A contrastive study of conceptual metaphors in english and vietnamese newspapers on social violence

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby confirm that the thesis entitled A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPERS ON SOCIAL VIOLENCE is submitted to co

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH XUÂN

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPERS

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH XUÂN

NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH ĐỐI CHIẾU PHÉP ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT VỀ BẠO LỰC XÃ HỘI

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8.22.02.01

Người hướng dẫn: TS Hà Thanh Hải

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby confirm that the thesis entitled

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPERS ON SOCIAL VIOLENCE

is submitted to complete fulfillment for my degree of master of English Linguistics at Quy Nhon University and has not been submitted elsewhere in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification

This thesis does not contain any materials which have been written by another person except where referenced within the text

September 2020

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Xuân

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my appreciation to several people for helping me through my master thesis First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Hà Thanh Hải, for his continuous support and advice as well as his excellent guidance to help me complete this thesis

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the lecturers of my master’s course for their valuable lectures that help me cultivate and gain a deep knowledge of linguistics and research skills

In addition, I would like to thank my friends for their concern, love, and moral support

Special thanks from the bottom of my heart go out to my dear husband who stayed beside me through all the stages of my study in the postgraduate program and encouraged me to finish this thesis

Last but not least, some special words of gratitude go to my parents who took care of my sons so that I could spend more time concentrating on my thesis I could not have finished this thesis without their continued supports and encouragement that gave me strength and confidence to fulfill my dream

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Xuân

ABSTRACT

Conceptual metaphor, which is a cognitive device, reflects the way people conceptualize the surrounding world The capture of conceptual metaphors plays a vital role in facilitating journalists to convey their information to readers vividly and effectively This is what prompted the present study Based on the cognitive perspective of Lakoff and John (1980, 2003), 176 samples from four English newspapers and four Vietnamese ones were intentionally collected to indicate how conceptual metaphors were employed as well as compare the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese conceptual metaphors This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of cognitive linguistics in general and analyze English and Vietnamese conceptual metaphors collected from online newspapers regarding social violence between a three-year period from the beginning of 2018 to August 2020 in particular The result reveals that English and Vietnamese share many conceptual metaphors in common while various features of the two cultures still come into existence All three types

of conceptual metaphors comprising structural, ontological, and orientational metaphors are found in the collected data with the different frequency of occurrences and percentage The finding also indicate that the English media writers tend to use more conceptual metaphors than the Vietnamese ones Despite the limitations of a small-scale study and time shortage, the researcher does hope that the findings would shed more light on the whole picture of conceptual metaphors

Keywords: Cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphors, source domain, target domain, structural metaphors, orientational metaphors, ontological metaphors, online newspapers, social violence

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

CHAPER 1: 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aim and Objectives 3

1.2.1 Aims of the Study 3

1.2.2 Objectives of the Study 4

1.3 Research questions 4

1.4 Scope of the study 4

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 Organization of the study 5

1.7 Summary 7

CHAPTER 2: 8

LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Introduction to cognitive semantics 8

2.1.1 Conceptual metaphor theory 11

2.1.2 Classification of conceptual metaphors 22

2.2 Previous studies on conceptual metaphors 26

2.3 The online newspapers on social violence 30

2.3.1 Definition of violence and social violence 30

2.3.2 Online newspapers 31

2.4 Summary 32

CHAPTER 3: 33

METHODS AND PROCEDURES 33

3.1 Research designs 33

3.2 Research methods 33

3.3 Research procedures 34

3.4 Data collection and data analysis 34

3.4.1 Data collection 34

3.4.2 Data analysis 36

3.5 Validity and reliability 37

3.6 Summary 38

CHAPTER 4: 39

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 39

4.1 Metaphor in English newspapers on social violence 39

4.1.1 Structural metaphors 39

4.1.2 Orientational metaphors 43

4.1.3 Ontological metaphors 45

4.2 Metaphor in Vietnamese newspapers on social violence 53

4.2.1 Structural metaphors 53

4.2.2 Orientational metaphors 55

4.2.3 Ontological metaphors 56

4.3 The similarities between conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese newspapers on social violence 61

4.4 The differences between conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese newspapers on social violence 68

4.5 Summary 76

CHAPTER 5: 78

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 78

5.1 Conclusions 78

5.2 Implications 80

5.3 Limitations 81

5.4 Suggestions for further research 81

REFERENCES 83

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 The Occurrences and Percentages of Conceptual Metaphors in English 39 Table 4.2 The Occurrences and Percentages of Conceptual Metaphors in Vietnamese Newspapers 53 Table 4.3 The Occurrences and Percentages of Conceptual Metaphors in English and Vietnamese Online Articles 62 Table 4.4 The Conceptual Metaphors Sharing the Same Meaning in English and Vietnamese Newspapers 67 Table 4.5 The Most Commonly Used Conceptual Metaphors in Both Languages 70 Table 4.6 The Differences of Same Conceptual Metaphors in English and Vietnamese Newspapers 74 Table 4.7 The Absence and Presence of Conceptual Metaphors in English and Vietnamese Newspapers 74

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 The mappings of conceptual metaphor ANGER IS FIRE 15

Figure 2.2 The mappings of conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER 17

Figure 2.3 The mappings of conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY 19 Figure 2.4 The Source-Path-Goal Schema in LOVE IS A JOURNEY 20

Figure 2.5 Metaphorical Relationship 21

Figure 2.6 Metonymic Relationship 21

Figure 2.7 The Source and Target Domains of Ontological Metaphor 24

Figure 3 Eight Online Articles in English and Vietnamese… ……….… 35

Figure 4.1 The mappings of conceptual metaphor VIOLENCE IS A PLANT… ……….………49

Figure 4.2 The mappings of conceptual metaphor A CRIMINAL RECORD IS A BUILDING……… … 61

