Metaphors in the Reports on the Reform and Opening-up Policy in China

Abstract

This study, based on the BCC (Beijing Language and Culture University Corpus Center) corpus, systematically analyzed the metaphorical reasoning of the Reform and Opening-up in China. It finds a tendency of concentration for the sources. The top four sources (Journey: 83.14%; Nature: 8.16%; War: 6.31%; Building (1.15%) contributed 98.76% of the resonance among all the 16 source domains. These four sources highlight two important aspects: Events (Journey, War and Building) and Conditions (Nature). The different sources share some highlights such as leadership, participant, places, result and process, but they also have specific foci: Journey on decision making, destination and motivations; War on risks, conflicts and tactics; Building on complex structure of the project. These productive sources can reveal the ideologies promoted by the government which inspired people’s devotion, patience, openness, tactics, alertness, sense of honor and morale.