美国政治话语中的隐喻劝说机制研究——以2016年美国总统竞选辩论为例

Metaphorical Persuasive Mechanism in American Political Discourse:A Case Study of the 2016 American Presidential Debates

政治和隐喻之间存在辩证关系:政治为隐喻的运用提供了必要的语言环境,而隐喻则为政治话语劝说意图的实现提供了有效途径。本文以概念隐喻理论为指导,运用隐喻识别程序甄别、提取隐喻,借以考察特朗普和希拉里在2016年总统竞选辩论中采用的隐喻劝说机制,并对比分析二者劝说机制的异同及背后的原因。研究发现:特朗普和希拉里在竞选辩论中均将旅程隐喻和战争隐喻作为统摄性隐喻;二者通过凸显隐喻中的不同语义元素,来传达出各自的政治理念和意识形态;人类相似的身体体验和基本文化体验决定了二者在隐喻劝说机制上存在某些共性,而隐喻劝说机制的差异可归结为二者不同的道德模式和执政理念。

A dialectical relationship exists between politics and metaphor.To be more exact,politics provides language environment for the use of metaphor,while metaphor offers an effective approach to the realization of persuasion.Guided by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory,this paper uses Metaphor Identification Procedure to identify metaphors and then examines the metaphorical persuasive mechanism adopted by Trump and Hillary in the 2016 presidential debates,comparing the differences in their persuasive mechanisms and analyzing the underlying causes.The study shows that 1)both Trump and Hillary employ journey metaphor and war metaphor as dominant metaphors;2)the different semantic elements of metaphors highlighted by Trump and Hillary are a reflection of their respective political ideas and ideologies;3)the similarity of metaphorical persuasive mechanism is tied up with similar embodied basis and cultural experience,while different moral models and political ideas are accountable for the differences of metaphorical persuasive mechanism.