A Case Study of Economic Growth based on US Presidential Speeches.docx

A Case Study of Economic Growth based on US Presidential Speeches.docx

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ACaseStudyofEconomicGrowthbasedonUSPresidentialSpeeches

ACaseStudyofEconomicGrowthbasedonU.S.PresidentialSpeeches

Siaw-FongChung

DepartmentofEnglish

NationalChengchiUniversity

sfchung@nccu.edu.tw

Abstract

Theproblemsofsourcedomaindeterminationhavebeenrealizedbymanymetaphorsanalysts.Thispapertakeseconomicgrowthasatargetdomainandinvestigatesitssourcedomainsusingdifferentmethodologies（replacementtest,ontology,collocationandsyntacticposition）.Therephrasabilitytestwasfirstusedtodeterminewhetherametaphorhasoccurredbyidentifyingmetaphoricalkeywordsusedwitheconomicgrowth.Then,possiblesourcedomainsweresuggestedintuitivelyforeachoccurrenceofmetaphor.ThesamesetofmetaphoricalkeywordswasthenexaminedusingWordNet-SUMOsothatfurthersourcedomaindeterminationcouldbedone.ThetestingofsourcedomaincontinuedbyusingcollocationsthroughtheEnglishSketchengine,followedbythelaststrategyinwhichanalysesofgrammaticalrolestookplace.Itwasfoundthateverystrategyworkedwellforaportionofthemetaphoricalkeywordsyetnotallstrategiesreturnedsimilarresults.Thisworkhighlightssomecommonproblemsencounteredbythesedifferentstrategiesindecidingtherespectivesourcedomainsforthesemetaphoricalkeywords.

1.0Introduction

Metaphorshavebeeninvestigatednotonlyinlinguisticsbutalsoinliterature,philosophy,cognitivescienceandrhetoric.Thereasonswhymetaphorevokesextensiveresearchisbecauseitsformationiscomposedofinformationfromtwoknowledgedomains（suchasfromIDEAandWAR）.InthefieldofLinguistics,thepatternsofmetaphorsaremanifestedbydirectexaminationoflanguagedata.Inthat,corporaareausefultoolastheycontainalargeamountofdatawhichmaynotbepossiblyproducedintuitivelybyasinglespeakerinseconds.

Manycorpus-basedapproachestometaphorsusuallystartedoffsearchingformetaphorusingasinglekeyword.Ametaphorisusuallyidentifiedthroughtheinteractionofthiskeywordwiththemeaningsurroundingit.Forinstance,whenAhrensetal.（2003）havelookedatthekeywordeconomy,expressionssuchassputteringeconomy,overheatedeconomy,andeconomygrowthwereidentified.Economicgrowth,inparticular,isacombinationoftwoconcepts,i.e.,economyandperson（cf.Chungetal.（2005）andChung（forthcoming）forthechoiceofsourcedomains）.However,whenfurtheranalyzed,onewillfindeconomicandgrowthco-occuroftenasasingleexpressionsincorpora.ThecollocationofeconomicandgrowthintheBritishNationalCorpus（BNC）returned1,018fromthetotal12,879instancesofgrowth,indicatingthatthesetwowordsoftenappearasasingleunit.SimilarhighestcollocationbetweeneconomicandgrowthisobservedintheNewYorkTimesintheAmericanNationalCorpuswith46instancesoutofthetotal593instancesofgrowthareeconomicgrowth.Thesehighcollocationalfiguresleadustopositthatthereispossibilitywheneconomicgrowthwillbeusedasonelexicalitemtoformnewmetaphors.Thishypothesisisprovencorrectbyfindingexamplessuchaswillgetthisrecessionbehindusandreturnto（economic）growthsoon（PresidentFord,1977）inthepresidentialcorpususedinthispaper.Inthisinstance,economicgrowthisusedasthetargetdomainwhichismetaphorizedtobeadestinationoftheactionreturnto.Byobservingwhetherthetargetdomaincanbereplacedbyapossiblesourcedomain,onecandecidea）whetherthissentenceisusedmetaphorically;andb）thepossiblesourcedomainforthetargetdomain.This,infact,isoneofthestrategies（i.e.,‘rephrasability’）thatthispaperproposestobeadiagnostictestformetaphoridentification.

Themainpurposeofthisworkistoexaminetheusesofeconomicgrowthinaspecialisedcorpus.Indoingso,wealsoevaluateandattestthedifferentmethodologiesemployedinthemetaphoricalanalysesbydifferentscholars.Thesemethodologiesvarybythewayhowsourcedomainscanbeidentified.Amongthecommonmethodologiesfordeterminingsourcedomainsarethosebasedonintuition（e.g.,LakoffandJohnson,1980;Lakoff,1993;Kövecses,2002）,collocations（e.g.,Deignan,1999ab）,constructionsofcollocates（e.g.,Stefanowitsch,2006）,theontologicalconceptssharedbyagroupoflinguisticexpressions（e.g.,Chungetal.2005）andacombinationofontology（top-down）andcollocation（bottom-up）（e.g.,Chung,forthcoming）.Byusingeconomicgrowthasatargetdomain,thehypothesisofthispaperisthattherewillbesystematicmappingsofmetaphorswiththistargetdomain.Whentherearesystematicmappings,itisalsopossibletoobservehowthechoicesofsourcedomainsarepatternedusingthistargetdomain.WeuseaspecialisedcorpusofAmericanpresidentialspeechesandthroughwhichweinvestigatethetypesofsourcedomainsidentifiablethroughdifferentmethodologies.

