1. Introduction
Government attention selectively distributed to various issues in policy-making processes is usually captured in political discourse (Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Zhou, Li, Zeng and Liao2021). Promoting both economic growth and ecological construction is a major concern for national development on the Chinese path to modernization. Attention to economic and ecological issues over time can be reflected in China’s Government Work Report (hereinafter abbreviated as GWR), the most influential type of political discourse in China, which has not been fully researched from the discursive perspective.
Metaphor is exceptionally critical to political discourse (Lakoff, Reference Lakoff2002) and serves as a device ‘to change social and political attitudes’ (Musolff, Reference Musolff2016, p. 136) by conceptualizing key issues concerning social development, including economy and ecology. ‘Political metaphor research has been primarily US-centric and Euro-centric’ (Zeng et al., Reference Zeng, Burgers and Ahrens2021, p. 2), and economy and ecology metaphors such as economy is a person and environmental harm is physical harm are universal across languages and cultures and across time as well. Moreover, metaphors evolve with time in political discourse and ‘the ways metaphors change can thus reveal how conceptualizations of social topics change over time’ (Burgers, Reference Burgers2016, p. 250). However, relatively few studies on metaphor and diachronic change have been conducted in Chinese political discourse.
Based on a modified framework for diachronic metaphor change, the current study aims to gain understanding of the Chinese government’s attention to economic and ecological issues over time by examining diachronic change of economy and ecology metaphors in China’s 45-year GWRs. This study first explores whether there are differences in general attention to topics of economy and ecology over time in GWRs based on the associations between time and their corpus instances. Then, fundamental changes are examined on the basis of the associations between time and the use of each source domain for economy and ecology, and transformations of source domain use. Finally, incremental changes are investigated in view of the metaphorical diversity and lexical abstractness of metaphorical words in each source domain for economy and ecology. It is hoped that this study might enrich the understanding of diachronic metaphor change in political discourse across languages.
2. Research background
2.1. Government attention in political discourse
Government attention is a scarce resource selectively devoted to significant issues (Cheng et al., Reference Cheng, Kang and Lin2021). The focus of government attention is directly represented in political discourse such as official documents (Xu et al., Reference Xu, Li, Ping, Zhang, Liu, Zhang and Wang2022). For instance, the Queen’s Speech in UK was examined as an embodiment of government attention to public opinion for topics including economy, health, and employment (Jennings & John, Reference Jennings and John2009). In addition, the State of the Union addresses delivered by the US Presidents were analyzed in terms of lexical frequency and collocational patterns to reveal major concerns of the government (Ahrens, Reference Ahrens, Handl and Schmid2011). Moreover, four types of political discourse (presidential messages, hearings on administrations’ legislative proposals, amicus briefs, and executive orders) were investigated to disclose US presidential attention distributed to five major topics (Larsen-Price, Reference Larsen-Price2012).
The most influential type of political discourse in China is the annual GWR published by the Chinese Central Government during the National People’s Congress. It summarizes the government work in political, economic, cultural, and ecological areas that occurred in the previous year, and the work planned for the current year (Shi et al., Reference Shi, Shi and Guo2019), and reflects the attention of the Chinese Central Government (Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Zhou, Li, Zeng and Liao2021). Content analyses of GWR have been carried out in disciplines such as environmental sciences and healthcare sciences, mainly focusing on whether the attention captured in political discourse is transformed into substantial improvement concerning certain issues, such as environmental investment (Shi et al., Reference Shi, Shi and Guo2019) and national health conditions (Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Zhou, Li, Zeng and Liao2021). Up to now, however, far too little attention has been paid to the discursive approach to GWR.
2.2. Metaphor in political discourse
Attention ‘guides the use of language’ and has ‘systematic reflection in language’ (Tenbrink, Reference Tenbrink2020, pp. 93–95) such as metaphor. Metaphor in cognitive linguistics is defined as ‘understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain’ (Kövecses, Reference Kövecses2010, p. 4). Metaphor is regarded as being exceptionally critical to political discourse (Lakoff, Reference Lakoff2002), and metaphorical frames have been proved more effective than non-metaphorical ones in promoting political persuasion (Brugman et al., Reference Brugman, Burgers and Vis2019). There is ‘a flourishing of work that is seeking to identify and analyze the use of metaphors in politics’ (Perrez et al., Reference Perrez, Reuchamps and Thibodeau2019, p. 1), but most studies were conducted in the USA and European countries (Brugman et al., Reference Brugman, Burgers and Vis2019) except a few instances such as Zeng et al. (Reference Zeng, Burgers and Ahrens2021) who investigated free economy metaphors in government speeches by principal leaders of Hong Kong, China. Furthermore, political discourse under metaphorical study mainly consists of speeches, interviews, media accounts, TV broadcasts, commercial ads, and political party manifestos (Perrez et al., Reference Perrez, Reuchamps and Thibodeau2019). So far, few studies have adopted the discursive approach to GWR, and no systematic metaphor study has been conducted in the area of GWR of Chinese contexts.
