual correspondences are often referred to as mappings”.12 In other words, this process of making connections between the source and target domains’ conceptual similarities is what enables us to process and understand metaphors. As for metaphors in Chinese, there are naturally differences compared to English, due to cultural reasons. For instance, Tse & Altarriba remark that when speaking about time, English speakers tend to refer to it using horizontal spatial metaphors (“We’re behind schedule right 11 12. Lakoff & Johnson, supra note 8, 9. Kövecses, supra note 9, 7..

(13) 13 now”), while Chinese speakers tend to think of time in a vertical spatial manner (“ 上個星期五我們去看了一部電影”). 13 Other examples of typically Chinese (or Asian) metaphors involve Buddhism, which is not seen in Western languages (“律師要有佛心”), and using several types of taste when referring to the joys and sorrows of life (“婚姻就像人生一样，酸甜苦辣五味俱全”), instead of one or two as in English.14 These cross-cultural variations are explained by Kövecses as being due to two reasons: one, which he calls “the broader cultural context”, and another, which he refers to as “the natural and physical environment in which a culture is located”. The broader cultural context refers to the principles and key concepts found within a culture, and can, for example, manifest itself in how Chinese view anger as directly related to qi (气), which is usually seen as energy conceptualised as gas or fluid flowing through a person’s body.15 Similar to English, the Chinese notion of anger can appear in the conceptual metaphor AN ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURISED CONTAINER,. for instance in the following examples:. (2c) She was bursting with anger. (2d) 今天老闆的要求太離譜了，气到我炸。 (My boss’ demands today were too unreasonable, I was so angry I exploded.). 13. Chi-Shing Tse & Jeanette Altarriba, “Evidence Against Linguistic Relativity in Chinese and English: A Case Study of Spatial and Temporal Metaphors”, Journal of Cognition and Culture 8 (2008), 336. 14 Winifred Yuk Ying Leung, “A Contrastive Study of Chinese and English Metaphors of Marriage”, LCOM Papers 1 (2008): 21-35, 29. 15 Kövecses, supra note 9, 218-219..

(14) 14 However, Kövecses notes that unlike in other languages, qi is not a hot gas or fluid, nor is it merely a psychological phenomenon, since traditional Chinese medicine is significantly related to issues that are caused by qi imbalance, excess etc.16 The natural and physical environment also plays an important role in shaping a culture’s inherent way of thinking and expressions, and this causes its people to “make use of these things and phenomena for the metaphorical comprehension and creation of their conceptual universe”. An example of this is American English, which was brought to the U.S. by British settlers and later developed according to the new environments and landscapes, and also by the new kinds of activities that the people were engaged in there.17 Nonetheless, there are also many similarities between Chinese and English metaphors, as in the following example:. (2e) 聽到這個消息，他真的火了。(He really flared up when he heard the news.). In a similar fashion to (2b), there is the source domain relating to feelings or mood, and a target domain related to heat and/or fire. The difference however, is that in this sentence 〈fire〉 is not just the noun of the target domain, but it also acts as the verb ‘flare up’, i.e. the act of getting angry. This is due to the nature of Mandarin Chinese, where many nouns can serve as verbs, and in some cases also as adjectives.. 16 17. Ibid, 201, 219. Ibid, 220-221..

(15) 15 The same domain can serve in many different conceptual metaphors, so that the target domain FIRE, for example, can be mapped with the source domains. LOVE. and. ANXIETY. instead of ANGER, such as in these sentences:. (2f) I ran into an old flame of mine at the college reunion last week. (2g) 我心裡火辣辣的。(I’m burning with anxiety.). Conceptually, the four examples (2b-e) all belong to the same larger conceptual metaphor EMOTION IS HEAT/FIRE, which are commonly found in both English and Chinese. These similarities between English and Chinese metaphors can also be seen in Huang Qiulin & Wu Benhu’s analysis. In their study on metaphor use during 30 years of People’s Daily editorials discussing the topic of lianghui (兩會), the authors argue that “metaphors are not only able to express abundant political meaning through a concise form, but they also have a strong power of persuasion for the audience. Thus they can be found everywhere in political discourse, and naturally, the Chinese Communist Party’s political discourse is not an exception to that”.18 Moreover, out of the six metaphor types they examined (JOURNEY, CONSTRUCTION, PLANT, WAR, FAMILY. and. NAVIGATION). they found that the four most. common metaphor sources are Journey, Construction, Plant and War, with plant-related metaphors taking over the third place from war metaphors from the 1990s onwards.19 People’s Daily is frequently referred to as the “mouthpiece” of the CCP, and has the function of. 18 19. 黄秋林、吴本虎，〈政治隐喻的歷時分析〉，語言教學與研究2009年第5期，91. Ibid, 93..

(16) 16 promoting the Party’s beliefs and policies,20 thus making it interesting to see if a comparison with the actual speeches made by party officials yields similar results. The same six types of metaphors are also commonly found in Western discourse, and can manifest themselves as, for example, THEORIES/ARGUMENTS. ARE BUILDINGS. (“Is that the foundation of your. theories?”),21 AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY (“We have arrived at a disturbing conclusion.”),22 and SOCIAL ORGANISATIONS ARE PLANTS (“He works for a local branch of the bank.”).23 As mentioned in the first chapter, this thesis has been partly inspired by Huang & Wu’s study, from which I have decided to focus on one of the largest category of metaphors they found. However, since navigation essentially relates to journey (usually at sea), in this thesis some navigation metaphors will be included into JOURNEY metaphors, instead of being separate as in Huang & Wu’s study. Metaphors belonging to the wider category of maritime activity and its equipment will, on the other hand, not be included. Unlike Huang & Wu’s analysis of newspaper editorials, this thesis will examine a different type of language medium, namely public speeches. These were chosen to see if the same categories of Mainland Chinese political metaphors were as frequently found and if they were used in the same way in another setting. Furthermore, in the same fashion as Huang & Wu, I have decided to include conventionalised metaphors as well as more innovative ones, since both kinds affect our way of thinking according to Lakoff & Johnson, Kövecses, and other metaphor scholars (see Literature review).. 20. Even Hu Jintao has explicitly stated this: “About Us”, People’s Daily Online, accessed June 17, 2012, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/102840/7560415.html. 21 Lakoff & Johnson, supra note 8, 46. 22 Ibid, 90. 23 Kövecses, supra note 9, 10..