Figure 4.3 The Total Conceptual Metaphors in English and Vietnamese Online Newspapers 68

Figure 4.4 The Occurrences and Percentages of Ontological Metaphors in English and Vietnamese Online Newspapers.Error! Bookmark not defined Figure 4.5.The Occurrences of Structural Metaphors in English and Vietnamese Online Newspapers 70

As part of the myth, Oedipus arrives in Thebes where he finds that a monster, called the Sphinx, is guarding the road to the city She poses riddles to everyone on their way to Thebes and devours them if they are unable to solve the riddles So far, everyone has been devoured when Oedipus arrives The Sphinx asks him the riddle: Which are the animal that has four feet in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening? Without hesitation, Oedipus answers: Man, who in infancy crawls on all fours, who walks upright in maturity and his old age supports himself with a stick The Sphinx is defeated and kills herself Oedipus has become the king of Thebes (p 11)

In this case, Oedipus is believed to have been able to successfully deal with the problem thanks to the knowledge of conceptual metaphors Two metaphors are employed to solve the riddle consisting of THE LIFE OF HUMAN BEINGS IS A DAY and HUMAN LIFE IS A JOURNEY In the former metaphor, life is considered as a day The morning represents infancy, midday for maturity and, the evening for old age In the latter metaphor, feet evoke the concept of a journey, giving the solution to the riddle

Examples like the above conceptual metaphors are shaped by both our communication on a daily basis and literature Conceptual metaphors, therefore, have received an enormous amount of attention from many linguistic researchers as well as scholars Up to now, plenty of studies have been conducted to investigate metaphor usage However, since 1980, a new viewpoint of cognitive linguistics has been introduced by Lakoff and Johnson

in the pioneering work entitled “Metaphors We Live By”, which introduces a major revolution of linguistics to study conceptual metaphors They are of primary importance in cognitive linguistics, which is a key to decode the knowledge in mind and cognitive process This contrastive study in search of conceptual metaphors can help to recognize similarities as well as differences between concepts in specific languages, i.e English and Vietnamese

Metaphor appears to be quite popular in daily life as well as in information transmission channels Specifically, metaphors are linguistic expressions that give a simple definition or explanation of something that can often be extremely complicated In newspapers, journalists always take metaphors into account to catch the reader’s curiosity and excitement Additionally, thanks to the technology explosion, readers all over the world can easily approach information When social media is being rapidly developed, all up-to-date breaking news is available by one click or a tap For example, in June of this year 2020, the hot news about the death of a black man caused by an American police officer was updated instantly on online articles In addition to the outstanding advantage of the digital revolution, it is undeniable that the growing problem of social violence seems to appear at a considerable rate in most of the reports, which has gained widespread attention from local as well as international communities Horrible things are heard and seen every day now on social media and the news Social violence

in many forms such as school violence, domestic violence, racial violence, etc is considered a social crime that exerts negative effects on each person and entire social development Therefore, more and more people in the world deal with their problems by hitting, punching, stabbing, shooting, and killing These are exemplars of acts of violence in social life; however, many different forms of social violence may occur every day all around the world The issue of social violence has been an alarming bell for the whole society These above reasons show that mastering the employment of the metaphor in the news reports on social violence is of great significance to grasp accurately the information conveyed by newspapermen or women Furthermore, it is also interesting to distinguish between English and Vietnamese metaphor, which reporters mainly use to attract the reader’s attention

To my knowledge, no prior studies have examined conceptual metaphors

in newspapers on social violence although there is a variety of research about conceptual metaphors carried out in distinct aspects such as political discourse, climate change discourse, conceptual metaphors about food, moon, fire, and many things Besides, people from separate countries may have a different cognitive interpretation of one social phenomenon That is why this

study is conducted to identify and compare Conceptual Metaphors used in English and Vietnamese online newspapers on social violence from the

perspective of cognitive linguistics

1.2 Aim and Objectives

1.2.1 Aims of the Study

The purpose of this thesis is to identify conceptual metaphors used in English and Vietnamese online news discourse on social violence in the light

of cognitive semantics raised by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) and Kövecses (2002, 2010) Besides, the study also investigates the similarities

and differences between English and Vietnamese conceptual metaphors in online news sources on social value

1.2.2 Objectives of the Study

With the aims stated above, the detailed objectives have been set as follows:

The first objective is to identify and classify the conceptual metaphors used in both English and Vietnamese electronic journalistic texts on social violence The second objective is to figure out the similarities and differences

of conceptual metaphors in social violence reports between the bilingual data

1.3 Research questions

To achieve the above aims and objectives of the study, the following questions have been raised and answered:

(1) What types of conceptual metaphors are employed in English and

Vietnamese online articles on social violence?

(2) What are the similarities and differences between these conceptual

metaphors in English and Vietnamese online articles on social violence?

