Metaphor Construction of Environmental Issues in Chinese and American News Media

Environmental issues are of great concern for all humankind as they greatly influence the survival of all living creatures and the globe. These issues covered by the news media constantly show the readers what to see and how to see them. Thus, determining the key environmental issues in the news is a worthwhile study to find the focus of the media that drives the readers’ attention. To further analyze these issues, conceptual metaphors are taken as the entry point as they are an essential cognitive activity in constructing concepts.

The current study takes news from China Daily and The New York Times as research materials. With a content analysis of the key environmental issues and a critical metaphor analysis of metaphor construction of these issues, this study finds that both media cover a wide range of environmental issues but have distinct focuses on some issues due to the countries’ policies and attention to them. Regarding metaphor constructions, news in the “Creatures” and “Climate change” categories are further analyzed. It is revealed that the Chinese media constructs a good image of animal protection and clean energy promotion through metaphors. In contrast, the American media contains more metaphors constructing the competing relationship between creatures and the severe condition of climate change. This study proposes that how metaphors construct environmental issues has a role in influencing people’s perception of issues of concern to them.