It is necessary to distinguish ‘political metaphor’ from ‘metaphor in political discourse’. The former refers to metaphors for framing political issues and entities, such as politics is war/an object/sports and games/art and pictures/a landscape in the general political discourse (Brugman et al., Reference Brugman, Burgers and Steen2017), and politics is fighting/building/construction work in the press coverage of European politics (Musolff, Reference Musolff2021). Metaphors in political discourse, on the other hand, include metaphors for framing not only political issues but also economic, environmental, and other topics in political discourse, such as economy is a person and environmental harm is physical harm.
Metaphor ‘has played a major role in establishing and transmitting essential economic concepts down through the ages’, and conceptual metaphor is ‘a core factor in the very construction of Economics discourse itself’ (Herrera-Soler & White, Reference Herrera-Soler, White, Herrera-Soler and White2012, p. 3). Some conventional economy metaphors in political discourse are economy is a mechanical process in the USA and Japanese policy documents (Fukuda, Reference Fukuda2009) and economic development is a journey and free economy is a sport/building/journey/living organism in political speeches (Zeng et al., Reference Zeng, Tay and Ahrens2020, Reference Zeng, Burgers and Ahrens2021). Others include economy is a machine/a container in economics textbooks (Alejo, Reference Alejo2010) and economy is a natural force and economic development is auto racing in economic journalism (Krennmayr et al., Reference Krennmayr, Bowdle, Mulder and Steen2014; López & Llopis, Reference López and Llopis2010).
Similarly, ‘metaphorical framing is half as much likely to be found’ in discussing environment issues (Brugman et al., Reference Brugman, Burgers and Steen2017, p. 191). The most influential metaphor on human–environment relationship is metaphors of living organism, such as nature is a living organism/a person with the health sub-mappings environment is a body, pollution is a disease/virus, polluted environment is a diseased body, among others (Auge, Reference Auge2021). Others include metaphors of competition with the sub-mappings nature is a battle/a war/a struggle and metaphors of machine such as nature is a machine and earth is a spaceship (Stibbe, Reference Stibbe2015, pp. 67–69). Another compelling finding is that ‘economic metaphors – including natural capital, natural assets, ecosystem services, and ecological debt – are becoming commonplace in environmental policy discourse’ (Coffey, Reference Coffey2016, p. 203). Thus, natural entities are understood as commodities in order to achieve economic purposes, namely natural entities are economic capital (Drury et al., Reference Drury, Fuller and Keijzer2022). However, much less is known about the relations of diachronic co-variance between economy and ecology in political discourse.
Methodologically, corpus-based case studies have been conducted to examine political metaphors in political discourse (e.g., Cibulskienė, Reference Cibulskienė2012), some of which are cross-language comparative studies, such as comparisons between economy metaphors in USA and Japanese political discourse (Fukuda, Reference Fukuda2009). Metaphor elicitation surveys have been undertaken to explore participants’ interpretation of political metaphors such as nation is body (Musolff, Reference Musolff2021). In addition, experimental studies have explored the causal relationships between metaphorical framing concerning political issues and ‘real-world attitudinal and behavioral response’ (e.g., Brugman et al., Reference Brugman, Burgers and Steen2017).
Previous corpus-based studies provide important insights into metaphors used to conceptualize varied social issues in political discourse. However, economy and ecology, two key issues of social development which attract much government attention, have not been explored in combination, not to mention the relations of diachronic co-variance between both topics in political discourse such as GWR.
2.3. Metaphor change
‘On account of variations in general attention to the topic itself’ (Hu & Liu, Reference Hu and Liu2016), metaphors and their meanings often change across contexts or over time. In particular, metaphor variation or change has become one of the most distinctive features of metaphors in political discourse (Perrez et al., Reference Perrez, Reuchamps and Thibodeau2019, p. 1). Metaphor change can be analyzed in two temporal dimensions: synchronic and diachronic. Synchronic metaphor change occurs due to factors such as gender and particular political context. For instance, both male and female politicians may choose to use masculinity and femininity metaphors in order to ‘persuade people of their plans and appeal to constituents for support’ (Ahrens, Reference Ahrens2009, p. 5). Moreover, deliberate metaphor use was found to change on three significant interaction effects across discourse contexts of psychotherapy talk, news articles, popular science articles, and political speeches (Tay, Reference Tay2016). Diachronic metaphor change is also prevalent in political discourse, because metaphors constantly evolve over time. For example, the use of metaphors of journey was found to change significantly within the same media political discourse before joining the European Union and NATO and after it (Cibulskienė, Reference Cibulskienė2012). Patterns of metaphor use on education were found to differ before and after the handover of Hong Kong back to its motherland China (Ahrens & Zeng, Reference Ahrens and Zeng2017). Although scholarly interest in metaphor change has been expanding to contexts other than English, studies on diachronic metaphor change in political discourse remain scarce outside European and US contexts.
