ABOUT SOME COMMON SOURCE DOMAINS IN BARACK OBAMA'S INAUGURAL SPEECH
Main Article Content
Abstract
This article investigates Barack Obama's inaugural speech of January 20, 2009, with the aim of systematically identifying, describing, and analyzing a number of prominent conceptual metaphors grounded in frequently occurring source domains. The Metaphor Identification Procedure (Pragglejaz Group, 2007) is adopted as the primary analytical instrument for the identification of conceptual metaphors. The identified metaphors are subsequently described, classified, and interpreted within the theoretical framework of the relationship between thought, language, and culture. The findings demonstrate that the common source domains employed include HUMAN, JOURNEY, BULDING, WAR, PLANT and ANIMAL, and WEATHER, thus shedding light on the role of source domains in governing the processes of conceptualization and categorization. The results of this study are intended to advance scholarly inquiry into conceptual metaphors in political discourse.
Keywords
source domain, inaugural speech, conceptual metaphor, conceptualization, categorization
Article Details
References
2. Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan.
3. Goatly, A. (1997). The Language of Metaphors. Routledge.
4. Goatly, A. (2007). Washing the Brain: Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
5. Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation. Cambridge University Press.
6. Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A Practical Introduction (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
7. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980, 2003). Metaphors We Live By. The University of Chicago Press.
8. Luu, D. P. (2025). Conceptual metaphors in Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural speech. Ho Chi Minh City Open University Journal of Science - Social Sciences, 16(8), 100-112. https://doi.org/10.46223/HCMCOUJS.soci.en.16.8.4791.2026.
9. Moustafa, S., Nagi, S., Fathalla, N., Mohamed, A., & Mohamed, S. (2021). An analysis of the use of metaphor in Barack Obama's inaugural speech of January 20, 2009. Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry (TOJQI), 12(8), 5195-5204.
10. Nguyen, T. N. N. (2014). Phan tich an du trong dien ngon chinh tri cua My [Analysis of metaphor in American political discourse]. Journal of Language and Life, 1.
11. Nguyen, T. V. A. (2020). Phan tich dien ngon phe phan bai phat bieu nham chuc cua Tong thong My Barack Obama nam 2009 [Critical discourse analysis of President Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address]. Journal of Lexicography and Encyclopaedia, 3.
12. Nguyen V. H & Nguyen H. A. (Trans.). (2016). Dan luan ngon ngu hoc tri nhan [Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics]. Hanoi National University Press.
13. Nguyen X. H. (2019). Ve mot so mien nguon pho bien trong dien ngon chinh tri tieng Anh [About some common source domains in English political discourses]. Journal of Science, Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, 16(1).
14. Nguyen X. H. & Huynh T. B. P. (2020). Ve anh xa nguon - đich trong dien ngon chinh tri tieng Anh My [About source-to-target mappings in American English political discourse]. Journal of Lexicography and Encyclopaedia, 2(70).
15. Pragglejaz Group (2007). MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse. METAPHOR AND SYMBOL, 22(1), 1–39
16. Pilar, M. G. E. (2011). Barack Obama's inaugural address: Metaphor and values as captivating strategies to celebrate a presidency. Pragmalinguistica, 19, 44-55.
17. Risdianto, F. (2016). The use of metaphor in Barack Obama's inauguration speech. Language Circle: Journal of Language and Literature, 10(2).
18. Rosch, E. (1973). Natural categories. Cognitive Psychology, 4, 328-350.
19. Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B. B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and Categorization (pp. 7-48). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
20. Steen, G. J. et al. (2010a). Metaphor in Usage. Cognitive Linguistics 21-4 (2010), pp. 765-796.
21. Trinh Sam. (2016a). Pho quat va đac thu thong qua mot so mien y niem nguon [Universality and specificity through some conceptual source domains]. Journal of Language, 10.
22. Trinh Sam. (2016b). An du y niem va nhung van đe con lai [Conceptual metaphor and remaining issues]. Journal of Language and Life, 12(254), 1-5.
23. Trinh Sam. (2019). Li thuyet nghiem than nhin tu thuc tien tieng Viet [Embodiment theory viewed from Vietnamese linguistic practice]. Journal of Language, 1(356), 24-38.
24. Urbonaitė, J., & Šeškauskienė, I. (2007). HEALTH metaphor in political and economic discourse: A cross-linguistic analysis. Studies About Languages, 11.
25. Żołnowska, I. (2011). Weather as the source domain for metaphorical expressions. Avant: The Journal of the Philosophical-Interdisciplinary Vanguard, 2(1).