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Article published In: Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 14:1 (2024) ► pp.130–153

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The diachronic and cross-linguistic use of trade metaphors in U.S.-China governmental discourse

A socio-cognitive approach

ORCiD logo with link | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
ORCiD logo with link | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
ORCiD logo with link | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Published online: 8 September 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.23004.tan
Abstract
This article compares diachronic and cross-linguistic uses of source domains for framing the target domain of trade in governmental discourses under the presidencies of Bill Clinton, Jiang Zemin, Donald Trump, and Xi Jinping. Taking a socio-cognitive approach, we examine trade metaphor use across time periods (1993–1997 vs. 2017–2021) and languages (American English vs. Mandarin Chinese) in nationally dominant discourses. At the micro-level of trade corpora, both the quantitative and qualitative analyses show that the higher-level source domains (e.g., building) and their (re)constructed lower-level source domains (e.g., cornerstone vs. pillar) are semantic fields whose use varies with discourse contexts. The usages of the distinct lower-level source domains highlight divergent cognitive forms of trade ideologies, which are embedded in dynamic political structures; they help reveal the implicit trade relations and ideological motivations at the macro-level of trade discourse contexts. The macro-level analyses reveal that nationally dominant discourses are constructed around domestic and global interests, and that power relations are (re)constructed diachronically and challenged transnationally through dominant discursive practices.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Source domains in metaphor theories and (political-)economic discourse analysis
  • 3.Theoretical framework
  • 4.Corpus and coding method
  • 5.Results and analysis
    • 5.1A diachronic perspective
      • 5.1.1The Clinton era vs. the Trump era
      • 5.1.2The Jiang era vs. the Xi era
    • 5.2A cross-linguistic perspective
      • 5.2.1The Clinton-Jiang trade dispute
      • 5.2.2The Trump-Xi trade dispute
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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