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Chapter 1 Introduction
    Metaphor study is an old subject in linguistics, which can be traced back to Aristotle. Traditionally, it is always regarded as a device of poetic imagination and rhetorical flourish.
While in recent decades, cognitive linguistics gave a totally different explanation. It believes that metaphor is not just a rhetorical device or a characteristic of language but also a way of thinking which influences our daily life. Lakoff&Johnson (1980) argue that metaphor is ubiquitous in our life, not only exists in our language but also in thought and action.
Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. White holds that "The theory of Cognitive Linguistics outlined over the last couple of decades claims that metaphor permeates daily conventional language and that this same process underpins the language of all Abstract reasoning" (White, 2003:132). Therefore a deep research about metaphor in our language can provide a better way for understanding how we think in daily life.
    Since the Metaphors We Live By was published in 1980, metaphor research has attracted more and more attention. Some researchers focus on the general nature of metaphor while some others pay much more attention on the metaphor use in specific field such as economic, scientific and political discourse. Sports news report, as a special news style, not only gives precise description of the match process and the results but also presents vividly the atmosphere of the match with various kinds of writing skills. Among them, metaphor is an essential one. Therefore, sports news report should have been an attractive field for metaphor researcher. However, only a few studies on this field have been carried out and systematically contrastive study between different languages is rare. Therefore, this thesis takes 2010 World Cup, which, as one of the most popular world-wide sports matches, is attracting more and more people's interests and attention, as the data source and conducts a systematical comparison of metaphor use in Chinese and English. It will be of great significance in these following aspects:
    Firstly, present thesis will enhance readers' awareness of metaphor hidden in the reports and facilitate their understanding. Cheng (2005) has picked out 12 different kinds of metaphors in only three copies of randomly selected sports newspapers. Heavily-permeated metaphors would be the obstacle for readers' comprehension of reports. Therefore, a thorough study of metaphor in sports news can teach readers the ways in which conceptual metaphors are realized in Chinese and English. This, in some way, can improve their comprehension of the sports news.
    Secondly, as a contrastive study, this study can reveal the differences and similarities of metaphors used in Chinese and English reports on World Cup and pave way for further study. Beside, it will also be helpful of facilitating English learning and teaching. Denesi (1994) stated that the speech of second language learners often sounded non-native because of its literalness and absence of metaphors. Therefore, providing a thorough knowledge of metaphorical differences and similarit本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。