1.4 Scope of the study

This study focuses on three types of conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese online articles on social violence, i.e structural, orientational, and ontological ones These metaphors are analyzed in terms of semantic features Additionally, the similarities and differences, the frequencies of occurrence of these conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese articles on social violence are also presented in the study For reasons of time, only the social violence topic

is addressed in this paper An analysis of the other violence such as sexual and economic violence is outside the scope of this paper

1.5 Significance of the study

As previously mentioned, metaphors are not only employed to be a figure of

speech in literature but also used to express the author’s thought, experience, and cognition about facts or events in nature, society, and the real world More specifically, metaphors are deeply embedded not only in daily use of language but also in thought and action (Black et al., 1981) In the same way, Ungerer and Schmid (1996) also believe that “everyday language is rife with metaphorical expressions” (p 116) To master metaphors used in the newspaper, hence, has a pivotal role to comprehend the text This study attempts to facilitate a better insight of conceptual metaphors as well as to provide a discovery of conceptual metaphors in newspapers on social violence that decodes the language involving human thought about this topic, and contribute to enhancing understanding the necessity of these metaphors in this specific discourse Moreover, the study helps

to identify the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese cultures in the use of conceptual metaphors

1.6 Organization of the study

The study consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1, Introduction, embraces the rationale for the research, the

aims, and objectives of the study that outlines the knowledge gap to produce the research Following this, the significance of the study is described in more detail The importance of metaphors and conceptual metaphors can be recognized in this section Another significance of this study is to make a comparison of the use of conceptual metaphors between two languages, English, and Vietnamese And then, research questions are raised to meet the aims and objectives of the study Additionally, the organization of the study gives a general overview of the structure of the paper

Chapter 2, Literature Review and Theoretical Background, provides

readers with the fundamental knowledge of cognitive linguistics based on the theoretical framework of Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) and Kövecses

(2002, 2010) It comprises key terms and the categories for conceptual metaphors analyzed in the study Theoretical matters related to the study such

as definitions of cognitive semantics and conceptual metaphor theory Some metaphorical expressions are added to illustrate source and target domains, and the relations holding between them Extra information that distinguishes conceptual metaphors from metonymies is included to support the process of identifying metaphors easily This thesis focuses on three main types of conceptual metaphors that are made up of structural metaphors, orientational metaphors, and ontological metaphors The features of newspaper language are also discussed in this chapter After Theoretical Background, it continues

to the selective summary of the previous studies in the light of conceptual metaphors, which inspire the author to conduct this research That is, contrastive theses from conceptual metaphors are categorized according to various researchers

Chapter 3, Methods and Procedures, addresses the central elements of

research methods, and research procedures of the study, which are specific plans on how the research is conducted This contrastive study is conducted to examine the conceptual metaphors employed in online news reports on social violence in English and Vietnamese In addition to quantitative and qualitative methods, descriptive and comparative methods are chosen in order

to explore how the conceptual metaphors work in both languages This chapter also explains the choice of the source data and deals with the description of samples and how the data are collected, described, and analyzed in detail The data of the study is accumulated from the authentic web pages in English and Vietnamese There are 90 online news reports in English and 86 ones in Vietnamese with similar lengths (more than 47.000 words each) To ensure the quality of the research, validity, and reliability are

also included in this chapter

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussion, is devoted to present the result of

data analysis Findings of the study led by data presentation, interpretation, and discussion, as well as the conclusion are placed in this chapter The frequency of occurrence, similarities and differences between these conceptual metaphors are also intensively discussed The typical conceptual metaphors on the topics of social violence are selected to present in the finding To demonstrate and summarize the finding, we employ tables and figures with explanations

Chapter 5, Conclusions, summarizes what has been learned from the

study containing the major findings Although Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) and others show the pervasiveness of metaphors in human understanding, not many conceptual metaphors were found in this thesis’s corpora Besides, the implications point out the contributions to the field of cognitive semantics Next, the limitations follow, resulting in the open avenues for further studies Then, the bibliography and appendices are appended at the end of the thesis

1.7 Summary

Violence is a significant social problem, which attracts the attention of the whole community Correspondents often deliberately exploit metaphors and conceptual metaphors to produce special effects and vividly describe the burning issues related to social violence Metaphors or conceptual metaphors, however, make us hard to perceive if we do not have sufficient background knowledge

CHAPTER 2:

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction to cognitive semantics

Cognitive linguistics is a powerful approach to structure the ultimate

concepts about the word that people bear in mind and experience It

fundamentally focuses on the relation of language and mind, so it helps us know how language is represented in the mind As it is of great prominence in our lives, it has become an influential approach in many fields like cognitive science, social science, and applied linguistics (Evans, 2019a)

Cognitive Linguistics has begun to emerge since the second half of the 1970s in the work of the so-called founding fathers namely George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Ronald W Langacker, and Leonard Talmy Cognitive semantics is said to be originated from cognitive linguistics and a part of the cognitive linguistics movement It mainly focuses on what language denotation is and how the meaning of language is encoded (Nguyễn Hòa, 2004) The language in cognitive semantics is considered as an effective tool for the purpose of “organizing, processing, and conveying information” (Geeraerts & Cuyckens, 2007) Lyons (1995) believes that several theories have been developed in accordance with cognitive semantics Focusing on specific phenomena and concerns, every linguist started developing their own approach to describe the features of the language and linguistic theory It must

be emphasized that Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) made a breakthrough and laid the foundation for new cognitive linguistics that is a fundamental part

of human cognition Many linguists inspired from this perspective have continued researching for over thirty years

Since notable works on metaphor and metonymy of Lakoff (1981) and Lakoff (1987) was launched, Lakoff has become the leading cognitivist (cited

from About Cognitive Linguistics of International Cognitive Linguistics

Association) Lakoff used to be a follower of Noam Chomsky; however, he later became the most active critic of the school of Transformational Generative Grammar Although the generative grammarian took a keen interest in knowledge of the language, cognitive linguists believed that there was a mutual interaction between natural language and knowledge of the world (Geeraerts & Cuyckens, 2007)

