A dynamic metaphor perspective on Trump and Xi's trade negotiation in governmental discourse

Xiaojuan Tan*, Alan Cienki*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This article investigates the evolution of U.S.-China trade negotiation in governmental discourse under the presidencies of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping (2017–2021). Paying attention to the development of the political context, we examine trade metaphor use in American and Chinese governmental texts from a dynamic metaphor perspective. Based on the three dominant patterns of metaphoricity activation in the Trump and Xi trade corpora, the analyses reveal that trade metaphors in these governmental texts involve dynamic cognitive (metaphoricity transformation), affective (sentiment development), and socio-political (attitude change) processes. Unlike Cameron's (e.g., 2007) finding that the dynamics of metaphor use at a micro timescale (e.g., minutes) contribute to the reconciliation of discourse participants at a macro timescale (e.g., years), the results show that metaphoricity transformation across a micro timeline (e.g., days, months) does not advance the reconciliation across a macro timeline (years). Although the Trump-Xi trade dispute decreased at the end of 2019, the analyses of dynamic metaphors show that bilateral antagonistic perspectives continued for years.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)42-53
Number of pages12
JournalLanguage and Communication
Volume96
Early online date4 Mar 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors

Funding

The first author would like to acknowledge the support of a research grant (number: 201907720033) from the China Scholarship Council and a scholarship (number: 20220611) awarded by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam . This work was also supported by a fellowship from The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) awarded to the second author.

FundersFunder number
Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
China Scholarship Council20220611

    Keywords

    • Affective development
    • Attitude change
    • Dynamic metaphor
    • Governmental discourse/corpora
    • Metaphoricity activation
    • Trade negotiation

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