Ánh xạ ẩn dụ ý niệm trong các bài báo kinh tế từ cứ liệu Tiếng Anh

d contexts. Bratoz (2004) conducted a comparative study of popular conceptual metaphoric 
expressions in English and Slovenian economic articles. The study affirmed that the two languages 
have the same metaphoric expressions about “Economy is a living object” and “The falling movement 
in the market is a disaster”.
To clarify the use of conceptual metaphors in popular economic discussions, Kovacz (2000) has 
succeeded in identifying five important metaphoric expressions: (i) economy/business is a living 
human body; (ii) economy/business is a war; (iii) economy/trading is a game or a sport activity; (iv) 
economy/business is a marriage; (v) economy/business has activities relating to the cinema.
As mentioned above, the study aims at analyzing economic texts in English for their use of metaphor. 
The English corpus comprised 15 economic articles taken from the finance and economics sections 
in “the Economist”, “the Economic Times”, “Financial News”, “Financial Times” newspaper in the 
period from May 2016 to February 2017. 
According to Lakoff (1990), the metaphor mapping which is conventional and is a fixed part of 
our conceptual system is more important than the language. His view of metaphor is totally different 
from the view that metaphors are just linguistic expressions. If metaphors were considered as merely 
linguistic expressions, there would have dozens of different metaphors correspondent to different 
linguistic expressions. For example, “the central bank would suffer a paper loss” would constitute 
one metaphor. “The recovery of the central bank after the crisis is remarkable” (The Economists, 
July 2016) would be another, entirely different metaphor. “Mr. Setser says, they [the central banks] 
are also sunk costs” (The Economist, June 2016) would involve a different metaphor. However, in 
this case, there is only one metaphor in which the state of economy is conceptualized as a state of 
physical health. The mapping tells us precisely how the state of economy is being conceptualized as 
a state of physical health. From this point, it is stated that metaphor is a phenomenon which involves 
both conceptual mapping and individual linguistic expressions. Diagrams (1.1) - (3.3) summarize the 
findings from English economic texts on lexis drawn from the source domains of physical conflicts, 
psychological, disaster, physical health and the weather used to describe the target domain of 
economic movements within an international, global context.
The followings are conceptual metaphors found in the corpus.
Diagram 1.1: Conceptual metaphor: THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM (The state of 
the economy is a state of physical health).
4. CONCLUSION
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Diagram 1.2: Conceptual metaphor: THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM (The state of 
the economy is a state of mental health).
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Diagram 1.3: Conceptual metaphor: THE ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM (Trading is a 
physical conflict).
Diagram 2.1: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE PHYSICAL 
MOVEMENTS (Economic movements are ways of moving in the air).
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Diagram 2.2: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE PHYSICAL 
MOVEMENTS (Economic movements are ways of moving in the water).
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Diagram 2.3: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE PHYSICAL 
MOVEMENTS (Economic movements are ways of moving on the ground).
Diagram 3.1: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE NATURAL REACTION 
(Negative Economic movements are natural disasters).
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Diagram 3.2: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE NATURAL REACTION 
(Negative Economic movements are bad weather).
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Diagram 3.3: Conceptual metaphor: ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS ARE NATURAL REACTION 
(Behaviour of the economy is the behaviour of gas).
Table 2 below summarizes typical metaphoric expressions investigated in the data.
Table 2: Frequency of conceptual metaphors in economic corpus
Statistic Number
Number of words 13610
Number of metaphor 285
Metaphor per 100 words 47.75
Name of Conceptual 
Metaphor
Number of 
metaphor
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THE ECONOMY IS A 
LIVING ORGANISM 
107
The state of the economy is a state of physical health 56
The state of the economy is a state of mental health 34
Trading is a physical conflict 17
ECONOMIC 
MOVEMENTS ARE 
PHYSICAL MOVEMENTS 
96
Economic movements are ways of moving in the air 35
Economic movements are ways of moving in the water 44
Economic movements are ways of moving on the ground 17
ECONOMIC 
MOVEMENTS ARE 
NATURAL REACTION 
73
Negative Economic movements are natural disasters 16
Negative Economic movements are bad weather 36
Behaviour of the economy is the behaviour of gas 21
Others 9
With the help of computer program MiniTab, a clearer Descriptive Statistics picture about metaphoric 
expressions in economics can be shown in the following table.
Variable N N* Mean SE Mean StDev Minimum Q1 Median
Economics 285 0 47.753 0.477 12.359 14.880 17.250 18.940
Variable Q3 Maximum
Economics 12.445 19.050
It is clarified that metaphor is frequently used in English economic texts. The total corpus size was 
13,000 words and yielded 280 cases of metaphor. It goes without saying that as a science, economics deals 
with the identification and classification of phenomena in the real world. The metaphor THE ECONMY 
IS A LIVING ORGANISM accounts for the largest category of linguistic metaphors in English economic 
texts. There are three distinct metaphors related to this generic one: the state of the economy is a state of 
physical health; the state of the economy is a state of mental health; and trading is a physical conflict, 
the linguistic expressions found in English economic texts are various. Furthermore, from data of the 
study, some interesting indications of an interaction between culture and language at the level of linguistic 
metaphor have been noted. It is probably because of the influence of a nautical tradition resulting from 
its island history. For example, the metaphor MARKET MOVEMENTS ARE WAYS OF MOVING IN THE 
WATER is a preference in English. This metaphor may be interpreted as an expression for the maritime 
dominance on which the British Empire was built, as an Italian Elias Canetti writers writes: 
The Englishman sees himself as a captain on board a ship with a small group of people, the sea 
around and beneath him. He is almost alone, as captain he is in many way isolated even from his crew 
(Canetti, 1962)./.
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MAPPING CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN ECONOMIC TEXTS WITH ENGLISH EVIDENCE
PHAM THI THANH THUY
Abstract:The result of this study calls for the awareness for English second language writers 
and readers of the metaphorical nature of the subject, as well as the ways in which conceptual 
metaphors are typically realized in English. The paper analyzes finance and economic sections 
of 15 economic articles taken from “the Economist”, “the Economic Times”, “Financial News”, 
“Financial Times” newspaper in the period from May 2016 to February 2017. Besides, mapping is 
used to conceptualize economic phenomenon and to explain abstract economic domains through 
a more specific domain. The data shows that the metaphor The econmy is a living organism 
accounts for the largest category of linguistic metaphors. There are three distinct metaphors 
related to this generic one: The state of the economy is a state of physical health; The state of the 
economy is a state of mental health; and Economic movements are natural reaction. 
Keywords: conceptual metaphor, economic text, mapping, metaphor. 
Received: 18/5/2017; Revised: 12/6/2017; Accepted for publication: 28/6/2017