In addition to Lakoff and Johnson’s theory, Langacker (1988) developed the theory of Space Grammar and Cognitive Grammar (as cited in Evans, 2019b) By the mid to late 1980s, influenced by the views of Oswald Ducrot, Fauconnier (1994) had developed a new theory called Mental Spaces This theory interestingly meshes both Langacker's (2008) Cognitive Grammar and Lakoff's theory of Metaphor Besides, Talmy (1985, 1988) engaged in the study of linguistic imaging systems He also determined that cognition is the main feature of semantics (Nguyễn Hòa, 2004) In general, various theories shared a common correlation of language in nature with people’s cognition Modern cognitive linguistics comprises cognitive grammar and cognitive semantics which was believed to have been originally derived from generative grammar (Phan Thế Hưng, 2009)

According to Ungerer and Schmid (1996), there are three main

approaches to cognitive linguistics consisting of experiential view, prominence view, and attentional view While the prominence view is

interested in the allocation of information, the attentional view concerns what

we express attracts our attention As its name indicates, the experiential view mainly concentrates on experience that language users describe “in their

minds when they produce and understand words and sentences” (Ungerer and Schmid, 1996, p xi) The characteristics that language users describe seem to reflect the way he/she conceptualizes the surrounding world Accumulated experience which can be gained from the way we express our ideas is stored

in our daily communication For example, the word “car” is defined as a

4-wheel motor vehicle When we talk about an object that looks like a car, we immediately imagine a typical car stored in our minds That is a box-like shape equipped with doors, windows, steering wheels, acceleration, brakes, and seats for drivers and passengers, and is driven by an engine The experiential view can be exemplified by the following sentence:

Our car has broken down

In this case, our car does not really break down like the chair collapse having its parts come into pieces or fragments Because of a lack of vocabulary concerned with automobile terminology and its operation, the knowledge of chair or other equally familiar things collapsing is adopted to understand effortlessly what happens when the car’s engine suddenly stops working or functioning How ideas are expressed, hence, can be developed from our shared experience of the concrete world around us

In general, despite three individual points of view in cognitive linguistics, most linguists working within this paradigm believe that linguistic knowledge reveals human being’s mental world and cognition “Cognitive linguistics takes an experiential view on conceptualization and meaning, observing that many of our concepts are grounded in our experience, cultural and physical” (Lemmens, 2015, p 4) Therefore, this thesis only pursues the framework of the experiential view pointed out by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) and Kövecses (2002, 2010)

In Vietnam, Lý Toàn Thắng and Trần Văn Cơ who are two among the

pioneers in bringing cognitive linguistics into Vietnam have pinpointed basic aspects of cognitive linguistics in comparison with the traditional viewpoint of metaphors Both Lý Toàn Thắng (2005, 2008) and Trần Văn Cơ (2007), in fact,

in their books, give an introduction and a comprehensive picture of cognitive linguistics from the world to Vietnam, which enlightens readers about all novel notions in the field And again, Trần Văn Cơ (2011) not only provides the linguistic overview but also emphasizes the cultural coherence that plays a crucial role in determining relations between language and thought

2.1.1 Conceptual metaphor theory

2.1.1.1 Overview of conceptual metaphors

In literature, metaphors used to be defined as one of the rhetorical devices to express effectively what writers want to convey their messages to the audience In Lakoff and Johnson's (1980, 2003) view, not only are metaphors a linguistic ornament but it also is an essential process indicating the thinking and explanation Various definitions of metaphor have been proposed According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 8th edition,

metaphor is defined as follows:

A word or phrase used to describe somebody/ something else, in a way that is different from its normal use, to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make the description more powerful

Similarly, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) define metaphors as

“understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (p 5)

To gain a better understanding of complicated or abstract things in view of

more concrete or simpler ones that we can relate to is called a conceptual metaphor As Lakoff (1987) and Johnson (1987) state, the use of conceptual

metaphors will reason the abstract concepts

Besides, conceptual metaphors have linguistics manifestations that are

called metaphorical linguistics expressions (Kövecses, 2010, p 63) Ungerer and Schmid (1996, p 116) state that “everyday language is rife with metaphorical expressions” Conceptual metaphors are revealed by

metaphorical linguistic expressions which are the lexical items or the linguistic expressions of the source domain Conceptual metaphors are not often directly utilized in a sentence while the metaphorical expressions are in contrast The use of metaphorical expressions is to understand the target domain Lakoff and Johnson (2003) find that:

Since metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way, we can use metaphorical linguistic expressions to study the nature of metaphorical concepts and to gain an understanding of the metaphorical nature of our activities (p 7)

The conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980,

pp 7-8) is an example of a metaphorical concept that structures what we do

and how we understand when we use the word “time” Metaphorical

expressions in the following example sentences or phrases are italicized

You're wasting my time

This gadget will save you hours

I don't have the time to give you

How do you spend your time these days?

That flat tire cost me an hour

I've invested a lot of time in her

I don't have enough time to spare for that

You're running out of time

You need to budget your time

Put aside some time for ping pong

Is that worth your while?

Do you have much time left?

