Metaphorical Frames in Fertility Policy Discourse in China’s Government Media: A Cognitive Corpus-based Study

Abstract Book of the 12th International Conference on Social Sciences, Humanities and Education

Year: 2026

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Metaphorical Frames in Fertility Policy Discourse in China’s Government Media: A Cognitive Corpus-based Study

Haiou Liu

ABSTRACT:

This study explores the strategic deployment of deliberate metaphors within Chinese fertility policy discourse, focusing on the titles of the reporting of government media China Population News from 2013 to 2022. Drawing on Steen’s (2008, 2023) deliberate metaphor theory (briefly DMT) and four-dimensional model, it analyzes metaphorical operation across linguistic form, conceptual structure, referential ontology, and communicative function. Through in-depth analysis of a self-built corpus in LancsBox 5.5.1, a triad of dominant conceptual frames have been identified: PATH, which construes governmental policies measures as moving entities toward teleological milestones, emphasizing progress and goal-directed action; ARCHITECTURE that foregrounds the authority’s fundamental role and structural stability; and ARTIFICIAL OBJECT, which reifies policy measures as a toolkit of instrumental precision. While these frames converge to render state intervention both imperative and inevitable, this study also identifies instances of resistance in public discourse, revealing palpable friction between institutional metaphorical framing and public interpretation. By integrating deliberate metaphor theory into fertility policy analysis, this research advances cognitive-linguistic approaches to metaphor in policy discourse and provides empirical insights into the cognitive and social mechanisms through which fertility governance is construed in contemporary China.

Keywords: Deliberate Metaphor, Fertility, Policy, Metaphoric Frame