(17) 17. 2.1.2. Metaphor Identification Methods Although many works discuss the topic of metaphors and the issues surrounding them, not many seem to actually explain their methods of identifying metaphors in a text. However, Jonathan Charteris-Black does so in his work on critical metaphor analysis, in which he describes that after close reading of a text, he examines so-called “candidate metaphors” (i.e. what is suspected to be a metaphor) to see if there is any semantic tension or incongruity present that has resulted from “a shift in domain use – even if this shift occurred some time before and has since become conventionalised”. Those that do not fulfil the criterion of semantic tension or incongruity are thus excluded from further analysis. Words that are commonly used with a metaphoric sense are then classified as metaphor keywords, making it possible to measure the presence of such keywords quantitatively in the corpus.24 The are of course other methods, and Kövecses cites the influential group of researchers, the Pragglejaz Group, when discussing metaphor identification methodology, which has developed the following metaphor identification procedure (MIP):. 1. Read the entire text-discourse to establish a general understanding of the meaning. 2. Determine the lexical units in the text-discourse: 3. (a) For each lexical unit in the text, establish its meaning in context, that is, how it applies to an entity, relation, or attribute in the situation evoked by the text (contextual meaning). Take into account what comes before and after the lexical unit. (b) For each lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic contemporary meaning in 24. Jonathan Charteris-Black, Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 35..

(18) 18 other contexts than the one in the given context. For our purposes, basic meanings tend to be • More concrete (what they evoke is easier to imagine, see, hear, feel, smell, and taste) • Related to bodily action • More precise (as opposed to vague) • Historically older. Basic meanings are not necessarily the most frequent meanings of the lexical unit. (c) If the lexical unit has a more basic current-contemporary meaning in other contexts than the given context, decide whether the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning but can be understood in comparison with it. 4. If yes, mark the lexical unit as metaphorical.25. Although the Pragglejaz Group’s method is very thorough and well structured, and more precise compared to Charteris-Black’s method, it does not mention what to do with the obtained metaphors. Therefore, a blend of both methods is used in the data set analysis of this paper. In other words, I will be utilising MIP to identify metaphors, while adopting CharterisBlack’s method of classification in order to measure the quantity of each type of metaphor. These two methods of identifying metaphors in a data set also serve a role in concluding this section, in that they together offer a brief (although not complete) of metaphors, i.e. lexical units that are used in a context where they do not convey their basic meanings and where they display a semantic incongruity, while at the same time being intelligible due to the context. 25. Pragglejaz Group, “MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse”, Metaphor and Symbol 22 (2007): 3..

(19) 19. 2.1.3. Close Cousins of the Metaphor In addition to acquiring an idea of what constitutes a metaphor, it is also important to understand the difference between metaphor and other similar, but not synonymous, tropes. The ones most commonly confused with metaphor are simile and metonymy.. 2.1.3.1. Simile A simile is most simply differentiated from a metaphor by the following definition from Encyclopædia Britannica: “simile, figure of speech involving a comparison between two unlike entities. In the simile, unlike the metaphor, the resemblance is explicitly indicated by the words ‘like’ or ‘as’” (emphases by Encyclopædia Britannica Online).26 Examples of this might be: (2h) He eats like a pig. (2i) It’s as easy as snapping your fingers.. Moreover, unlike a metaphor, “similes are always literally true because any two things must always be alike in one way or another, indeed, in an indeterminate number of ways”.27 Thus the two express different meanings, though not necessarily in a very obvious way.28. 26. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "simile," accessed October 31, 2012, http://0www.britannica.com.opac.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/EBchecked/topic/545113/simile.. 27. Sam Glucksberg, “How Metaphors Create Categories – Quickly”, in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Raymond Gibbs ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2008), pp 67-83, 68. 28 Ibid, 69..

(20) 20. 2.1.3.2. Metonymy In the same way that a metaphor is characterised by a certain link between one thing with another thing, metonymy also operates in this manner.29 The difference, however, is that while “similarity characterizes metaphor, […] contiguity is a feature of metonymy”.30 It is thus usually defined as “replacing the name of something with something that is connected to it, without being the whole thing”,31 as in the following examples:. (2j) The White House (= the United States government which is based there) denied claims that fiscal spending is out of control. (2k) I like reading Shakespeare (= the works of Shakespeare).. And while metaphor is essentially a manner of understanding one thing in terms of another, metonymy primarily has the purpose of letting us refer to something in terms of another.32 Kövecses further elucidates the differences by explaining that Metaphor involves two concepts that are “distant” from each other in our conceptual system (although they are similar). The “distance” largely arises from the fact that one concept or domain is typically an abstract one, while the other is typically a concrete one. […] In metonymy, in contrast, we have two elements, or entities, that are closely related to each other in conceptual space. […] The. 29. Kövecses, supra note 9, 172. Ibid, 174. 31 Adrian Beard, The Language of Politics, (London: Routledge, 2000), 19. 32 Lakoff & Johnson, supra note 8, 36. 30.

(21) 21 elements in a metonymic relationship form a single domain. By contrast, metaphor uses two distinct and distant domains […].33. It is clear then, that despite appearing similar at first glance, the three tropes metaphor, simile, and metonymy are all structurally different and that they therefore function differently.. 2.1.4. How the Metaphor Functions While metaphors in themselves are very interesting, it is the application of them in discourse that is of main interest in this thesis (see section 2.3. below). In order to understand how they are applied, we need to first know how they function. Let us take a previous example, (2c) 聽到這個消息，他真的火了. In this sentence the literal meaning makes no sense, unless the person referred to really suffered spontaneous combustion upon hearing the news. However, as Josef Stern puts it, in the same way as we can either succeed or fail to understand the literal meaning of an utterance, we can also succeed or fail to understand the metaphorical sense of an utterance, and “once we understand the metaphor, we can also judge it to be successful, appropriate, forceful, or apt”.34 This in turn depends on whether or not the context in which the metaphor was uttered would render it true (that is, a ‘successful’ metaphor), and also on whether or not the receiver knows which context would do so. There are thus truth-conditions for metaphorical utterances, just as there are for literal ones.35. 33. Kövecses, supra note 9, 175-176. Josef Stern, “Metaphor, Semantics, and Context”, in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Raymond Gibbs ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2008), pp 262-279, 262. 35 Ibid, 263. 34.