He's living on borrowed time

You don't use your time profitably

I lost a lot of time when I got sick

Thank you for your time

From now on, any conceptual metaphor-like TIME IS MONEY means a metaphorical concept The above exemplars show that time is a valuable commodity Because the time is typically connected to work, it gets familiar if someone uses their time to get money Therefore, time can be understood as

“the kind of thing that can be spent, wasted, budgeted, invested wisely or poorly, saved, or squandered” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 8) Metaphors make it easier for us to visualize and apprehend the concept of time

Conceptual metaphors that help us grasp one aspect of a concept in connection with another appear to be so common in our ordinary language In reality, we use linguistic expressions everyday so much that we don't realize they are metaphors Kövecses (2010) claims: “metaphors that may have been alive and vigorous at some point but have become so conventional and commonplace with constant use that by now they have lost their vigor and have ceased to be metaphors at all” (p xi)

Because these metaphors are commonly used and can be easily understood, they are so-called dead metaphors or conventional metaphors To demonstrate these metaphors, consider the two following examples:

a local branch of this organization

cultivating business relationships that can lead to major accounts

These metaphors originated from a part of a plant (branch) or an action

to prepare and use the land for growing plants (cultivating) Indeed, it is quite

easy for us to recognize that “branch” in this context is not a part of a plant;

however, it refers to a local office or factory that belongs to a larger organization In the second illustration, “cultivating” is not employed for plants, but it means developing a business relationship

According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), conventional metaphors are

“metaphors that structure the ordinary conceptual system of our culture, which is reflected in our everyday language” (p 139) Look at the following sentence:

He is in trouble now

Without realizing that a metaphorical conceptualization (a state as a container) is being processed, the above expression can be understood easily Hence, Lakoff and Turner (1989) believe that conventional metaphors can be employed in both cognitive and linguistic levels (as cited in Yu, 2013)

2.1.1.2 Source domain, target domain, and mapping

In conceptual metaphor theory, metaphor is thought to conceptualize one domain of experience in connection with another domain (Kövecses, 2015, p 2) For the sake of clarity, the domain of experience which is typically more common and better known is used to comprehend another domain which is more abstract and less known According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003), the domain of experience is called the source domain and the other is called the target domain Understanding the domains implies understanding the correspondences existing between the two domains To put it in another way, these domains are connected by a set of correspondences or mappings They are regarded as the relations between domains that are said to be mapped from one domain, the source domain, onto the other domain, the target domain

Take the ANGER IS FIRE metaphor (Kövecses, 2010, p 235) as an example

After the row, he was spitting fire

Smoke was coming out of his ears

He is smoldering with anger

She was fuming

Boy, am I burned up!

A set of mappings is constituted as follows:

Source domain Target domain

the thing on fire  the angry person

the cause of fire  the cause of anger

the intensity of fire  the intensity of anger

Figure 2.1 The mappings of conceptual metaphor ANGER IS FIRE

Through these mappings, the metaphorical expressions shown above can be explained why, for instance, spitting fire, smoke was coming out, smoldering, and fuming indicate more intense anger than merely burning with anger It is this systematic set of mappings in the sense that points out how two domains, fire (source domain) and anger (target domain), are connected As a matter of fact, something takes place that causes a thing not burning to burn The fire can burn at various degrees of intensity Similarly, something happens that causes the person not to be angry to become angry The person is now in a state of anger The degree

of anger is variable From this demonstration, it can be concluded that the way people think is largely metaphorical In other words, “the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined Metaphors as linguistics expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a person’s conceptual system” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 6)

Following the Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) point of view, Lee (2001) believes: “A metaphor is essentially a device that involves conceptualizing one domain of experience in terms of another Thus, for any given metaphor,

we can identify a source domain and a target domain” (p 6) To make it simple, the source domain refers to relatively concrete areas of experience while the target domain refers to something more abstract Take source domain as the vertical dimension of physical space and target domain as social status in the following examples:

He has a high reputation in the department

He has just risen to deputy manager

John occupies a relatively low position in the firm

Kövecses (2010) makes similar claims on conceptual metaphors As he defines: “[T]he metaphorical expressions that characterize A is B formulas are regarded as the linguistic realizations or manifestations of underlying conceptual metaphors” ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER is another exemplar of cognitive metaphors The existence of this metaphor can

be revealed by the following expressions

Simmer down!

Let him stew for a little while

She was boiling with rage

Steam was coming out of his ears

A set of correspondences between the source domain (hot fluid in a container) and the target domain (anger) can be suggested such as:

the heat of the fluid  the anger

the high intensity of the heat  the high intensity of the anger the physical signals of the  the behavioral signals of the potential danger of the hot fluid potential danger of anger keeping the fluid inside the container  controlling anger, etc

Figure 2.2 The mappings of conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HOT FLUID IN A

CONTAINER

The above metaphor explains how hot fluid in a container is used to conceptualize the anger “In this novel elaboration of the metaphor, an element of the source is blended with an element of the target” (Kövecses,

2010, p 309) This blend can be seen in the sentence Steam was coming out of

his ears In the source, there is a container with a hot fluid inside, like a pot, which produces steam when heated In the target, there is a person who is getting angrier and angrier, showing signs of losing control over anger The steam comes from the source, the head of a person with ears comes from the target There is neither steam in the target nor head with ears in the source

Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) state that human beings structure the

comprehension of their experiences in the world via conceptual metaphors They believe that conceptual metaphors are closely related to the culture because “it is tied to our culture” They create a new trend of language study

in which metaphor is utilized as a means in daily life and how language users perceive the object world Metaphors are no longer an ornamental device in language but as an important conceptual tool that allows our deeper

understanding of complex scientific, political and social issues (Kövecses,

2010; Ungerer & Schmid, 1996)

Holding the same view of Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003), Kövecses

(2002, 2010) proposes the formula of conceptual metaphor “A IS B or A AS B” A and B are represented for two conceptual domains in which one

conceptual domain is understood in terms of the other conceptual domain A set of systematic correspondences, or mappings, is established to understand the relations between the two domains

This definition captures conceptual metaphors both as a process and a

product The cognitive process of understanding a domain is the process aspect of metaphor, while the resulting conceptual pattern is the product aspect The source domain provides vocabulary, and the target domain is a thing that we try to understand Conceptual metaphors involve a mapping of concepts from one semantic domain to another domain The mapping is established between the source domain and the target domain Let take LOVE

IS A JOURNEY given by Kövecses (2010, p 6) as an illustration of conceptual metaphors

Look how far we’ve come

We’re at a crossroads

We’ll just have to go our separate ways

We can’t turn back now

I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere

Where are we?

