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The Persuasive Function of Metaphors in Obama’s Inauguration Address from the Perspective of Critical Metaphor Analysis

Author: XuWei
Tutor: LiaoMeiZhen
School: Central China Normal University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Critical Metaphor Analysis Presidential Inaugural Address Persuasive Function
CLC: H315
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2009
Downloads: 1071
Quote: 8
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Abstract


In the previous studies, scholars emphasize more of their attention on the interpretations of metaphors and their implied meanings. Consequently, they ignore a very important element of metaphors, which is the leading and primary role that metaphor users play in metaphor construction. Charteris-Black(2004:247)points out that studies on rhetorical language primarily focus on the understanding of rhetorical utterances and ignore elements that how rhetorical utterances are produced. This argument is quite thought provoking and we share the same point view that the study on metaphor users and meaning construction from encoding perspective has not drawn enough attention. Scholars like Lakoff and Johnson dedicate their efforts to the cognitive essence, the universality, Systematicity and the cultural coherence of metaphors. Fauconnier(1985) made contributions to the cognitive mapping aspects and mental space theory. Goatly (1997) conducted research on how metaphor can be used to convey meanings and its roles in the daily communications based on functional grammar and the relevance theory. However, little is done on the research of the metaphor constructors’ roles on metaphor selection, use and creating process. Gibbs (2008: 37-38) came up with the thought that researches have not made clear distinctions between the process of metaphor and products of metaphors and most of the researches are on the interpretations of metaphor products. This leads to an important question: why do we choose one particular conceptual metaphor instead of another one?This article takes the Critical Metaphor Analysis as the main framework. Since the main focus of CMA is the texts in which metaphors are employed to motivate, inspire and influence people’s values and feelings, we select the latest Obama’s presidential inaugural address as the data and we propose that metaphor analysis should begin with metaphor construction and metaphor process analysis. We should use a multidimensional approach of combining individual factors and social factors. Individual resources can be sub-divided into three components: our thoughts, feelings and bodily experiences of the world; our understanding of what will be effective in particular contexts of use; and our knowledge of the linguistic system and of lexical fields and the various word senses that are available. The social bases for metaphor choice are ideological outlook, primarily political or religious viewpoint and historical and cultural knowledge. Traditional approaches to metaphor exclusively concentrated on linguistic considerations while cognitive linguistic approaches exclusively concentrate on the individual experiential basis of metaphor. The individual factors and social factors will be analyzed to reveal why speakers choose particular metaphors to realize communication purposes. We also argue that from recent study by Robin&Mayer metaphorical expressions have framing functions and distancing effects. Employing metaphors in the presidential inaugural address can inspire and persuade audiences since in politics, influencing people’s judgments is a central goal. So the persuasive effect of metaphors in the discourse of social domains may be explained with reference to social resources in addition to individual ones.

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