Diachronic metaphor change is modeled in two ways in the metaphor-based approach to social change in communication: through fundamental change and incremental change (Burgers, Reference Burgers2016). Fundamental change occurs when old metaphors are replaced by new ones, often indicated by change of source domain used to discuss the same topic (target domain), such as replacing EU is a building with EU is a family in British and German public debates (Musolff, Reference Musolff2006). Specifically, fundamental change is often indicated by the association between time and the use of a source domain. For instance, relatively little fundamental change was found in Burgers and Ahrens’ (Reference Burgers and Ahrens2020) examination of diachronic change of trade metaphors in the State of the Union addresses delivered by the US Presidents over 225 years. In addition, free economy metaphors did not go through fundamental change in political discourse of Hong Kong, China over 20 years (Zeng et al., Reference Zeng, Burgers and Ahrens2021). Though these findings may confirm that ‘source-target domain pairings are fixed over time’ (Zeng et al., Reference Zeng, Burgers and Ahrens2021), fundamental change may not be necessarily detected by statistically significant change of source domains over time, and thus further analyses with other indicators are needed to explore possible fundamental change over time in political discourse.
Incremental change often involves meaning shifts of an extant metaphor and change in ‘the scope of mapping within the same source domain’ (Burgers, Reference Burgers2016; Burgers & Ahrens, Reference Burgers and Ahrens2020). When incremental change occurs, the meaning of metaphors may be ‘renegotiated’ (interpretation of the metaphor changes) and/or ‘extended’ (new interpretation is added). For instance, the positive and affirmative use of metaphors of heart in the political slogan ‘Britain at the heart of Europe’ declined, while its negative use increased in British–EU debates (Musolff, Reference Musolff2017). In addition, some metaphors such as ‘suppression’ have no longer been used to discuss the target trade in State of the Union addresses (Burgers & Ahrens, Reference Burgers and Ahrens2020). Furthermore, the metaphor ‘a completed building’ has been used instead of ‘building in construction’ to conceptualize free economy (Zeng et al., Reference Zeng, Burgers and Ahrens2021). Incremental change is indicated by change in abstractness/concreteness of metaphors within a specific source domain (Burgers & Ahrens, Reference Burgers and Ahrens2020). Other indicators may be added to further investigate incremental change that occurs in more varied metaphors in political discourse.
Methodologically, corpus approaches have been dominant in metaphor change research. For example, corpus-based contrastive analyses have been conducted to investigate synchronic metaphor changes across specific situations (e.g., Tay, Reference Tay2016). In addition, diachronic corpus studies have been undertaken to examine how metaphor use varied before and after an important event or changes over continuous time period (Burgers & Ahrens, Reference Burgers and Ahrens2020).
In sum, metaphor use in political discourse highlights the focus of government attention, the shift of which can thus be reflected in metaphor change. Most studies of metaphor change on political or social issues have been closely conducted in English contexts, and universal metaphors across languages and cultures and across time may be realized differently in the Chinese context. Economy and ecology, two important topics on the Chinese path to modernization, must attract attention in China’s GWRs. In addition, diachronic change (fundamental or incremental) of economy and ecology metaphors may be found in GWRs, revealing shifts of government attention to both topics over time.
2.4. The present study
This study aims to examine diachronic metaphor change in political discourse to gain an understanding of government attention to major issues over time. Specifically, it intends to find out possible diachronic change of economy and ecology metaphors in China’s GWRs by adopting the metaphor-based approach to change in communication (Burgers, Reference Burgers2016). In this study, the investigation of diachronic metaphor change is based on a modified framework with added indicators of fundamental and incremental change.
To explore fundamental metaphor change, two indicators are taken into consideration. The first one is the association between time and source domain use for economy and ecology, which has been examined through inferential statistics by previous studies (Burgers & Ahrens, Reference Burgers and Ahrens2020; Zeng et al., Reference Zeng, Burgers and Ahrens2021). The second indicator added in this study is the change of source domain use, suggesting transformations of ways to conceptualize the target domain.
To examine incremental change, another two indicators will be investigated. The first one is the metaphorical diversity, referring to the extent to which a range of metaphorical word types are included in a source domain. When the metaphorical diversity of a source domain increases, the mapping scope of this domain may enlarge, suggesting incremental metaphor change. The second one is the lexical abstractness of metaphorical words in each source domain (Burgers & Ahrens, Reference Burgers and Ahrens2020). When metaphorical words in a source domain become more abstract and less concrete, more diversified source-target sub-mappings may be established, indicating the enlargement of the mapping scope of the source domain.
This study intends to adopt the modified framework mentioned above to address the following questions.
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(1) How does the general attention to the topics of economy and ecology in China’s GWRs change over time? Are there any differences in attention to two topics over time?
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(2) To what extent, if any, do metaphors on economy and ecology undergo fundamental change in China’s GWRs over time? Are there any differences?
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(3) To what extent, if any, do metaphors on economy and ecology undergo incremental change in China’s GWRs over time? Are there any differences?
3. Methodology
3.1. Corpus
China’s GWRs are very influential and authoritative in describing China’s government work in political, economic, cultural, ecological areas of public affairs, and the year 1978 marked the beginning of China’s reform and opening up and the shift of the governmental focus to economic development. Thus, China’s GWRs (in Chinese) published from 1978 to 2022 were manually collected from the official website of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China (http://www.gov.cn). The corpus contains 45 reports with a total word count of 447,343 words after word segmentation (there is no space between Chinese characters), as calculated by the WordList function in the corpus tool Wordless (2.2.0) (Ye, Reference Ye2022).