We’re stuck

It’s been a long, bumpy road

This relationship is a dead-end street

We’re just spinning our wheels

Our marriage is on the rocks

We’ve gotten off the track

This relationship is foundering

Love is a complicated emotion that we have no direct way to comprehend, so it is metaphorically expressed by making the use of the journey which is remarkably familiar with us That is to say, in the metaphor

of LOVE IS A JOURNEY, the source domain is a journey and the target domain is love (Kövecses, 2002, 2010) The below mapping shows a strong connection between these domains

Source domain Target domain

the travelers  the lovers

the vehicle  the love relationship itself

the journey events in the relationship

the distance covered  the progress made

the obstacles encountered  the difficulties experienced

decisions about which way to go  choices about what to do

the destination of the journey  the goal(s) of the relationship

Figure 2.3 The mappings of conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY

Since Lakoff and Johnson’s work was published in 1980, the original ideas modified by many researchers have been slightly altered from the current conceptual theory Many different scholars (Ortony, 1993; Barden, Wilson & Carston, 2006; Gibbs, 2008) have offered alternative points of view

to conceptual metaphor theory However, the theoretical framework of this thesis was mainly focused on the cognitive theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) and the re-summarized version of Kövecses (2002, 2010)

2.1.1.3 Image schemas

Johnson (1987) defines that image schema is pre-conceptual based on recurrent patterns of our everyday bodily and social experience Kövecses (2015) proposes that image schemas are composed of “container, part-whole, source-path-goal, force, and resistance to force and others underlie many of

our concepts” (p 35) For example, “in, out, and enter” are the concepts of

containers; “journey, arrive, travel, and leave” are the concepts of the source–path-goal schema; and “push, pull, resist, and emotion” are the concepts of the force schema

Taniguchi (2005) provides us with the image schema of source-path-goal

in the conceptual metaphor of LOVE IS A JOURNEY

Figure 2.4 The Source-Path-Goal Schema in LOVE IS A JOURNEY

Kövecses (2015) believes that “[t]he resulting image schemas (container, source-path-goal, force, etc.) provide meaning for much of our experience either directly (for literal concepts) or indirectly (in the form of conceptual

metaphors)” (p 50) Conceptual metaphors are grounded from certain

universal correlations of bodily experience with abstract concepts For example, a correlation between two events can be seen in the image of adding to the content of a container and the level of the substance rising, resulting in the metaphor MORE IS UP (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 16) This demonstration proves that the image schemas are mapped by conceptual metaphors that are originated from everyday bodily experience, claiming that

“abstract thought is fundamentally embodied” (Johnson, 1987)

2.1.1.4 Conceptual metaphors versus Metonymy

As Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) suggest, there are two domains (the source and the target) in the conceptual metaphors while there is only one domain (the immediate subject matter) in metonymy Metaphors are formed from similarity while metonymies are made up based on the feature of contiguity (Kövecses, 2010, p 174) Kövecses (2002) defines: “Metonymy is

a cognitive process in which one conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental access to another conceptual entity, the target, within the same

domain, or idealized cognitive model (ICM)” (p 145)

(Kövecses, 2010, p 175) Figure 2.5 Metaphorical Relationship

(Kövecses, 2010, p 175)

Figure 2.6 Metonymic Relationship

Being like metaphor, metonymies are “conceptual in nature, and the conceptual metonymies are revealed by metonymic linguistic expressions” (Kövecses, 2010, p 145) The conceptual metonymy THE PRODUCER FOR THE PRODUCT (THE AUTHOR FOR THE WORK) shows how it works

I’m reading Shakespeare

She loves Picasso

Does he own any Hemingway?

The two entities closely correlate with each other in the metonymy concerning conceptual space From the above examples, the author is closely related to the work made

According to Ungerer and Schmid (1996, p 114), “metaphors and metonymies are powerful cognitive tools for our conceptualization of abstract categories” Although metonymies may appear in the collected data, this study only focuses on conceptual metaphors

2.1.2 Classification of conceptual metaphors

There are many ways to distinguish conceptual metaphors They can be identified based on their cognitive function, nature, conventionality, generality, grounding, and others As concerns cognitive function, both Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) and Kövecses (2002, 2010) shared conceptual metaphor’s classification encompassing three categories: structural metaphor, ontological metaphor, and orientational metaphor

2.1.2.1 Structural metaphors

As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) stated, a structural metaphor is a

metaphorical system that presents “cases where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another” (p 14) To illustrate a structural metaphor, take the metaphor TIME PASSING IS MOTION OF AN OBJECT (Kövecses, 2010, p 38)

The time will come when

The time has long since gone when

The time for action has arrived

In the weeks following next Tuesday

On the preceding day

I’m looking ahead to Christmas

Thanksgiving is coming up on us

Time is flying by

In this example, it provides us a model of structural metaphor The concept of TIME PASSING is structured in terms of MOTION OF AN OBJECT Given the background condition, we get the following mappings: Times are things

The passing of time is motion

Future times are in front of the observer; past times are behind the observer

One thing is moving, the other is stationary; the stationary thing

is in the deictic center

(Kövecses, 2010, p 37) Thanks to the metaphor, it is easy for us to imagine what our concept of time would be To put it another way, time is regarded as motion in many ways such as going, arriving, following, preceding, looking ahead, coming up, and flying by In this case, the observer stands still at present Times are entities moving to the observer These mappings enable us to structure and understand the target concept in terms of source one

