Open AccessSource Domain “war” in American English business news discourse
Author(s) -
Tran Thi Thanh Truc
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
khoa học và công nghệ: khoa học xã hội và nhân văn
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2588-1043
DOI - 10.32508/stdjssh.v4i2.556
Subject(s) - metaphor , battle , argument (complex analysis) , conceptual metaphor , linguistics , domain (mathematical analysis) , epistemology , sociology , history , philosophy , mathematical analysis , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics , archaeology
Conceptual metaphor can be understood as the mapping between two conceptual domains whereas the linguistic metaphor is the linguistic expression of the mapping. Conceptual metaphor is the system of ideas mapped according to the perception of human being about life and expressed by linguistic metaphor. Conceptual metaphor with source domain WAR is one of the most common metaphors used in American English business news discourse. In conceptual metaphor model BUSINESS IS WAR, it can be found many words related to war such as ‘attack’, ‘withdraw’, ‘invade’, ‘besiege’, ‘fight’, ‘win’, ‘defense’, etc... which are used in business news discourse. Through the mapping of this metaphor model, companies can be seen as the military in a war; the businessmen correspond to the soldiers in a fight, and the battles are conceived as competitions on price and market share. This result is similar to the conclusion about conceptual metaphor of ARGUMENT IS WAR by Lakoff & Johnson, which mentions that the use of war metaphors to understand the source domain of ARGUMENT is not accidental. The authors argue that while there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle and the structure of a debate (including attack, defense, counterattack, etc.) reflects this.