3.2. Procedures
The research consists of three stages. In Stage 1 (investigating general attention and identifying metaphors), the first step was to concordance words related to economy and ecology (target domain words) in the corpus, including 经济 jingji (‘economy’)Footnote 1 and生态 shengtai (‘ecology’)/环境 huanjing (‘environment’). At first, 4,592 instances of 经济 (‘economy’) and 863 of 生态/环境 (‘ecology/environment’) were retrieved in the corpus. After removing repeated and irrelevant concordances, the study retained 4,592 instances of 经济 (‘economy’) and 513 of 生态/环境 (‘ecology/environment’) for further analysis. The second step was to explore whether attention to both topics changes over time by conducting Pearson’s correlation analyses between time and economy and ecology instances, respectively. In the third step, the words adjacent to 经济 (‘economy’) and 生态 (‘ecology’)/环境 (‘environment’) in concordances were observed to identify whether they were linguistic metaphors based on MIPVU (Steen et al., Reference Steen, Dorst, Herrmann, Kaal, Krennmayr and Pasma2010) and practical guidelines used in Chinese metaphor identification (Wang et al., Reference Wang, Lu, Hsu, Lin, Ai, Nacey, Dorst, Krennmayr and Reijnierse2019). In Example (1) consisting of four lexical units after word segmentation, for instance, the basic meaning of the lexical unit 战略 zhanlve (‘tactic’) is (1a) based on the online Chinese dictionary zdic.netFootnote 2, while its contextual meaning is (1b). There is a contrast between its basic meaning and contextual meaning, but the latter can be understood in comparison with the former. Thus, the lexical unit 战略 (‘tactic’) was identified as a metaphorical word.
The fourth step was to formulate conceptual metaphors based on the identified linguistic metaphors. Firstly, source domains were annotated. For instance, the linguistic metaphor 战略 (‘tactic’) in Example (1) was searched in the Chinese semantic dictionary, Chinese Open WordnetFootnote 4, but it was not listed in the dictionary. Then, its hypernym ‘战争 zhanzheng (‘war’)’ was searched and its domain category was found to be ‘war’, which is annotated as the source domain. Meanwhile, the previous verification approach (Ahrens & Jiang, Reference Ahrens and Jiang2020) was applied to annotate the source domains. Secondly, the annotated source domains and the predetermined target domains economy or ecology were searched in MetaNet Metaphor WikiFootnote 5 to find the metaphorical mapping. In Example (1), the conceptual metaphor was formulated as economic development is war.
In Stage 2 (examining economy and ecology metaphors over time (see Section 4.2), the first step was to investigate whether there are differences in metaphorical understanding of the two topics by performing chi-square analyses of the frequencies of metaphorical types (linguistic metaphors) in each source domain for economy and ecology inferred and annotated in Stage 1. For example, the source domain war was found to be more significantly related to the target domain ecology than to economy (see Fig. 2 in Section 4.2.1 for visualized results). The second step was to examine diachronic fundamental changes of economy and ecology metaphors. Bivariate Pearson’s correlation analyses were conducted to explore the associations between time and the number of economy and ecology metaphors per 1,000 words (standardized number). Next, Pearson’s correlation analyses were conducted between time and the relative percentage of metaphors (dividing metaphor number by the total number of concordances) in each source domain for economy and ecology, respectively. Afterwards, a closer inspection was carried out to explore the change of source domain use that indicates fundamental change.
Standardized numbers of 经济 (‘economy’) and 生态/环境 (‘ecology/environment’) instances and metaphors per 1,000 words.
Mosaic plot of chi-square analysis of metaphors in difference source domains for economy/ecology.
In Stage 3 (examining the diachronic incremental change of economy and ecology metaphors, see Section 4.3), each source domain was investigated to find whether the mapping scope varies before and after the formulation of Scientific Outlook on Development on 28 July 2003 (hereinafter abbreviated as SOD), which promotes the balanced development of the economy and ecology. Diachronic incremental changes were examined in view of two indicators: metaphorical diversity and lexical abstractness. In order to examine whether metaphorical diversity has significantly changed, Pearson’s correlation analyses were conducted between time and the metaphorical type/token ratio (hereinafter abbreviated as MTTR) in each source domain. In order to examine lexical abstractness, physicality and specificity (Iliev and Axelrod, Reference Iliev and Axelrod2017) were taken into consideration. Physicality refers to the extent to which the abstract concepts economy and ecology are referred to by means of physical entities (e.g., building is more physical than journey), and specificity is the degree that economy and ecology are described with specific and exclusive terms (e.g., machine is more specific than object).
The identification of economy and ecology instances, metaphors, and source domains were conducted by two coders separately. The inter-coder reliability was not calculated, because it is comparably objective to consult the dictionary and websites. All ambiguous cases were discussed and resolved to reach exact agreement. The full data of this study are available under the following publicly accessible Open Science Framework repository: https://osf.io/wcx26/.
