A Corpus-Based Study on Metaphor in Ecological Discourses

Abstract

In response to environmental issues around the world, the United Nation and the Chinese NGO have launched various proposals and policies focusing on the relationships between humans and nature. From the perspective of conceptual metaphor, this study analyses the UN Protected Planet Report 2020, and China Environment Yearbook, edited by the first Chinese environmental NGO, Under the theory of Conceptual Metaphor by Lakoff and Johnson, a corpus-based methodology combining qualitative and quantitative approaches was applied to demonstrate traits of metaphors used in the reports to illustrate the conceptual models in ecological discourses in Chinese and English. This article figured out that conflict, journey, and living organism metaphor can best reflect different ideologies between parallel discourses in the two cultures. It helps to identify characteristics of language use of metaphor in Chinese and English ecological discourses.