Abstract

Political speech is an important cultural phenomenon in western societies, and it is also a major style of western political texts. It plays a very important role in political life and it is a powerful weapon for politicians. Political speeches are mainly used to state political opinions and get people’s support and accept speaker’s party. The primary purpose is to persuade readers or audience to believe that their policies and opinions are right. There are a lot of metaphors in political discourses. Metaphor is an important cognitive phenomenon for human beings. The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing abstract and unfamiliar entities in terms of concrete ones. Metaphor exists in people’s daily life all the time, with which people express their emotions and opinions. Thus it can be seen, metaphor is of importance and the status of metaphor in political discourse should not be ignored. The thesis did an metaphorical analysis on political discourses of inaugural speeches by applying to conceptual metaphor theory. Through the analysis, it could be found that with metaphors in speeches, Obama can get easily the public’s support and advocate the value of Democratic Party.

Key words: conceptual metaphor; inaugural speeches; metaphor

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction.1

 1.1 Background of study.1

 1.2 The significance and purpose of study.2

 1.3 Organization of the thesis.3

 2. Research Status.3

 2.1 The study of metaphor at home. 3

 2.2 The study of metaphor abroad4

3. Theoretical Basis .4  

 3.1 The traditional metaphor study.5 

 3.2 The contemporary metaphor study.5

3.3 Conceptual metaphor theory.6

 3.4 The classification of conceptual metaphor 8

 4. Analysis on Metaphor in Obama’s Inaugural Addresses8

 4.1 The structural metaphor8

 4.2 The orientational metaphor.11

 4.3 The ontological metaphor . 12 

5. Conclusion.13

References.15