(22) 22 In other words, a true statement “depends on whether the categories employed in the statement fit”, and consequently, “the truth of a statement will always be relative to the way the category is understood for our purposes in a given context”.36 It thus follows that if a receiver does not know what ‘fire’ means and what its characteristics are, then she would also be unable to grasp what is metaphorically meant by example (2e) above. It also means that if the receiver knows the meaning and characteristics of ‘fire’, but does not understand the mappings between the source domain FIRE and the target domain ANGER, she would also be unable comprehend the actual meaning of the sentence. As mentioned before, metaphor lets us understand one thing in terms of another, which in essence is a process of creating new meaning. Therefore, many linguists such as George Lakoff argue that rather than just being a poetic or rhetorical embellishment, metaphors affect our way of thinking, and in so doing also affects our actions. Lakoff & Johnson even go so far as to maintain that “our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature”. 37 Christ’l De Landtsheer likewise argues that because of the creative nature of metaphors, they can “obfuscate and potentially change thinking”.38 The truth condition that Stern writes about is of course only relative to what is defined by the metaphor, which is often – but not always – based on experiential similarity.39 Paul Chilton’s interpretation of Habermas’ validity claims made by a speaker or writer of a language includes (among others) ‘truth’ (Wahrheit) by which an utterer claims to be “asserting a propositional truth, or […] to be truthfully asserting a representation of a state of affairs”,40 and could thus be applied to the truth condition of metaphor by making it necessary for the utterer to either really believe what she says is true, or to ensure that the receiver will 36. Lakoff & Johnson, supra note 8, 164. Lakoff & Johnson, supra note 8, 3. 38 Christ’l De Landtsheer, “Collecting Political Meaning from the Count of Metaphor”, in Metaphor and Discourse, eds. Andreas Musolff & Jörg Zinken (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp 59-78, 63. 39 Lakoff & Johnson, supra note 8, 158. 40 Paul Chilton, Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice, London: Routledge, 2004, 43. 37.

(23) 23 believe so. However in speaking of something in terms of another (i.e. metaphorically), the utterer also claims a ‘rightness’ (Richtigkeit), meaning that she performs the speech act on the basis of an implicit claim to possess the authority and social or political role to do so.41 Though Lakoff later abandoned some of his theories presented in Metaphors We Live By for the NTL (Neural Theory of Language) approach, he nonetheless retains the most frequently cited, some of which are also cited in this thesis. An important one is that source domain structures are used for interpreting target domains, and as such, much of our reasoning is based on conceptual metaphors.42 This does not necessarily mean that metaphor usage is of a malicious nature, in fact, most metaphor usage is just simple everyday concepts such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, TIME IS A HORIZONTAL/VERTICAL AXIS,. ANGER. IS HEAT. etc as can be seen from previous examples.. Michael P. Marks puts it very plainly, by writing that “[…] metaphor is how humans think, not only how they express themselves in language”.43 When they are used for manipulative reasons, however, the results can be quite interesting, as will be discussed further in section 2.3.. 2.2. Political Discourse and Discourse Analysis Since this thesis is treating the topic of metaphor usage in political speeches, it is appropriate to also give a relatively brief literature review of the directly related subject of political discourse analysis. 41. Ibid, 44. George Lakoff, “The Neural Theory of Metaphor”, in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Raymond Gibbs ed., Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2008, 24-25. 43 Michael P. Marks, Metaphors in International Relations Theory (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 13. 42.

(24) 24 Discourse may refer to either or both written and spoken communication, and can manifest itself in many forms; including conversations, speeches, debates, articles, news reports etc. As stated in the Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia, discourse refers to “naturally occurring language use” and “meaningful language use in context”.44 It thus follows that political discourse is a subcategory of these forms of communication that is produced within a political context. According to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) this would refer to the meanings we derive from political language in use, whether it is spoken or written, including paralinguistic meanings that we derive from volume, intonation, sighs etc, as well as nonlinguistic meanings obtained from hand gestures, facial expressions and other types of body language.45 This thesis, however, will not concern itself with paralinguistic or non-linguistic features, since the source material consists of written speeches (and not videos or transcriptions where they would be discernible). As the name suggests, Critical Discourse Analysis is an interdisciplinary approach mainly concerned with studying issues such as inequality, power and domination, and aims to provide a form of social critique by studying their manifestations in discourse.46 This may have subjective connotations for those unfamiliar with CDA, however, as Joseph argues, this subjectivity is what gives Critical Discourse Analysis a certain legitimacy that is not found in other approaches: As with other CDA treatments of political discourse, it is a refreshing experience for those of us who are not political office-holders to see the often high-flown rhetoric of those who govern us brought down to earth. For these and other reasons I believe that CDA has a validity that transcends the methodological critiques that have been made of it from many quarters. At the heart of these critiques is a simple. 44. Kirsten Malmkjaer, ed., Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia, Third Edition (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), 133. Ibid, 121-122. 46 Chilton, supra note 39, 45. 45.

(25) 25 point: because CDA has its own strong political commitments, it does not provide any ‘objective’ analysis of texts, but a politically interested analysis.47. While CDA is a dominant approach in the field of discourse analysis, discourse (whether it is political or not) may also be analysed through many other approaches and different disciplines, such as rhetoric, stylistics, pragmatics etc, including cognitive linguistics. The latter discipline includes Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT), of which Lakoff has been the leading scholar, and which will serve as the theoretical basis for this thesis. Although CDA and cognitive linguistics are often seen as non-compatible approaches for discourse analysis, there have also been numerous attempts to merge the two, most notably by Christopher Hart. Rather than Cognitive Metaphor Theory, Hart believes that Critical Discourse Analysis may be simultaneously used with Conceptual Blending Theory (BT), which was developed by Mark Turner and Gilles Fauconnier.48 He argues that due to its intrinsic theory of experientialism (or conceptual embodiment) CMT “constitutes a theory of cognitive semantics, then, which explains the motivation for particular mappings as grounded in experientialist connections between domains, leaving no room for speaker intention”.49 Blending theory, on the other hand, is based on mental space theory and treats metaphor as a “conceptual projection involving four mental spaces”, which is contrasted with the previously mentioned structure of CMT, where mappings occur across two conceptual domains. BT also explicitly describes that in the case of metaphors, the mental spaces that appear during discourse are subjected to “a specific conceptual blending operation whereby they are manipulated in an integrated network, producing inferential structure”.50 Thus, Hart maintains 47. Joseph, supra note 5, 130. Christopher Hart, “Critical Discourse Analysis and Metaphor: Toward A Theoretical Framework”, Critical Discourse Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2008): 91-106. 49 Ibid, 93-94. 50 Ibid, 95. 48.