2.1.2.2 Ontological metaphors

According to Kövecses (2002, p 34) ontological metaphors “provide

much less cognitive structuring for target concept than structural ones do” This cognitive instrument seems to give ontological status, leading to the general concept of the abstract target domain In other words, we frequently express our experience in reference to things, materials, or containers at the general level As our knowledge about these is limited, it is impossible to understand the target domain depending on these highly general levels Structural metaphors, hence, are responsible for providing an elaborate structure for abstract concepts Generally, ontological metaphors assist fruitful ways of understanding abstract concepts In particular, Kövecses (2010, p 39) suggested diverse target domains in the matter of three source domains (physical object, substance, and container) as listed below

Source Domains Target Domains

PHYSICAL OBJECT ⇒ NONPHYSICAL OR ABSTRACT

ENTITIES (e.g., the mind)

⇒ EVENTS (e.g., going to the race), ACTIONS (e.g., giving someone a call)

SUBSTANCE ⇒ ACTIVITIES (e.g., a lot of running

in the game)

OBJECTS (e.g., a clearing in the forest)

⇒ PHYSICAL AND NONPHYSICAL SURFACES (e.g., land areas, the visual field)

⇒ STATES (e.g., in love)

Figure 2.7 The Source and Target Domains of Ontological Metaphor

By means of ontological metaphors, speakers can use to identify aspects

of the experience having been made more defined For instance, imaging fear

as an object, we can conceive it as our possession Therefore, fear can be considered as our fear, my fear, or your fear depending on the situation Besides, if the mappings of the ontological metaphors were richer than they are, they would be considered structural metaphors (Kövecses, 2002, p 35)

For example, my mind is rusty this morning Considered as an object, the mind is structured utilizing the “machine” metaphor

Besides, personification can be regarded as a type of ontological metaphor Personification is not only extremely popular in literature, but it also appears in abundance in everyday speech and writing such as the following examples:

His theory explained to me the behavior of chickens raised in factories Life has cheated me

Inflation is eating up our profits

Cancer finally caught up with him

The computer went dead on me

(Kövecses, 2010, p 39) Although theory, life, inflation, cancer, computer are things, they are

personalized to be human beings having personal actions such as explaining, cheating, eating, catching up, and dying Taking advantage of personification,

we can begin to understand the target domain better

2.1.2.3 Orientational metaphors

The spatial metaphors provide much less conceptual structuring for

target concepts in comparison to ontological ones This kind of metaphor is called orientational metaphor as it enables speakers to make a set of target concepts coherent utilizing some basic human spatial orientations such as up-down, center-periphery, and the like (Kövecses, 2010, p 40)

MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN: Speak up, please Keep your voice down, please

HEALTHY IS UP; SICK IS DOWN: Lazarus rose from the dead He fell ill

CONSCIOUS IS UP; UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN: Wake up He sank into a coma

LACK OF CONTROL IS DOWN: I’m on top of the situation He is under my control

HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS DOWN: I’m feeling up today He’s really low these days

VIRTUE IS UP; LACK OF VIRTUE IS DOWN: She’s an upstanding citizen That was a low-down thing to do

RATIONAL IS UP; NONRATIONAL IS DOWN: The discussion fell to

an emotional level He couldn’t rise above his emotions

As can be seen from these examples, upward orientation is associated with a positive evaluation, whereas downward orientation is connected to a negative one This suggests that target concepts in orientational metaphors are structured in a coherent manner (Kövecses, 2010, p 40) In reality, along with

the spatial orientation up-down, spatial images such as whole, center, link, balance, in, goal, and front are employed in orientational metaphors as positive (Kövecses, 2002, p 36)

2.2 Previous studies on conceptual metaphors

In cognitive linguistics, metaphor is known as not only a figure of speech but also a fundamental way for human beings to perceive the world The metaphor is a means of basic cognition that allows us to comprehend a relatively abstract concept in the forms of a more concrete concept Since cognitive linguistics emerged in the 1980s from the publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s work, various research has been conducted in the matter of conceptual metaphors In newspapers or literary works, there have been a variety of prior studies on conceptual metaphors that have been investigated

in very specific topics such as political, medical or economic discourses, climate change, love, food, fire, war, moon, and the other

To begin with, take Figar's thesis (2013) called “Analysis of Conceptual Metaphors in the Political Discourse of Daily Newspapers: Structure, function, and emotional appeal” as an example The data extracted from the online editions of The New York Times during December 2011 was utilized

to explore the structure and function of conceptual metaphors in the political discourse of daily newspapers The research foundation of theoretical frameworks was laid from Conceptual Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory to investigate CONFLICT and SPORT metaphors The study findings are generalized that conceptual metaphors in the text are functioned as

“persuasion” being in alignment with previous studies Two types of questionnaires were employed to determine present conceptual metaphors that can provoke a certain degree of an emotional reaction with the experimental subjects There is doubtless plenty of evidence to support that the dominant

emotion concepts were “motivated, supportive, and alarmed” in describing CONFLICT metaphors and “happy, motivated, supportive, and alarmed” for SPORT metaphors Thus, there is a most significant similarity in the descriptions of emotional reactions based on specific emotion concepts

Another area of newspapers that has been investigated from conceptual metaphors includes a study by Alzawaydeh and Alghazo (2018) They have discovered conceptual metaphors in football news headlines in English and Arabic by 200 samples each The results showed that the prominent conceptual metaphor that both language headlines share is FOOTBALL IS WAR Football is greatly linked to war; with players viewed as soldiers, teams as attackers and defenders, managers as leaders, and the whole game as governed by tactics of war Except for this similarity, the contrast is that Arabic headlines tended to apply more metaphorical expressions than the English ones