4. Results
This section first presents the diachronic and comparative analyses of general attention to economy and ecology and then shows changes of metaphorical understanding of economy and ecology and their differences in GWRs (1978–2022).
4.1. Attention to the topics of economy and ecology
The solid lines in Fig. 1(a) show the standardized numbers (per 1,000 words in the corpus) of 经济 (‘economy’) and 生态/环境 (‘ecology/environment’) instances aggregated on the level of four periods of the central collective leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) (1978–1988, 1989–2002, 2003–2012, 2013–2022). Upon further inspection, Fig. 1(b) shows the standardized numbers of economy and ecology instances aggregated on the 5-year level because the national congress of the CPC held every 5 years (1982 the 12th, 1987 the 13th, and so on) witnesses major resolutions concerning China’s development.
Pearson’s correlation analyses (the second step in Stage 1) show a slightly negative association between time and economy instances (r = −0.45, p = 0.00), and a strong positive association between time and ecology instances (r = 0.83, p = 0.00). These results confirm what is presented in Fig. 1 that generally more attention is paid to economy than to ecology in GWRs. Attention to economy has been steadily decreasing though it peaked at some points, while attention to ecology has been increasingly growing.
4.2. Economy and ecology metaphors over time
4.2.1. Comparison of economy and ecology metaphors
Among the economy and ecology instances, 1,800 and 323 concordances were found to include 2,466 and 352 metaphors, respectively, some of which contain mixed metaphors (more than one metaphorical word referring to the same target domain in the same concordance line). To investigate whether there are differences in metaphorical understanding of economy and ecology, a chi-square statistic was performed. The results in Table 1 show a significant difference in metaphor use between economy and ecology instances (χ 2 = 107.27, df = 1, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.145). Metaphors are more likely to be used when referring to ecology and not to be used when talking about economy in GWRs.
Chi-square analysis of metaphor use in economy/ecology instances
Five source domains (object, building, journey, living organism, and war) shared by both economy and ecology metaphors were identified based on the metaphorical words in the corpus (the fourth step in Stage 1). To investigate whether there are differences in the use of source domains to conceptualize economy and ecology, a chi-square statistic was performed. It is noteworthy that the domain journey was eliminated in the statistical analysis due to the insufficiency of data scale (only one journey metaphor related to ecology). Fig. 2 presents a mosaic plot used to visualize the chi-square statistic results, showing significant differences in the use of source domains between economy and ecology (χ 2 = 740.567, df = 3, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.574). The source domains object and living organism are more significantly related to the target domain economy while building and war, to ecology, which is not likely due to chance.
4.2.2. Association between time and economy and ecology metaphors
The dotted lines in Fig. 1(a) show the standardized numbers of economy and ecology metaphors in the four periods of the central collective leadership of the CPC. Upon further inspection, Fig. 1(b) shows the standardized numbers of economy and ecology metaphors aggregated on the 5-year level. Pearson’s correlation analyses show a significant positive association between time and the standardized number of economy and ecology metaphors (r = 0.51, p = 0.00; r = 0.80, p = 0.00), respectively. It is safe to say that economy and ecology metaphors have been generally increasing.
4.2.3. Association between time and source domains for economy and ecology
To further explore the relation between time and economy and ecology metaphors, Pearson’s correlation analyses were conducted between time and the relative percentage of metaphorical words in each source domain for economy and ecology.
The use of the domain living organism was found not to be significantly associated with time for both economy and ecology (r = −0.22, p = 0.19; r = 0.17, p = 0.30), war not to be associated with time for economy (r = −0.11, p = 0.47), and object not to be associated with time for ecology (r = −0.04, p = 0.79). Thus, there is no increase or decrease in their use over time. Next, the use of the domain object was found to be positively associated with time for economy (r = 0.34, p = 0.02), and building to be positively associated with time for ecology (r = 0.64, p = 0.00), which suggests that there is an increase in their use over time. Finally, the use of the domain building was found to be negatively associated with time for economy (r = −0.37, p = 0.01), and war to be negatively associated with time for ecology (r = −0.45, p = 0.00).
4.2.4. Source domains with fundamental changes: building and living organism – ecology
Upon closer inspection, the domain building was found to be used to conceptualize ecology for the first time in the GWR of 1988 and the domain living organism, in the GWR of 1998. To some extent, the emergence of new source domains could be regarded as fundamental changes in metaphor use. For instance, the word 建设 jianshe (‘construction’) in Example (2) literally means ‘the process of making roads, buildings and bridges’ and metaphorically refers to ‘the process of making something develop’. Thus, the target domain economy is conceptualized as a building being constructed, and the conceptual metaphor developing national economy is constructing a building is formulated. The word 卫生 weisheng (‘hygiene’) in Example (3) literally means ‘the practice of keeping clean in order to prevent illness and disease’ and metaphorically refers to ‘the practice of keeping clean to avoid being polluted’. Thus, the conceptual metaphor a clean environment is a person with good hygiene is formulated.
4.3. Differences in meanings of economy and ecology metaphors
As mentioned in Section 3.2, two indicators (metaphorical diversity and lexical abstractness) were examined to reveal possible incremental changes in GWRs. Table 2 presents an overview of the frequency of metaphorical types and MTTR in each source domain for economy and ecology.