(26) 26 that Blending Theory is very closely related to the view that there is a dialectical relation between discourse and social structure, which is found in Critical Discourse Analysis.51 Since this thesis mainly draws its theoretical foundation from a cognitive linguistic (and to some extent, pragmatic) perspective, it will not be concerned with the social or powerrelated structure of the analysed material. What is relevant for this thesis is, as Linda McMullen also argues in her discussion on contextual approaches to analysing metaphors, that “discourse analysis requires a focus on discursive practices, that is, on what people are doing with their talk, and/or on discursive resources, that is, what it is that people draw on when they talk” (italics are mine).52 Therefore, the central issue of this thesis is to observe and examine the underlying cognitive mechanisms of the metaphors used in speeches from the Chinese government representatives. I have no intention of criticising or judging the metaphor usage, nor do I think it appropriate in this particular study, since I disagree with the subjective “validity” that practitioners of CDA defend. It is not a suitable approach for my thesis, and I have thus chosen to only refer to it slightly in order to present different views for the literature review section.. 2.3. Metaphors in Political Discourse Studying metaphors in political discourse can bring with it some issues that exist due to the common practice in academics to separate disciplines so as not to intrude on other scholars’ territories. This has had the unfortunate consequence of needlessly hindering interdisciplinary. 51. Ibid, 98. Linda M. McMullen, “Putting It In Context”, in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Raymond Gibbs ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2008), 397-411,408.. 52.

(27) 27 work and mutual beneficence for those who study this particular phenomenon, which has been expressed by De Landtsheer: If metaphor is at the heart of cognitive framing, then it should be crucial to political study. Scholars in linguistics apparently move toward investigating politics, and political researchers start studying political metaphor. Surprisingly, the amount of literature addressing political metaphor has not until now reflected the importance of the subject. Even though the majority of scholars highly value this type of research, interdisciplinarity has turned out to be complicated, timeconsuming, and in the end not always rewarding. Academics produce boundaries and often do not transcend them for discipline-focus reasons.53. While it is easy to view interdisciplinarity as ‘unfocused’ or ‘woolly’ work, it is important to note that most disciplines do not have entirely clear-cut boundaries, and that being too strict with discipline perimeters can impede on academic advances. It is therefore worth to note that even though this thesis is focused on the cognitive linguistic aspect of metaphors in political language, it could as easily have been written with a political science focus, or psychological focus etc. This is why a few of the references in this thesis come from non-linguist scholars, who I believe should not be excluded on account of studying metaphors from different perspectives than my own. A metaphor used in political discourse can, depending on its method and area of application, bring forth different meanings that the speaker or author wishes to convey. It can emphasise a certain aspect of an argument, such as the notion that followers of an ideology are “sharing” in the construction or further development of a nation or a society.54 It can also conceal important but unwanted characteristics of an argument, such as Pamela Hobbs has 53. De Landtsheer, supra note 37, 60. Jonathan Charteris-Black, “Metaphor and Political Communication”, in Metaphor and Discourse, eds. Andreas Musolff & Jörg Zinken (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp 97-115, 97.. 54.

(28) 28 found in her study on the use by George W. Bush and his advisors of the word ‘surge’ instead of ‘increase’ to refer to the number U.S. soldiers being sent to Iraq. She observes that this replacement with the metaphor ‘surge’ (which in the literal sense describes water flow) has the double advantage of removing the direct association with numbers while at the same time referring more to power, as well as conveying a sense of temporariness.55 This argument of using concealing metaphors to alter our perception of foreign policies is also maintained by Lakoff & Chilton, who furthermore argue that “metaphors […] hide important aspects of what is real, and it is vital that we know what realities our foreign policy metaphors are hiding”.56 Obviously, metaphor usage in political discourse does not inherently have to be with ‘evil’ or otherwise malevolent intensions, but it does alter the basic meaning of an utterance or sentence and gives it a nuance that would not necessarily be found if using non-metaphorical language. It is worth to note that even though there may not be any direct receiver, utterances are often produced with an intended receiver in mind since “no speech act is individual; they are always social, even if the addressee exists only in the speaker’s imagination. And indeed, every word we utter is generated in interaction with an imagined audience in our mind, before any real audience ever hears or reads it”.57 We do not usually speak for no one to hear (except perhaps when talking to ourselves) because language exists primarily for the purpose of communication. Language is also a “means of presenting and shaping argument” and is closely related to – even based on – the ideas it includes. For political contexts, this entails that political argument is produced from an ideological basis and that it contains underlying beliefs, which. 55. Pamela Hobbs, “Surging Ahead to A New Way Forward: The Metaphorical Foreshadowing of A Policy Shift”, Discourse & Communication, Vol 2, No 1 (2008): 29-56. 56 George Lakoff & Paul Chilton, “Foreign Policy by Metaphor”, Center for Research in Language Newsletter, Vol. 3, No. 5 (1989): pp 5-19, 15. 57 Joseph, supra note 5, 65..

