THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF LIFE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE PROPAGANDA SLOGANS

Abstract

 This paper sets out to examine the conceptualization of life, one of the most complicated concepts that require a number of domains to get mapped, in 600 English and Vietnamse propaganda slogans addressing social policies and purposeful activities in life, mostly collected from street banners and the Internet. The research is based on the principles of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003) and Metaphor Identification Procedure (Pragglejaz group, 2007; Steen, 1999, 2009). The study aims at finding the conceptual preferences that English-speaking people and Vietnamese people have for life and trying to justify the similarities and differences in the way life is conceptualized in the two languages from social and cultural perspectives. The results suggest that metaphors of life are frequently used in both English and Vietnamese slogans on an almost equal basis. Specifically, life is conceptualized as A LIVING ORGANISM, AN OBJECT, PATH-SCHEMA, BUILDING AND WAR/STRUGGLE and some other isolated domains. Though most source domains are fundamentally similar, the distribution and frequency of use, the number of metaphorical linguistic expressions and even the minor cases reveal a great deal of cultural variation, which is mostly connected with the history of Vietnam and Western countries, and the lifestyles of their people.