2.0GrowthandSourceDomainDetermination

Thetermeconomicgrowthwasselectedasthekeywordinthispaperbecausethechoiceofsourcedomainforgrowthhasbeenacontroversialissueidentifiedbymanymetaphoranalysts.AlthoughChungetal.（2005）hascategorizedgrowthasaninstanceofeconomyisaperson,othershavesuggesteditdifferently–plant（Kövecses,2002）,animalororganism（Stefanowistch,2006;Charteris-BlackandEnnis,2001）.However,growthindeedisambiguousbecauseitmayrefertothegrowthofaperson,plant,animalorthemoreuppercategoryoforganism.TheIdealizedCognitiveModel（ICM）（LakoffandJohnson,1980,Lakoff,1993）doesnotprovideasolutionforthisquestion,asthesourcedomainsarealwaysintuitivelydetermined.Chungetal.（2005）,incontrast,hasdecidedthesourcedomainbyobservingacommonconceptingroupoflexicalitems.Sincegrowth,alongwithotherpsychologicalexpressionssuchasdepressedandsuffer,hasthecommonupperconceptof‘Organism’,Chungetal.categorisedthemunderperson,thatisaninstanceof‘Organism’withapsychologicalstate.

Thedifficultyindecidingthesourcedomainshasalsobeenrelatedtowhetherthe‘sourcedomains’shouldbeinterpretedasthemorespecific‘scenes’（HeywoodandSemino,2005;followingGrady,1997））or‘scenarios’（Musolff,2004）orthemoregeneral‘sourcedomains’（LakoffandJohnson,1980）oreven‘profile’（Langacker,1987）.Musolff（2004:

13）placed‘scenarios’as“intermediateanalyticalcategorybetweentheleveloftheconceptualdomainasawholeanditsindividualelements,”whileHeywoodandSeminopreferredthelowerlevel‘scene’inwhich“anaction,theparticipant（s）involvedintheaction,andagoal”canbestatedexplicitly.Thispaperwillusethemorecommonlyacceptedterminology‘sourcedomain’andtheelementsinthesourcedomainsarethosesuggestedbyAhrens（2002:

276-277）withthefollowingquestions.

（1）SampleanswersforBUILDING

1WhatentitiesdoestheSDhave?

foundation,structure,base,model,layout,cement,brick,steelbar,

sandstone,scaffolding,roof,wall,worker,window,door,plumbing,decoration

2.WhatqualitiesdoestheSDortheentityintheSDhave?

--shaky,high,short,strong,weak,flimsy

3a.WhatdoestheSDdo?

--toprotect,toshield,toshelter

b.WhatcanS/OdotoorintheSD?

--tolivein,tobuild,toconstruct,toteardown

Thesequestionsmakeclearthatasourcedomaincanhaveentities（nounsandparticipantsincluded）andtheseentitieshavequalities（adjectives）andtherearealsoactorsorrecipientsofanyfunction（verb）.Thesequestionsstatesomeofthecriteriadelimitingthescopeofasourcedomainmoreexplicitly.Thesourcedomainsmentionedinthispaperaregroundedonthesecriteriainalltheanalysesofeconomicgrowth.

ThestudyofgrowthalonehasbeenlookedatbyWhite（2003）whoseanalysiscombinedalltypesofgrowthsuchthatinjobgrowth,populationgrowth,crimegrowth,etc.Thefactthatcrimegrowthdefinitelyhasdifferentconceptualorientationthaneconomicgrowth,thispaperonlyanalysesgrowthwhenithasexplicitreferenttotheeconomy.Inaddition,White（2003）categorisedgrowthintodifferentaspects,suchaspositive（growthrevives）andnegative（growthrecedes）uses;growthasparticipants（fostergrowth）,andgrowthasagents,etc.Thispaper,incontrast,willutilisethegrammaticalfunctionsgivenintheEnglishSketchengine（KilgarriffandTugwell,2001）fortheidentificationofgrammaticalrolessuchassubject,object,modifier,modified,etc.

ThiscurrentworkstartsfromasmallcorpusthatconsistsoftheStateoftheUnionspeechesbytheAmericanpresidents（http:

//www.c-span.org）.TheStateoftheUnionspeechesaregivenannuallyatthebeginningofthepresident’sservice.Thesespeechesarechosenbecausetheusesof‘economicgrowth’inthemreflectthepresidents’viewregardingthecountry’seconomy.Bylookingatthepatternsof‘economicgrowth’inasmallspecialisedcorpus,thispaperhighlightsthemethodologicalissueusingfourstrategiesmentionedabove.

3.0Data

Thedatainthispapercamefromthirty-ninepresidentialspeechesfromtheStateoftheUnionfrom1970through2005.Thesespeechescoverthefollowingpresidentsin

（2）,withBushjuniorandseniorgivingmoreonethanoneStateofUnionspeechinasingleyearbecauseoftheGulfWarin1991andtheSeptember21attackin2001.In1981,CarterdeliveredaspeechonJanuary16beforeheresigned.Inthenextmonth,ReagandeliveredanotherspeechonFebruary18,1981.Thiscausesthecollectionoftwospeechesin1981,shownbelow.

（2）PresidentsServingYearsNumberofspeeches

Nixon1970-19745

Ford1975-19773

Carter1978-19814

Reagan1981-19888

G.H.W.Bush1989-1992