(29) 29 affects its manifestation as well as its reception by an audience.58 One type of ideological manifestation in language is the metaphor, which can produce interesting effects when used in speeches. According to Marks, since “virtually all cognition involves conceptual mappings, and most linguistic expression to one extent or another employs metaphorical expression”, this also applies to the field of international relations, in which he also argues that “some […] metaphorical expressions are used deliberately for the purpose of theory generation or to elucidate the contextual parameters […]”.59 This corresponds to the general arguments by scholars of CMT, who (as mentioned above) maintain that metaphor usage permeates all or most aspects of life, whether it be everyday, professional, political, or otherwise. From section 2.1.1 then, we saw what components a metaphor is comprised of in everyday example sentences. If we instead apply this to politics, we can illustrate it with the following example:. (2l) The government’s plan to cut corporate tax rates was severely attacked by the opposition.. In this case, the conceptual metaphor OBJECTION. IS. FIGHTING comes from the concept of. warfare having two or more opposing sides, which is also the case in (democratic) politics. The source domain. FIGHTING. thus provides the target domain. POLITICAL OBJECTION. with a. different nuance, which in this case gives the target domain a stronger and more antagonistic meaning than if the words ‘objected’ or ‘opposed’ were used. In politics, however, being in opposition does not normally involve physical confrontation. According to Adrian Beard,. 58 59. Beard, supra note 30, 18. Marks, supra note 42, 29..

(30) 30 WAR and SPORTS serve as very common sources of metaphors in politics, precisely because of their inherent oppositional concepts. Even the word ‘campaign’, which is used frequently in politics, is originally a reference to battle.60 Beard remarks that these metaphors sourced from war and sports are not just rhetorical devices; they lead us to […] have no idea that politics can be anything other than confrontational, that it could in fact involve agreement and consensus. The key metaphors of politics involve concepts of enemies and opponents, winners and losers; they do not suggest that government could be achieved through discussion, co-operation, working together.61. In other words, this conceptualisation of politics as being adversarial has (at least in European languages) been so fossilised, that we cannot any longer imagine it as being anything else, such as co-operative or even remotely pleasant. There are also many other conceptual metaphors that are commonly employed in politics. In a comparative study of German and British newspapers and magazines, Andreas Musolff found that when writing about the European Union, news articles tend to mainly use what he calls “WAY-MOVEMENT-SPEED”, “LIFE-HEALTH-STRENGTH”, and “WAR-FORTRESSBATTLE”. metaphors. 62 He furthermore argues that metaphors can be used as tools of. negotiation, for instance when the British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind debated with the Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl, he reportedly said: “If European policy was a symphony, it had to be remembered that orchestras could function only on the principle of unanimity – there could be no majority voting among strings or brass”.63 What Rifkind meant. 60. Beard, supra note 30, 21. Ibid, 22. 62 Andreas Musolff, Metaphor and Political Discourse: Analogical Reasoning in Debates About Europe, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 12. 63 Ibid, 152. 61.

(31) 31 was clearly that the countries of the EU, referred to as instruments, need to work together in order to efficiently carry out policies. This was made through the conceptual metaphor EU MEMBER STATES ARE INSTRUMENTS IN AN ORCHESTRA,. and its presumption that orchestras. need to keep the same tempo and act ‘in concert’ (cooperate) in order to play a symphony (implement policy). Negotiation is of course not the only implication of a metaphor used in political discourse. That Huang & Wu’s abovementioned study in People’s Daily metaphors resulted in a high number of those with. JOURNEY. connotations, is explained by the two authors as. being due to the CCP wanting to portray “the Chinese people as the travellers of the journey, and the Communist Party as the group leader, while the Communist Party’s general and specific policies are the compass, the opening up reform is the only way, and Communism is the ultimate destination”.64 In other words, they want the people to trust the CCP to guide them to the ‘right destination’, using the appropriate ‘roads’ and means. Taking the second most common metaphors of Huang & Wu’s study as another example, those stemming from the source CONSTRUCTION are argued by the authors to be describing “China as a large building, the Party and leaders of the country are the chief architects, and the people are the constructors of the building, while the hard work is for the sake of laying the bricks of the building”.65 We can then see from the two most common metaphors in the authors’ work that editorials of People’s Daily dealing with the topic of lianghui are utilised in a way that will strengthen the CCP’s standing and legitimacy as the political rulers of China. The use of metaphors form the third category WAR (which is also included in this thesis) is concluded by the authors as being grounded in the conceptual metaphor 64 65. 黄秋林、吴本虎, supra note 17, 93. Ibid..

(32) 32 DEVELOPING. A COUNTRY IS WAR,. and “in this war, the Chinese Communist Party is the. commander, while the people are the soldiers, and the difficulties of development are the enemy”. Thus, Huang & Wu argue that having developed the country is likened to having won a war, and “appropriate amounts of war metaphors can inspire popular sentiments and stimulate a fighting spirit [among the people]” and, in short, to devote themselves to the Party’s principles of the socialist cause.66 Guoxin Xing argues that unlike what many perceive as a move further to the left by Hu Jintao compared to his predecessors, his ideological orientation has been marked by the emphasis on “‘scientific development’, ‘putting people first’ (以人为本), and ‘harmonious society’”. 67 If this is correct, then it should theoretically be reflected in speeches by representatives of the Chinese government/CCP as well, as they should reflect the Party’s and the political leader’s thinking. It is also likely that following the line of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, Hu would emphasise a strong economy and social stability, in particular as the means for building the above-mentioned ‘harmonious society’ in China.68 Assuming that underlying beliefs influences metaphors used in speeches, the metaphors used by the Chinese government representatives at the UN General Assembly would also reflect the policies and political thought of the PRC government. Another work that also discusses metaphor usage in Chinese political discourse is a master thesis by Zhang Hongyan. Her thesis discusses functions of metaphors used in the CCP’s 2005 “Report on the Work of the Government”, an annual report presented by the government to the National People’s Congress. In her thesis, she utilises conceptual metaphor theory as well as Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse the three conceptual metaphors 66. THE. Ibid, 94. Guoxin Xing, “Hu Jintao’s Political Thinking and Legitimacy Building: A Post-Marxist Perspective”, Asian Affairs: An American Review, Vol 36, Issue 4 (2009): 215. 68 Andy Rothman, “Striving for Economic and Political Sustainability”, China Perspectives, Vol. 2007, No 3 (2007): 74. 67.