MTTRs in different source domains for economy/ecology metaphors
Due to the great diversity of metaphorical types of each source domain for economy, this study followed Zeng et al. (Reference Zeng, Burgers and Ahrens2021) and used a cutoff cumulative percentage up to 60% as the criteria for determining the frequent metaphorical words related to economy (Table 3), while ecology metaphors are all presented here (Table 4).
High-frequency metaphorical types in different source domains for economy
Metaphorical types in different source domains for ecology
4.3.1. Source domains remaining mostly constant
4.3.1.1. war: economy and ecology
The source domain war for both economy and ecology has remained constant. There is no association between time and the MTTR in the source domain war for economy (r = 0.24, p = 0.17), and thus the metaphorical diversity has hardly changed. There is a significant negative association between time and the MTTR in the source domain war for ecology (r = −0.57, p = 0.00), because the token of the same metaphorical type 保护 (‘protect/protection’) has increased sharply after 2003. Moreover, nearly the same metaphorical types in war are used to refer to economy and ecology, respectively, before and after SOD (Tables 3 and 4), indicating that their physicality and specificity do not change noticeably. Therefore, the lexical abstractness has remained mostly unchanged.
For instance, the consistent use of 战略 (‘tactic/strategy’) in economy metaphors as shown in Examples (4) and (5) reflects the mapping ‘skills for economic success are military strategies’ (Sun et al., Reference Sun, Jin, Yang and Zhao2018), while the use of 保护 (‘protect/protection’) in ecology metaphors as shown in Examples (6) and (7) suggests the mappings ‘the protection of the natural environment is the protection of civilians’ lives in war’ (Sun et al., Reference Sun, Jin, Yang and Zhao2018) and preventing environmental damage is shielding from physical harm.
4.3.1.2. journey: economy
The source domain journey for economy has remained generally constant. There is no association between time and the MTTR in this domain (r = −0.22, p = 0.15), suggesting that the metaphorical diversity has hardly changed. In addition, similar metaphorical types are used to conceptualize economy both before and after SOD (Table 3), indicating little change in lexical abstractness. Specifically, the metaphorical types are highly specific, in that they refer to the process of economic process by means of an exact scene of journey, but relatively unphysical, as journey is still an abstract concept instead of a physical entity.
In addition, the comparison of the frequent metaphorical types before and after SOD shows that their semantic meanings have not changed. For example, the word 稳定 (‘stable’) literally means ‘fixed and not likely to move’, and metaphorically means ‘developing gradually and steadily’. It is used Examples (8) and (9) to conceptualize steady economic development as a journey, and the sub-mapping experiencing an economic status is being at a location is formulated. Moreover, the measures to achieve steady economic development are discussed in GWRs both before and after SOD, showing the Chinese government’s firm policy of ensuring stabilization as a major goal of economic growth.
4.3.1.3. object: economy
The source domain object for economy has remained generally unchanged. There is no association between time and the MTTR in object (r = −0.28, p = 0.06), in which metaphorical types in the sub-domain measurable object take up a large portion (Table 5). Consequently, the metaphorical diversity has remained unchanged. In addition, nearly the same metaphorical types are used both before and after SOD, indicating that the lexical abstractness has hardly changed. For instance, the word 增长 (‘increase/grow’), the most frequently used metaphorical type, literally means ‘to become or to make something greater in amount, number, etc.’ and metaphorically means ‘to develop or make progress’. It frequently co-occurs with words semantically related to ‘speed’ such as 速度 (‘speed’) and 快速 (‘high speed’), leading to emergence of mixed metaphors. In Example (10), economic development is conceptualized as a process of both increasing in amount or size and moving forward at some speed. Therefore, the mapping economy is a measurable object with amount and speed is established.
High-frequency metaphorical types in the domain object for economy
Specifically, metaphorical types in the sub-domain other objects (Table 5) are used to conceptualize economy as a physical object which can be pushed to move (推动, ‘push to move’) and can be in a state of balance (平衡, ‘balance’). Metaphorical types in the two sub-domains machine and natural object are also frequently used to conceptualize economy as a machine equipped with a lever (杠杆, ‘lever’) and natural environment (环境, ‘environment’), respectively. Generally, metaphorical types in machine are more lexically physical and specific than those from other sub-domains, but all these sub-domains of object have remained constant in GWRs over time.
4.3.2. Source domains with incremental changes
4.3.2.1. living organism: economy and ecology
Incremental changes were found in the source domain living organism for both economy and ecology. There is no association between time and the MTTR in the source domain living organism for economy (r = 0.03, p = 0.84), but the MTTR in the period of 2004–2022 (26.52%) did increase compared to that of 1978–2003 (15.45%). Thus, the metaphorical diversity has increased. Moreover, the meaning focus of metaphorical words in living organism varies before and after SOD. For example, the word 健康 (‘healthy’) is used to conceptualize economic functioning as human health in Example (11), while 伙伴 (‘partner/partnership’) is used to describe the economies within a region as partners in Example (12). The shift of meaning focus from the physical ‘human health’ to the unphysical ‘interpersonal relationship’ reveals that the physicality of metaphorical types has decreased, which further contributes to the decrease in lexical abstractness.
