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2.1 Previous Studies of Commencement Speeches

A commencement speech is a type of speech that is delivered by university presidents,celebrities,or alums for graduating students.The purpose of commencement speeches is tocelebrate past experiences from the school and look forward to the future.A commencementspeech should inspire students once they step into the social world.This speech is to simplyprepare students to see the bigger picture.The universities hope to emphasize their teachingphilosophy and guide students to identify their social roles through commencement speeches.Accordingly,commencement speakers not only need to share their own attitudes and feelingswith graduates,but more importantly,they should represent their universities to communicatethe educational philosophy of universities.

2.1.1 Foreign Studies of Commencement Speeches

Foreign studies of commencement speeches have been conducted from various aspects.First,the values in commencement speeches are discussed by foreign researchers.Roberts(1987)pointed out that a commencement speaker should not only talk about factual matters but sharehis or her views with the audience.Robert’s research has established that both facts and personalvalues are delivered in commencement speeches.In addition,values and messages included incommencement speeches are further researched by Partch and Kinnier(2011).Using contentanalysis,Partch and Kinnier(2011)extracted values and messages from 90 American university commencement speeches delivered between 1990 and 2007.They found that messages passed bycommencement speeches are undergirded in light of contemporary American societal values andsex role expectations.Admittedly,their research on commencement speeches contributes to whatvalues and messages are included in commencement speeches.

2.2 Previous Studies of Conceptual Metaphors

Conceptual metaphors in commencement speeches have been intensively studied at home,which shows the essential roles conceptual metaphors play in commencement speeches to somedegree.In order to have a comprehensive understanding of conceptual metaphors,the existingresearch on conceptual metaphors at home and abroad will be reviewed in this part.

2.2.1 Foreign Studies of Conceptual Metaphors

The concept of conceptual metaphors could be traced back to the publication of MetaphorsWe Live By,written by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980.They held different pointsfrom traditional views on metaphors which mainly claimed that metaphors were a kind ofrhetorical device or just an extraordinary characteristic of language at that time.Instead,basedon some linguistic evidence,they found that“metaphor is pervasive in everyday life,not just inlanguage but in thought and action,and our ordinary conceptual system is fundamentallymetaphorical in nature”(Lakoff&Johnson,1980:3).Since then,the peripheral position ofmetaphors has been changed.As a result,the metaphor,which potentially plays a central role inconceptual systems,gets more and more attention from researchers.Lakoff and Johnson(1980)claimed that“the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing interms of another”(p.5).The thing to be understood is called the“target domain”and the thinghelping to understand the“target domain”is called the“source domain”.

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