(33) 33 STATE IS A FAMILY, STATE CONSTRUCTION IS A JOURNEY. and the. BUILDING. metaphor,. concluding that they “[…] are used successfully to support beneficial political goals, serve favourable ideological functions, cultivate intimacy and spiritual encouragement, maintain social stability and social order, promote social progress, and unite the people’s thoughts in the socialist modernization drive”.69. What exactly is meant by “used successfully” is not clear, although the rest of the quote above seems to reflect the author’s own personal views rather than observed fact supported by information such as surveys, sociological studies, economic data etc. Moreover, in contrast to Zhang’s thesis, which looks at discourse aimed at a domestic audience, this thesis will be discussing the Chinese Communist Party’s use of metaphors where the target receivers are an international audience. It will also look exclusively at JOURNEY metaphors, but will include all aspects of them, rather than. STATE CONSTRUCTION IS A JOURNEY,. which I would argue is a. blend of two conceptual metaphors (namely, THE STATE IS A BUILDING and AN IDEOLOGY IS A JOURNEY).. 69. Zhang Hongyan, “The Study of Metaphors in Chinese Political Discourse: Based on the Report on the Work of the Government” (Master Thesis, Zhejiang University, 2005), 51..

(34) 34. Figure 1. Diagram illustrating the conceptual metaphor THE STATE IS A FAMILY. Differences aside, this thesis will adopt a modified version of a diagram featured in Zhang’s thesis, namely one that illustrates the conceptual metaphor “THE STATE IS A FAMILY”, which is analysed in her study.70 The diagram, which shows the particular metaphor Zhang examines through Figure 1 above, will be adapted to suit the conceptual metaphors found for the three categories examined in this thesis (see Chapter 4). As previously mentioned, I will also avoid combining the theories of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis, as I have deemed it inappropriate as well as ineffective for this thesis. It is easy to take a cynical standpoint to analyse speech acts, especially when they relate to politics. However, if we do this, and reckon that what has been uttered by a politician is solely used for manipulative purposes or perhaps occasionally for benign and altruistic intentions, how are we to know this for certain? Beard pertinently notes that even though sceptical listeners tend to see all politicians as untrustworthy and argue that they only wish to influence the audience into agreeing with them in order to retain power, “there is no simple answer to this dilemma, because concepts like honesty and sincerity. 70. Ibid, 29..

(35) 35 cannot be measured against any absolute standard”.71 I wholly agree with this argument, and hence I will not be attempting to put forth any social or political critique against the language use in the speeches analysed for this thesis.. 71. Beard, supra note 30, 36..

(36) 36. 3. Data Set Description and Metaphor Identification. 3.1. Data Set Description The data set analysed in this thesis has been entirely sourced through the Internet. It includes ten speeches made at the United Nations General Assembly General Debates between 2003 and 2012. These are held once a year, normally around the end of September, after the commencement of the General Assembly’s annual session. The purpose of the debates is to “discuss any question relating to international peace and security and, except where a dispute or situation is currently being discussed by the Security Council”, as well as to make recommendations on the issue discussed.72 The topic of the General Debate is chosen by the President of each year’s session.73 The General Debate is meant to provide a forum of multilateral discussion for the member states on issues regarding international as well as national concern, and is normally attended by at least one representative from most member states.74 The reasons for choosing these speeches are two: the first is to eliminate the risk of putting speeches made in too diverging contexts together, which would change too many parameters and consequently affect the results of the analysis; the second is simply because they were readily available online in text form, and so they do not need to be transcribed from audio/video. The time range chosen contains all UN General Debate speeches made during. 72. “Functions and Powers of the General Assembly”, United Nations, accessed Nov 30, 2012, http://www.un.org/en/ga/about/background.shtml. 73 “General Debate of the 67th Session”, United Nations, accessed Nov 30, 2012, http://gadebate.un.org/ 74 “UN General Assembly Begins Annual Debate”, Xinhua News, accessed Nov 30, 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-09/25/c_131872646.htm.

(37) 37 Hu Jintao’s presidency in the People’s Republic of China, so as to minimise digression in style and political policies that could arise if including for example speeches made during the previous presidents’ (Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin) periods in office. Although they are meant to debate the topic given for each session by the elected assembly president, they mostly discuss the goal of developing China and other developing countries, China’s sovereignty, and political issues of the Middle East.. 3.2. Results The results will be presented according to the three chosen categories of metaphors as previously mentioned. Due to many sentences containing several metaphors, sometimes from different categories, some examples may be given more than once below. Metaphors found in words and phrases that are quoted by the speaker are not included. This is due to the fact that they are not related to the speaker’s (or speech writer’s) mode of expression, nor to what the speaker represents, i.e. the People’s Republic of China. Titles of speeches are not included either, since they are not heard by the audience. Because of language discrepancies, some idiomatic translations from Chinese to English will not be possible, as they would result in a loss of the metaphorical meaning. In these cases, the literal English meaning of the Chinese lexical unit will be given instead, despite that it may give an unnatural quality to the translation. However, where I have deemed it impossible to translate the literal or basic Chinese meaning into English, I have used an idiomatic translation instead. In the ten speeches examined, the total number of metaphors found amounted to a total of 417. Of these, the three categories of metaphors are distributed as follows:.

(38) 38. Table 1. Distribution of metaphors according to the categories JOURNEY, WAR, and CONSTRUCTION. Metaphor Category Total number per category Total number of metaphors from the three categories. JOURNEY. WAR. CONSTRUCTION. 210. 62. 145. 417. Excluding the titles, the ten speeches consisted of a total of 31,766 characters, ranging from as little as 2048 characters for the speech from 2008 made by Wen Jiabao, to the longest speech from 2012 made by Yang Jiechi, which had 4422 characters. The three categories are presented separately in more detail with extracts from speeches to provide a context in the following sections below, and further discussed in Chapter 4 as well.. 3.2.1. JOURNEY Metaphors The examination resulted in metaphors belonging to the conceptual group of JOURNEY as being the most prevalent of the three categories, with a total of 210 occurrences (see Table 1 above). Of these, several were repeated frequently, often within the same speech. At the same time, JOURNEY was also the conceptual category that showed most variety, with 40 different types of metaphors found..