In addition, there is no association between time and the MTTR in the source domain living organism for ecology (r = 0.21, p = 0.18), but more metaphorical types are used in GWRs of 2004–2022 than in those of 1978–2003. Consequently, the metaphorical diversity has increased. The meaning focus of metaphorical words in living organism for ecology also seems to shift from ‘human health’ to ‘interpersonal relationship’, which is similar to that for economy. The word 友好 (‘friendly’) has been used since the initiative of constructing a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society was put forward in 2006, such as Example (13) representing the conceptual metaphor the relationship between man and environment is friendship. Therefore, the specificity has remained unchanged, but the physicality has decreased, indicating a decrease in the lexical abstractness.
4.3.2.2. building: economy and ecology
The source domain building for both economy and ecology has undergone incremental changes. There is a significant positive association between time and the MTTR in building for economy (r = 0.59, p = 0.00), indicating an increase in metaphorical diversity over time. The meaning focus of metaphorical words in this domain seems to shift from ‘the process’ to ‘the product’ of economic development. On the one hand, the frequency of the word 建设 (‘build’) has decreased after SOD. It literally means ‘to make a building by putting parts together’, and metaphorically means ‘to develop economy’ in GWRs. The conceptual metaphor developing economy is constructing a building is presented in Example (2). On the other hand, the frequencies of the words 结构 (‘structure’) and 布局 (‘layout’) have increased after SOD. The literal meaning of both words is ‘the way in which the parts of a building are arranged or organized’, and they are metaphorically used in GWRs to refer to ‘the arrangements of different economic sectors’. The conceptual metaphor to improve the arrangement of economy is to improve the structure of a building is formulated, as shown in Example (14). No significant change was observed in the physicality and specificity of metaphorical words in the source domain building. However, there is a shift of meaning focus from ‘developing economy’ to ‘improving the inner arrangement’ of economy, which possibly reflects the change in the policy orientation of the Chinese government after the formulation of SOD.
Moreover, there is no association between time and the MTTR in the source domain building for ecology (r = −0.25, p = 0.19), showing no noticeable change in metaphorical diversity. Four metaphorical types (建设 ‘construct/construction’, 工程 ‘project’, 修复 ‘renovate’, and 屏障 ‘parclose’) have been used consistently, and two more specific types (功能区 ‘function zone’ and 试验区 ‘pilot zone’) with a few tokens were added after SOD (Table 4), suggesting an increase in the specificity of metaphorical words in the source domain building, and thus an decrease of lexical abstractness. It reflects not only the consistent necessity of environmental protection but also the increasing importance attached to ecological construction by the Chinese government after SOD.
4.3.2.3. object: ecology
The source domain object for ecology has undergone relatively few incremental changes. There is a significant negative association between time and the MTTR in this domain (r = −0.41, p = 0.04), suggesting a decrease in metaphorical diversity. Two metaphorical types (治理 and 整治 ‘repair’)have been used continuously, taking up most of ecology metaphors in object both before and after the formulation of SOD (90%; 75%). Both words literally mean ‘repair and maintain’, and metaphorically mean ‘restoring the environment’ in GWRs. Therefore, the conceptual metaphor restoring the environment to good conditions is fixing a broken object is formulated. In addition, four more specific metaphorical types (压力 ‘pressure’, 承载能力 ‘carrying capacity’, 承受能力 ‘bearing capacity’, and 红线 ‘red line’) with a few tokens were added after SOD, conceptualizing environment as an object with bounded pressure/size (Example 15). It reflects the view that natural resources cannot be exploited beyond certain limits. Moreover, the specificity and physicality of metaphorical words in this domain do not change noticeably. Consequently, the lexical abstractness has remained generally unchanged.
5. Discussion and conclusion
This study explored general attention to topics of economy and ecology over time and diachronic changes of economy and ecology metaphors in GWRs (1978–2022). Firstly, attention to economy was found steadily decreasing while attention to ecology has been increasing in GWRs, which is in accordance with China’s development trends. China began to focus more on its economic development with the introduction of the reform and opening up policy in 1978 and gave more prominence to environment protection and ecological civilization with the formulation of SOD in 2003, and nowadays attaches equal importance to both economy and ecology because they represent two features of the Chinese path to modernization in the new era: common prosperity and harmonious coexistence between man and nature. This finding may add evidence to the claim that the shifts of government policies usually vary with the shifts of decision-makers’ attention (Jones, Reference Jones1994).
Secondly, the source domains object and living organism were found to be more significantly related to economy while building and war, to ecology. This finding is in line with those of Alejo (Reference Alejo2010) and Zeng et al. (Reference Zeng, Tay and Ahrens2020) on economy, and Stibbe (Reference Stibbe2015) on ecology. In addition, the increasing tendency of using metaphorical expressions to describe economy and ecology in GWRs may indicate the universal claim of ‘metaphors we live by’. Moreover, this finding corroborates the view that metaphor plays a vital role in understanding economy (McCloskey, Reference McCloskey1986) and ecology (human–environment relationships) (Stibbe, Reference Stibbe2015, p. 67) in the Chinese political discourse.
