The Effectiveness of Xi Jinping’s Metaphorical Discourse in Cross-Cultural Communication

Abstract

Metaphor is not only a linguistic and rhetorical phenomenon, but also an important cognitive and thinking mode, which plays an important role in the formation of human conceptual system. Conceptual metaphor theory holds that metaphor is the foundation of human conceptual system and the essence of metaphor is the mental mapping from source domain to target domain on the basis of similarities. In recent years, more and more metaphorical expressions can be found in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches, which have attracted wide attention of the researchers. This paper aims at exploring the effectiveness of Xi Jinping’s metaphorical discourse from the perspective of cross-cultural communication. The study shows that the use of metaphor in political discourse helps to bring about novelty, break cultural barriers, enhance cultural identity, so as to enhance cross-cultural understanding and promote the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. Conceptual metaphor provides an effective perspective for the study of political discourse, and also provides a new perspective for constructing China’s communication discourse system to the foreign countries in the world.