(39) 39. 3.2.1.1. Common Types of JOURNEY Metaphors Of the 40 different types of JOURNEY metaphors found after examining the ten speeches, 13 appeared at least five times. The three most commonly used metaphors were ‘通過’ (‘through/by way of’), with a total number of 36 occurrences spread out through the ten speeches; followed by ‘進步’ (‘progress’, literally ‘forward steps’), which occurred 23 times; and ‘進一步’ (‘take further steps’), which appeared a total of 18 times in the speeches (see Table 2 below).. Table 2. Occurrence of JOURNEY metaphors with a frequency of five times of more per type, arranged in order of declining frequency. Type of metaphor. Rate of occurence. 通過. 36. 進步. 23. 進一步. 18. 走…（道）路. 15. 道路. 13. （和/與）…一道. 11. 先進. 7. 路/道. 7. （方/走）向. 7. 途徑. 6. 進行. 6. 邁（入）. 5.

(40) 40. 3.2.1.2. Less Common Types of JOURNEY Metaphors In addition to the commonly used JOURNEY metaphors, the examination also resulted in numerous less frequent types, each of which appeared less than five times in total in the speeches (see Table 3 below). This group also includes the single appearance of the actual word ‘journey’ (‘征程’), as well as a few other more unusual JOURNEY metaphors, such as ‘下行’, which is a verb/adjective used for the downward direction of trains or downstream direction of river boats.. Table 3. Occurrence of JOURNEY metaphors with a frequency of less than five times per type, arranged in order of declining frequency. Type of metaphor. Rate of occurrence. 走（完/過）. 4. 任重道遠. 4. 經過. 4. 落後. 4. 關. 4. 過渡. 3. 沿著. 3. 逐步. 3. 回（到）. 2. 腳步. 2. 向前. 2. 渠道. 2. 軌. 2. 穩步（推進）. 2.

(41) 41 前進. 2. 下行. 1. 進入. 1. 往來. 1. 通行. 1. 出發. 1. 征程. 1. 進程. 1. 前行. 1. 步驟. 1. 遠未到來. 1. 行徑. 1. 漸進. 1. 攜手並進. 1. 3.2.1.3. Manifestations of JOURNEY Metaphors and Their Conceptual Metaphors Although a great variety was found in metaphors from this category, half (105) of the metaphors pertaining to JOURNEY came from the five most frequent types. The most common metaphor ‘通過’ appeared in sentences such as the following:. (3.1a) 中國願繼續致力於通過對話以和平方式解決朝鮮半島的核問題 […] (China is willing to continue devoting itself to resolving the nuclear issue of the Korean peninsula through/by way of dialogue and peaceful means […]).

(42) 42 (3.1b) 會員國應該根據國際關系民主化原則，通過對話協商，達成廣泛一致。 (The member states should achieve widespread agreement through/by way of dialogue and consultation in accordance with the democratisation principles of international relations.) (3.1c) 中國堅持通過維護世界和平來發展自己，又通過自身的發展來促進世界和平 […] (China insists on developing itself by [way of] safeguarding world peace, while at the same time promoting world peace by [way of] its own development…). In these three examples ‘通過’ represents the channel (method or means) of achieving a goal set up either by China as an individual country or as a member state in the United Nations. The conceptual metaphor of (3a) and (3b) is thus DIALOGUE. IS A PATH,. in which the ‘end. destination’ is peaceful resolving of an issue or several issues. In (3c) ‘通過’ is also utilised to represent the way or channel through which the ‘end destination’ of world peace can be reached, though the conceptual metaphor is DEVELOPMENT IS A PATH instead. A similar, but less frequently employed ‘經過’ is used in the same manner, and results in similar conceptual metaphors, such as in the following sentence:. (3.1d) 經過半個多世紀的艱苦努力 […]中國已邁入全面建設小康社會的發展新階段。(Through/by way of arduous efforts […] China has stridden into a new developmental phase of building an overall well-off society.). The conceptual metaphor of something being a path also manifested itself in several other of the JOURNEY metaphors found in the ten speeches, such as in the construction ‘走…(道)路’:.

(43) 43. (3.1e) 中國走的是和平發展之路，爭取和平穩定的國際環境來發展自己，又以自身的發展來促進世界的和平與進步。 (China walks the path of peaceful development, and strives to have a peaceful international environment to develop itself, while also promoting world peace and progress through its own development.). (3.1f) 中國絕不走“國強必霸”的路子。 (China will definitely not walk the path [which says that] “a strong country must seek hegemony”.). In these two cases, the word ‘path’ (or ‘road’) is uttered, as is the verb ‘walk’, making it a relatively close match to its underlying conceptual metaphor POLITICAL POLICIES ARE PATHS (compare with examples 3.1a-d). This metaphorical construction ‘走…（道）路’ is used relatively frequently in the speeches, as are three other types of metaphors containing both or either of the characters ‘道’ and ‘路’, which both mean ‘path/road’ (see Table 2). As well as different metaphor manifestations of the source domain PATH, there are also several metaphors derived from the source domain [TAKING] STEPS, which in the speeches mainly relates to the conceptual metaphor PROGRESS/DEVELOPMENT FORWARD,. IS TAKING STEPS. as can be illustrated by the following examples:. (3.1g) 我們要進一步改善外商投資環境[…]。(We should take a step further towards improving the environment for foreign business investments […] ). (3.1h) 不同文明交流借鑒、兼容並蓄，是社會進步的不竭動力。 (Exchanges and lesson learning from different cultures, as well as being tolerant, are the inexhaustible forces behind social progress/advance.).

(44) 44. (3.1i) 任何改革方案都應在最廣泛協商一致的基礎上穩步推進。(Any reform programme should be moved forward with steady steps on a foundation of the most widespread consensus.). 3.2.2. WAR Metaphors Metaphors belonging to the conceptual category WAR were the least frequent among the three analysed in this thesis, with a total occurrence of 62 times. In addition, less variety was also found among these metaphors, with only two types occurring more than three times of a total of 12 types (see Table 4 below).. Table 4. Occurrence of WAR metaphors, arranged in order of declining frequency. Type of metaphor. Rate of occurrence. 挑戰. 40. 戰略. 9. 戰勝. 2. 打擊. 2. 捍衛. 2. 角逐. 1. 有的放矢. 1. 調動. 1. 屈服. 1. 衝擊. 1. 敵視. 1. 攻堅. 1.