To find out diachronic fundamental changes, Pearson’s correlation analyses were conducted between time and the relative percentage of metaphors in each source domain for economy and ecology, respectively. There is an increase in the use of the source domain object for economy and building for ecology and a decrease in building for economy and war for ecology. To some extent, the choice of source domains when framing economy and ecology at a particular time can also reflect the focus of government attention. Specifically, the focus of China’s economic development has shifted from economic construction to maintaining the economic stability. Moreover, great efforts have been put into the process of environmental protection and ecological enhancement since 1980s in China.
Upon closer inspection of the use of different source domains over time, fundamental changes were found in ecology metaphors, indicated by the emergence of two source domains building and living organism. The use of the source domain building for ecology (protecting the environment is constructing a building) suggests that protecting the environment is a process as complex as constructing a building. In addition, describing ecological condition as the health of a human body may reflect China’s awareness of the importance of ensuring harmony between human and nature.
Thirdly, to examine diachronic incremental changes, metaphorical diversity and lexical abstractness in each source domain before the formulation of SOD in 2003 were compared with those after 2003. Incremental changes were not found in the source domains war, journey and object for economy, and war for ecology, adding evidence to the universal and conventionalized use of these source domains. For instance, war metaphors are so frequently used in public discourse to talk about various problems ranging from disease to pollution so that they have become very conventional (Flusberg et al., Reference Flusberg, Matlock and Thibodeau2018; Preux & Blanco, Reference Preux and Blanco2021). However, the war metaphors for economy emphasize ensuring economic interests and higher financial advantages, while those for ecology highlight the necessity of environmental protection. This discrepancy could be attributed to China’s attention to developing economy and improving ecology at the same time.
Incremental changes were found in the source domain living organism for both economy and ecology, and in object for ecology, suggesting transformations of specific ways to conceptualize both topics. For instance, the meaning focus of both economy and ecology metaphors in living organism seems to shift from ‘human health’ to ‘interpersonal relationship’ as indicated by the use of the words 伙伴 (‘partnership’) and 友好 (‘friendly’) after SOD. A possible explanation for this might be the profound influence from the ancient Chinese philosophy of putting people first.
The findings above show that metaphor use is arranged on a continuum of diachronic change, ranging from constant use to fundamental change, with varied degrees of incremental change between them (Table 6).
Changes in the source domains for economy/ecology
The source domains remaining constant are war, journey and object for economy, and war for ecology, which are three of the most common source domains (Kövecses, Reference Kövecses2010, p. 28). These findings further support the conventionality and universality of these frequently used source domains when conceptualizing economy and ecology not only in English contexts but also in the Chinese context. The source domains with incremental changes are living organism and building for economy, and object, journey and living organism for ecology. The source domains with fundamental changes are building and living organism for ecology because they were not used until 1988 and 1998, respectively. Particular choices of source domains and their diachronic variations reflect the Chinese government’s intention to highlight specific aspects of the two topics of economy and ecology.
Overall, this study has examined diachronic changes of economy metaphors and ecology metaphors. Results showed that both economy and ecology have received continuous attention in China’s GWRs from 1978 to 2022, and metaphors have been increasingly used to conceptualize both topics. Five major source domains, which are generally conventional and universal, are shared by economy metaphors and ecology metaphors. The ways of diachronic change of economy and ecology metaphors in GWRs formulate a continuum, with ecology metaphors experiencing more notable changes than economy metaphors. Another noticeable finding is that fundamental and incremental changes may occur in the same source domain during a certain period, indicating the pervasiveness and complexity of diachronic metaphor change. Taken together, these findings provide support for the hypothesis that metaphors in political discourse can reflect government attention selectively distributed to various issues. It can be further inferred that diachronic metaphor change may reveal government attention shifts, which are indicated by transformations of source domains or even more specific source-target mappings.
Generally, the present work contributes to the existing literature in three aspects. Firstly, this study may be one of the first attempts to examine the diachronic co-variance of government attention to different topics by adopting a metaphor-based approach. The findings support the claim of language-attention association in the field of cognitive discourse analysis. Secondly, this study has added two applicable indicators to previous studies on diachronic incremental and fundamental metaphor change. Thirdly, it provides understanding of diachronic metaphor change in political discourse outside the US and European contexts. The findings may add to growing evidence of the pervasiveness of metaphor change in political discourse across languages.
Admittedly, this study has a few limitations. Firstly, the study failed to collect GWRs published before 1978, and thus to have a complete picture of GWRs from the founding of the People’s Republic of China to the present. Secondly, this study has focused on metaphors in GWRs, and metonymies that are not discussed in this study may also influence the understanding of the topics of economy and ecology. Further research may compare diachronic metaphor change in Chinese and western contexts to gain a fuller understanding of metaphor use over time.
Data availability statement
All data for this study are available in the project’s OSF repository (https://osf.io/wcx26/).
Competing interest
The authors declare none.
