Journal of Northeastern University(Social Science) ›› 2019, Vol. 21 ›› Issue (1): 96-103.DOI: 10.15936/j.cnki.1008-3758.2019.01.014

• Linguistics and Literature • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A Corpus-based Study on Metaphorical Patterns in American Educational Discourse——A Case Study on George W. Bush's and Barack Obama's Speeches on Education

DONG Ge-fei, WANG Qian-qian   

  1. (Foreign Studies College, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China)
  • Received:2018-04-23 Revised:2018-04-23 Online:2019-01-25 Published:2019-01-12
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Abstract: In order to explore the similarities and differences in educational concepts between former American Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama, the author collects the educational speeches delivered during their tenure to generate two corpora and makes an analysis of their respective metaphorical patterns in educational concepts with the help of Wmatrix-a tool for corpus analysis. The research finds that both adopt journey, struggle, contest, investment, sports and games metaphors, while war metaphor is used by Bush only, and building metaphor is used by Obama only. Their metaphorical patterns also vary in terms of metaphor productivity, conventionality and novelty. Such differences can be attributed to the differences in educational concepts embraced by the two parties: Strict Father Model by the Republicans attaching importance to rules and discipline, and Caring Father Model by the Democrats stressing the constructive role of education for the nation as well as for the individual.

Key words: metaphorical patterns of education, corpus-based metaphor study, educational discourse, President's speeches, Wmatrix soft

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