(45) 45. 3.2.2.1. Common Types of WAR Metaphors The only two types of metaphors that occurred more than three times in the ten speeches examined were ‘挑戰’ (‘challenge’), and ‘戰略’ (‘strategy’), which each appeared 40 and 9 times respectively. Of the other types found, three ‘戰勝’ (‘defeat/vanquish’), ‘打擊’ (‘strike/attack’), and ‘捍衛’ (‘guard/defend’) appeared twice, while the remaining seven appeared only once in the speeches.. 3.2.2.2. Manifestations of WAR Metaphors and Their Conceptual Metaphors As mentioned, the majority of metaphors pertaining to the conceptual category of WAR mainly appeared in the form of ‘挑戰’, with a large diversity in contexts where it was employed, such as below:. (3.2a) 在氣候變化、糧食安全、能源資源安全、公共衛生安全等全球性挑戰面前，任何國家都不可能獨善其身。 (In the face of climate change, food safety, energy source safety, public health safety, and other global challenges, no country can care only about themselves.). (3.2b) 面對威脅與挑戰，聯合國的作用隻能加強，不能削弱。 (When facing threats and challenges, the United Nations’ function can only be strengthened, and must not be weakened.).

(46) 46 (3.2c) 特別是當前國際金融動蕩，已經波及許多國家，影響還會加劇，各國應當通力合作，迎接挑戰。(Especially at the present moment when international finance turbulence already has spread to many countries and the effect may still be aggravated, all countries should make a concerted effort to cooperate and meet the challenge/-s.). Although the contexts are different, the underlying conceptual metaphor of all three examples above is more or less the same, namely DIFFICULT. TASKS ARE CHALLENGES TO BATTLE. (it. should be noted here that the Chinese basic meaning of ‘挑戰’ is ‘challenge to battle’ unlike the English idiomatic translation). The second most common type of WAR metaphors, ‘戰略’, was found to be employed a total of nine times in the examined speeches, and can be exemplified by examples (3.2d) and (3.2.e) below:. (3.2d) 中國的戰略目標是到本世紀中葉，基本實現現代化。 (China’s strategic goal is to basically have achieved modernisation by the middle of this century.). (3.2e) 互利共贏，是我們必須長期堅持的開放戰略。(Mutual beneficence is the opening up-strategy that we must persist in the long term.). In the above sentences, as well as with the other manifestations of the ‘戰略’ metaphor, the underlying conceptual metaphor was found to be PLANS/LONGTERM PROJECTS ARE MILITARY STRATEGIES,. for which the desired end result is either development (for China as well as other. developing countries) or increased cooperation and mutual consultation between the member states of the UN..

(47) 47 The other types of metaphors from the source domain WAR found after examining the speeches are mainly specific actions performed in warfare, namely ‘打擊’ (‘strike/attack/hit’), ‘調動’ (‘move [troops]’), ‘有的放矢’ (‘shoot an arrow with a definite goal’), ‘衝擊’ (‘charge/assualt’), ‘捍衛’ (‘guard/defend’) and ‘攻堅’ (‘storm fortifications’):. (3.2f) 中國堅決捍衛來之不易的國家主權和領土完整，決不允許任何外來干涉。 (China resolutely defends its hard-earned national sovereignty and complete territory, and will absolutely not allow any outside interference.). In addition, two types refer to either winning a battle, as in ‘戰勝’ (‘defeat/be victorious’), or losing it, as in ‘屈服’ (‘surrender/yield’). Finally, a remaining type uses the phrase ‘敵視’ (‘regard with hostility/as an enemy’). Both ‘defeat’ and ‘regard as an enemy’ can be found in the following sentence, which is based on the two conceptual metaphors SUSPICION IS SEEING AN ENEMY and DIFFICULTIES ARE ENEMIES:. (3.2g) […] 只要消除敵視、隔閡和偏見，以包容開放的胸懷坦誠相待，攜手前行，人類一定會戰勝各種困難[…]。(As long as we eliminate [the act of] regarding each other as enemies, barriers and prejudice, treat each other frankly with tolerant, open minds, and make progress hand in hand, then we humans can definitely defeat all kinds problems.).

(48) 48. 3.2.3. CONSTRUCTION Metaphors Metaphors classified as belonging to the conceptual category of CONSTRUCTION constituted the second most frequent among the three categories examined, with a total of 145 occurrences. As with WAR metaphors, metaphors from this category also showed a relatively little variety, with 14 different types, of which half appeared more than five times in total.. Table 5. Occurrence of CONSTRUCTION metaphors, arranged in order of declining frequency. Type of metaphor. Rate of occurrence. 建設. 47. 建立. 39. 基礎. 20. 重建. 9. 關鍵. 6. 框架. 6. 結構. 5. 建設性. 3. 構建. 3. 大廈. 2. 支柱. 1. 構築. 1. 建成. 1. 建設者. 1.

(49) 49. 3.2.3.1. Common Types of CONSTRUCTION Metaphors Of the seven types of CONSTRUCTION metaphors occurring at least five times, three appeared particularly often; with ‘ 建設 ’ (‘build/construct’) appearing 47 times, ‘ 建立 ’ (‘build/establish’) appearing 39 times, and ‘基礎’ (‘foundation/base’) appearing a total of 20 times in the speeches (see Table 5).. 3.2.3.2. Manifestations of CONSTRUCTION Metaphors and Their Conceptual Metaphors The two most frequently occurring types of CONSTRUCTION metaphors found in the examined material, ‘建設’ and ‘建立’, make up more than half of the metaphors belonging to this category, with a combined occurrence of 86 times, which may be compared to the total number of 145 CONSTRUCTION metaphors. They were found in, among others, the following sentences:. (3.3a) 建設一個更加美好社會，是人類孜孜以求的理想。(To build a happier society is the ideal diligently sought by human beings.). (3.3b) 中國的穩定和發展，有利於建設和平的國際環境，有利於建設民主的國際秩序，有利於建設繁榮的世界經濟，也有利於建設和諧的文明世界。 (China’s stability and development is beneficial for building a peaceful international environment, for building a democratic international order, for building a prosperous world economy, as well as for building a harmonious world civilisation.).