Exploring Self-Construction of the American International Image: A Conceptual Metaphor Perspective

Abstract

While press releases and cultural transmission materials are common materials for understanding a country's self-construction of international images, to what extent the speeches at international conferences are effective in shaping national images is yet to explore from a perspective of cognitive linguistics? The present study compiles the minutes of 26 meetings of the United Nations Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian issue, from which the speeches by U.S. representatives were selected to establish a corpus, and explores the self-construction of the American international image with conceptual metaphor theory. It is found that JOURNEY metaphor, BUILDING metaphor and so on are instrumental in shaping its image of advocating peace, but SEED metaphor and NEIGHBOR metaphor, etc. reveal its intention to perpetuate the conflict and double standards in dealing with the two conflicting parties.