Other recent investigators (Farrokhi et al., 2019) explored the sources of English and Persian newspapers in three areas of economics, politics, and health From Kittay and Lehrer’s (1981) insight, the study examined the corpus of 1,525631 words The findings proved that three source domains of a journey, war, and animals were widely exploited in English newspapers and conceptual metaphors conceptualized in the discourse were in accordance with Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980, 2003) view

In Vietnam, the study of cognitive linguistics has only really flourished

in recent years More specifically, many researchers have carried out the contrastive study to make a comparison between English and Vietnamese To reinforce the modern metaphor theory based on rhetoric and cognitive perspectives, Phan Thế Hưng (2009) presented systematically in the Ph.D thesis named “Ẩn Dụ Dưới Góc Độ Ngôn Ngữ Học Tri Nhận (Trên Cứ Liệu

Tiếng Việt Và Tiếng Anh)”, Conceptual Metaphor In Cognitive Linguistics (Based On English and Vietnamese Data) The critical metaphor and comparative analyses were pertained to investigate the data gathered from diverse sources such as books, newspapers, magazines, web pages, and questionnaire surveys Thus, the main features of the conceptual metaphor theory were summarized as follows:

 A metaphor is a conceptual phenomenon, not just a linguistic

phenomenon

 The function of metaphors is to help people have a better insight into

concepts rather than a stylistic device

 Metaphors are not only based on the similarity

 Metaphors are naturally employed in daily life by ordinary people, not

by people with special abilities

 Metaphors are not only a stylistic device of language but also a natural

process of cognition

The obtained results also suggested some pedagogical recommendations for researchers and educators in teaching and learning English and Vietnamese One of the distinguishing features of this study is that culture in collaboration with language gives a deeper look at conceptual metaphors Much recent evidence suggests linguistic data referring to the particular fields of conceptualizing Another doctoral thesis entitled “Đối Chiếu Phương Thức Ẩn Dụ Nhìn Từ Lí Thuyết Ngôn Ngữ Học Tri Nhận Trên Cứ Liệu Báo Chí Kinh Tế Anh – Việt”, A Contrastive Analysis Of Conceptual Metaphors

In Vietnamese And English Economic Articles, by Hà Thanh Hải (2011) clarified conceptual metaphors’ systematicity and levels at both English and Vietnamese 120.622-word articles in English and 149.536-word articles in Vietnamese were carefully collected, disclosing how they have their roots in

culture and how they can be changed from language to language Furthermore, English conceptual metaphors tended to occur more frequently because of Vietnamese tradition on commonly using metaphors as a decorative device in literature The resemblance is that SPACE metaphors accounted for the highest percentage while LIVING BODY metaphors took

up the lowest proportion in both languages

At the same time, Hồ Vi Nữ Mỹ Linh (2011) conducted a contrastive study of metaphors in English and Vietnamese newspaper discourse to explore metaphorical expressions used in daily life 400 metaphorical expressions were randomly chosen from various newspapers As a result, about syntactic and semantic aspects, both English and Vietnamese metaphorical expressions share some characteristics For example, metaphor can be categorized into 8 groups denoting 8 topics like color, weather, war, health, animal, food, journeys, and characters

Bùi Thu Hương (2016) made research on metaphorical expressions using human body parts namely “head”, “face” “hand” and “heart” in English and Vietnamese In terms of similarities, both languages share the same type of coherence For instance, the steaming concept is used to indicate the anger of somebody The relationship between language and culture also plays a significant role in forming different concepts such as “a clean hand” in English instead of “a straight hand” in Vietnam to mean a good and innocent person not having done something wrong

Ngô Đình Phương and Nguyễn Thị Kim Anh (2016), meanwhile, figured out the conceptual metaphors of love in English and Vietnamese The corpus

of 872 idioms indicating social relationships has been collected from various sources As they discussed, cultural elements have a strong impact on forming and denoting the conceptual metaphors of love, most of which in English can

be detected in Vietnam such as LOVE IS A JOURNEY with 58 occurrences

By contrast, the distinctive features in metaphorical linguistic expressions between English and Vietnamese can be discerned in this metaphor Love, for example, is believed to be “a journey on the rock, on the reef, off the track or

on a long bumpy road” in English, whereas in Vietnam linguistic expressions concerning “water, river, mountain such as waterfall (thác), ghềnh (rapids), pass (ải)” are employed to conceptualize love

As for metaphorical studies of social violence, there have not been any previous investigations Most studies focused on the meanings of various issues Therefore, it is interesting to investigate the conceptual metaphors of social violence in articles to understand the concepts through English and Vietnamese cultures It is obvious that conceptual metaphors exert an influence on people’s perception, cognition as well as their judgments As the literature showed, there are diverse studies that have been carried out to analyze conceptual metaphors in the enormous scope Nevertheless, there is still a highlighted gap in the literature Specifically, the lack of social violence topic for the conceptual metaphor from the point of view of cognitive semantics has been the motive to conduct this study

2.3 The online newspapers on social violence

2.3.1 Definition of violence and social violence

Violence comes in various forms According to the World Health

Organization (cited from the WHO’s web page named Definition and Typology of Violence), in the context of physical, sexual, psychological, and

deprivation or neglect, violence is divided into three categories covering directed violence, interpersonal violence, and collective violence Self-directed violence means that the perpetrator is also the victim Self-abuse or suicide is the form of self-directed violence Interpersonal violence is defined