DURHAM IAS Metaphors, models and political discourse

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DURHAM IASMetaphors, models and political
discourse
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• THE ISSUES
• Political discourse today is global--discourses
  from diverse political cultures exist in multiple
  languages and in translation
• Aim to outline some questions at the beginning
  of a research project on comparative political
  discourse, Europe-China
• Metaphors, qua models of political realities,
  are part of these discourses.
• But how do they vary within political cultures?
  
• What happens to them in translation?
• In order to begin to answer such questions, it
  is necessary to review some aspects of the
  conceptual theory of metaphor.
• variability in sourcetarget mappings
• What is in the source?
• Wanted metaphorical expressions dead or alive?
• some cases translating Chinese political
  discourse

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• WHAT DO WE KNOW ALREADY ABOUT METAPHOR IN
  POLITICAL DISCOURSE?
• Distinguish metaphors for political entities,
  metaphors for political processes
• POLITICAL ENTITIES
• A tentative classification
• state is a BODY (has arms, legs, health,
  sickness, etc.
• hierarchy
• life, death
• disease-cure
• penetration, rape
• state is a PERSON (has a voice, personality,
  friends, enemies, etc.)
• state is a BUILDING
• house (but what is a house?)
• fortress
• generic CONTAINER schema
• all the above
• containment doctrine
• CENTRE-PERIPHERY image schema

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• METAPHORS FOR POLITICAL PROCESS (politics)
• WAR
• political enemies
• battles, strategise, tactics
• BUILD
• construct a just society
• PATH
• move forward toward a goal
• journey, march
• train
• flow of liquid

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• THE METAPHOR AND TEXT PROBLEM
• What is a metaphorical expression?
• in texts it is often difficult to decide
• proposal there is a continuum between
  basic-level meaning in SD (e.g. build1 a house)
  and metaphorical meaning (build2 a harmonious
  society).
• even if build2 is conventionalised (dead,
  inactive), it retains some semantic elements of
  build1 (e.g. create by human agency something
  that was not there before)
• In text processing, maybe build1 primes the BUILD
  frame and script, making build2 (build a
  harmonious society) activate the BUILD
  schema/frame more readily
• A continuum? build a house?build a public health
  system?build a harmonious society

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THE METAPHOR AND POLITICAL CULTURE
PROBLEM parameters of variability in
sourcetarget mappings Psychologically real
operations in and on metaphor Perspectivisation f
ocus zooming in and zooming out (scaling,
granularity) feature focus, e.g. in PATH, on
parts of the image schema figure ground motion
parallax times are moving objects wrt observer
observer is moving object wrt to times motor
image schemas and modelling them using simple
vectors Important to note that image schemas are
not only used in SD of metaphoric mappings but
also constitute the meaning of literal
expressions e.g. the meaning of grasp is the
motor neuronal (mirror) schema for real grasping
(cf. Gallese, Feldman) it is also the SD for TD
understanding. This means that both literal and
metaphorical meanings of works like grasp, build,
move towards, may be significant in whole texts
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REVIEWING METAPHOR THEORY THE IMPORTANCE OF SD
STRUCTURE PATH My idea is that different parts
of the PATH image schema can be focussed in
political discourse PATH schema consists of
start---obstacles---goal. Start-oriented
metaphors relate to mission discourse (e.g. the
mission of America is to ...). Mission relates to
some (possibly divine) authority sending somebody
on a path.. Goal-oriented metaphors focus goal.
E.g. The Party's goal is to build a harmonious
society.. mid-path-oriented metaphors include
e.g. "there are many barriers to be overcome in
introducing a fair society...., we are moving
towards.)    
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BUILD The image schema has e.g. foundation,
walls, windows, doors, ceiling, roof. Also
associated script, i.e. process architect,
builder, plans. But in text, building are
culture-specific, e.g. houses (see my 1993 paper
about Russian dom/house) Political uses of
BUILD The state is a building, thus the state
has foundations (e.g. in America, founding
fathers.) This combines with PATH the
foundation is where the nation started.. Thus
BUILD can be at the beginning of PATH. It can
also be at the goal e.g. we are taking steps
towards the goal of building a harmonious
society..."   So in general, political texts
often combine the two image schemas BUILD and
PATH.   What happens to these in translation? We
will look at some examples.
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WHAT HAPPENS IN TRANSLATION? Specifically in
translation of political texts, which construct
realities for their consumers. Schäffner (2004)
Chilton and Ilyin (1993) Chilton (1996) SD dom
( multi-story apartment block) ? house (free
standing family box) TD Europe Entailments
different in Russian and English conflicting
conceptualisations of Europe

• We now turn to the comparative project for
  English-Chinese, which is at very early stages
• what are the metaphors in Chinese political
  discourse?
• are they the same or different form the European
  cases studied?
• are there any universals for political
  metaphors?
• Initial comparison of translated texts suggests
  similarities at the generic level with some
  subtle differences relating to IMAGE SCHEMA FOCUS

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CANDIDATE METAPHORS in Chinese political culture
for political entities Confucius the state is
a FAMILY the family is a BODY the state is a
family HOUSE (with open doors) "Emperor is the
first. Followers are the second. Father is the
first. Sons are the second." THE STATE IS A
PATRICARCHAL FAMILY THE FAMILY IS A BODY the
emperor is the head of the family family is a
body the emperor is the head of the
body the parts of the body should be
controlled by the head
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POLITICALPROCVESS comparison of PATH in Chinese
and English PATH start process goal
Chinese bù, lù mu biao 45 15 Engl
ish path, road, step goal, end,
purpose 23 18
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EXAMPLES PATH and BUILD Example PATH in Source
Text but different focus ???????????????????????
Wo-guo zai quanmian jian-she
xiao kang she hui I-country LOC
comprehensive build-set-up small wealth society
dao lu shang mai chu le xin de
jianshi bu-fa road-path-on step-out PRT new
PRT solid step big-step Literal
translation China has made a big leap on the
path of comprehensive building of a moderately
prosperous society These achievements mark a
further increase in Chinas overall strength and
represent a solid step toward the goal of
building a moderately prosperous society in all
respects ST two expressions for step one
in TT TT introduces toward goal ---
goal-orientation building is located in
future, whereas ST has process-focus, and
possibly start location (CONTAINER) focus,
step out
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• CULTURAL FRAMES
• PATH in the English text is apparently congruent
  with the Chinese text (cf. dom/house)
• ??? ? ? ? ? ? ?
  ? ?,????????
• yao jian chi zou xin xing gong ye hua
  daolu, zhe li you hua can ye jie gou
• must stick-to walk new type factory
  industrialisation path road, put strengthen
  perfect perfection industry career shape
  structure
• Literal translation
• We must take the new road and pay attention to
  the improvement of industrial structure.
• We will continue to follow a new path of
  industrialization, concentrating on upgrading the
  industrial structure
• Possible loss of cultural frame dao carries
  cultural and normative meanings
• E.g. Confucius (and others) put forward the
  Chinese Dao in terms of morality which
  emphasizes that a decent man scholar should
  pursue a dao of high ideal morality. This is
  not goal-focussed but process-focussed (?)

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ANY EXAMPLES WHERE PATH IS NOT IN THE CHINESE
TEXT BUT IS IN THE ENGLISH ONE?
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ANY EXAMPLES WHERE PATH IS IN THE CHINESE TEXT
BUT IS NOT IN THE ENGLISH ONE?
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BUILD Here we are concerned with the occurrences
of build(ing), construct(ion, ing) and jian she,
gou jian It appears that subparts of the BUILD
schema are not used (e.g. door, foundation),
although they are often found in political texts
where the metaphor STATE IS A BUILDING is
concerned. Chinese jian she, gou
jian 106 English build(ing),
construct(ion) 55 What happened to the Chinese
words for building? Problems of counting lexical
items Note that this study counted all
occurrences of these words, whether literal or
metaphoricalwe are interested in the occurrence
of the image schema, i.e. in which image schemas
are needed for the text to be understood. However,
we consider examples of metaphorical expressions
in detail. It is necessary to consider the
conceptual structure of the Chinese morphemes
linked to the SD.
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EXAMPLES BUILD Example BUILD IS IN CHINESE TEXT
BUT NOT IN ENGLISH TEXT also PATH ??????
?? ????,????????
????? Góng gong wei sheng ti xi jian she te dao
jia qing, wen hua, ti yu shi ye jin yi bu fan
rong public shared health life body system build
set-up get PRT plus strength, culture education,
body exercise thing career further one step many
prosperous Literal translation The
construction of public health system has been
strengthened. Cultural and sports projects have
been better. the public health system was
improved and progress continued in cultural and
sports programs TT loses BUILD also loses
PATH
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• TT loses BUILD
• ???????? ???
• ji xu jia qiang ming zhu fa zhi jian
  she
• continue follow-up plus strengthen people master
  law policy build set-up
• Literal translation
• The construction of the democratic legal system
  should be strengthened.
• We continued to strengthen democracy and the
  legal system.

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• TT loses BUILD
• ?????????????
  ???
• guo fang he jun dui xian dai hua jian
  she qu de xin jin zhan
• country defense and army team modern generation
  modernization build set-up fetch get new progress
  development
• Literal translation The construction of national
  defense and the army modernization has got new
  progress.
• We continued to make progress in modernizing
  national defense and the army

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More BUILD exampleS BUILD is in both texts, when
non-metaphorical ???????????,???????????????????
fa zhan jie neng sheng di huan bao xing jian
zhu, xing chen ju you zhong guo te dian de zhu
fang jian she he xiao fei mo shi. develop
demonstrate saving energy saving land environment
protection type building architecture, shape form
concrete have central country speciality point
PRT living house build set-up and consumption
using mode form build environmentally friendly
buildings that conserve energy and land, and
develop a Chinese development and consumption
model for housing
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