迄今为止，隐喻研究已经有几千年的历史。来自不同领域的专家和学者对隐喻研究的兴趣与日俱增。对于隐喻本质的认知，认知语言学家认为隐喻不仅是语言层面上的表征，更是人们思维模式的体现。本研究中，隐喻概念是基于认知语言中的隐喻概念，即隐喻即是一种语言表达的方式，更是一种思维方式和认知手段。概念隐喻理论在隐喻研究中的重要地位和深远影响毋庸置疑。但是概念隐喻理论也有其不足。首先，建立概念隐喻理论的语料不是来自大型的语料库检索。很多语料缺乏具体的使用语境，甚至是编造出来的。因此它的系统性、科学性和真实性越来越受到质疑。其次，概念隐喻理论没有鉴别隐喻表达的标准和步骤。隐喻鉴别往往是基于研究者的主观判断，结果往往不够客观和可靠，同时无法检验。 针对以上不足，本研究旨在研究真实语境中自然语篇中的隐喻形式及功能。本研究考察英国媒体中关于伦敦2012奥运会报道中的隐喻表征。概念隐喻理论作为本研究的理论框架之一。词汇层面的隐喻识别以及语义层面上的隐喻源域归纳均参照概念隐喻理论。此外，话语分析相关理论应用于隐喻在语篇中功能的描述。除了语料库技术中的关键词、频率、及对齐等手段之外，本研究还进行了语义标注。区别于以往的新闻语篇中隐喻研究，本研究对所选取的新闻语篇进行三个维度的分析。第一个维度是基于词汇层面，即描述和总结隐喻词汇及其搭配。第二个维度是基于语义层面，即归纳和比较国内新闻和体育新闻两个语体中隐喻的源域使用。第三个维度是基于语篇层面，即描述隐喻在语篇中的组篇类型及其语篇功能。本研究中使用的语料来自新闻文本。本研究以英国2012伦敦奥运为主题，选取《英国卫报》和《每日电讯报》中国内新闻、体育新闻和观点评述三种语体。语料收集的时间段设置为2011年7月27日至2012年4月18日。语料库命名为伦敦2012奥运会语料库。研究的主要问题是：伦敦2012奥运会在英国媒体中是通过什么样的隐喻方式表征的？即，伦敦2012奥运会在英国媒体中是通过哪些隐喻词汇表征的？伦敦2012奥运会在英国媒体中是通过哪些语义范畴或隐喻源域表征的？隐喻在构建伦敦2012奥运会新闻语篇中的组篇类型有哪些、体现的语篇功能是什么？研究主要发现：第一，隐喻词汇层面分析。基于第三章中隐喻识别结果，共五组词汇被选为关键词，分别考察这五组词汇在国内新闻、体育新闻以及观点评论三种语体中的使用频率和搭配。研究发现：第一，新闻语篇使用了较多的隐喻表达式。第二，在隐喻词汇表达中，动词的使用率较高，其次是介词和形容词。这一点不同于以往的隐喻研究发现。以往的隐喻研究发现隐喻词汇表达中使用频率最高的是名词。总结的词汇搭配有助于字典编撰以及扩充隐喻词汇表。第二隐喻语义层面分析。运用英国兰卡斯特大学计算机系开发的语义标注工具，对伦敦2012奥运会语料库进行语义标注。对语义标注结果进行关键性统计处理，归纳概括使用频率较高的语义范畴。参照概念隐喻理论，总结出伦敦2012奥运会语料库中常见的源域。研究结果表明：在《英国卫报》和《每日电讯报》中的国内新闻部分，使用的隐喻源域涉及的语义范畴包括：语言交流, 移动位置运输, 建筑房屋住宅, 社会行为, 大小, 情绪。体育新闻部分，使用的隐喻源域涉及的语义范畴包括：成功与失败，竞争，强硬及困难，大小，战争，限制，语言交流, 移动位置运输, 建筑房屋住宅，植物。此外，对于语义范畴关键性产后背后的原因也进行了初步探讨。研究发现，伦敦2012奥运会新闻报道中的语义范畴关键性主要是基于少数词汇类型。第三隐喻语篇层面分析。选取了伦敦2012奥运会语料库中的10篇文本，描述、分析其中的隐喻组篇类型及其语篇功能。研究发现战争隐喻在语篇中被大量使用。战争隐喻的使用对语篇内部以及语篇之间的衔接和连贯起到重要作用。战争隐喻涉及的主题包括运动员为2012奥运会而进行各种赛前准备。战争隐喻与其他类隐喻共同作用语篇。其他类型隐喻包括电影、表演、移动、食物、大小、形状、身体部位、书、疾病等。特别是书籍隐喻以及疾病隐喻体现了新闻语篇在语言使用上的特点。在隐喻的组篇类型方面，隐喻词汇的重复及同义词使用是最突出的两类组篇类型。不同隐喻构成的隐喻集合或者隐喻链条也是比较常见的隐喻组篇类型。隐喻词汇复现及隐喻链条的使用主要用于语篇的组织和构架。在语篇开头出现的隐喻集合往往用于为文章接下来探讨的主题提供框架。在语篇结尾出现的隐喻集合主要用于总结文章内容。隐喻集合和隐喻链条相互作用，贯穿语篇始终。有时也起到对语篇主题或某个概念深入详实解析的作用。

The study of metaphor has been of great interest to researchers in different disciplines for centuries. Regarding the nature of metaphor, cognitive linguists claim that metaphor is not just a surface decoration of language, but a phenomenon of human thought involving the interactions between language with perception, and memory and reasoning. In this study, metaphor is defined as the way people talk and potentially think about something in terms of something else (Semino, 2008).Despite its importance and great influence, there are two main deficiencies in Conceptual Metaphor Theory: the first one relates to the linguistic metaphor examples employed. Most of the linguistic metaphor examples were decontextualized or constructed. The second one is that there is no explicit and objective method for metaphor identification. To cope with these shortcomings, the current study aims to explore how metaphor is used in real world situations in terms of its form and function by combining different methodological approaches. To be specific, this study carries out researches on metaphorical representations of London 2012 Olympic Games in British media. Conceptual Metaphor Theory is used as the theoretical framework for metaphor identification and classification. Furthermore, discourse analysis is applied in the metaphor interpretation. Apart from the lexical approach in corpus-based metaphor study, a semantic annotation is also employed. This study is a multidimensional study, which carries out a three-level analysis, that is, the lexical level, the semantic level and the discourse level. The lexical level mainly focuses on the description of the metaphorically used lexical units and the exploration of their collocations in the context. The semantic level analysis aims to generate the key semantic domains applied in the representation of London 2012 Olympic Games Corpus across the sub-genres. The discourse level works on the depiction of metaphorical patterns and the interpretation of their functions in the context.News texts are the data under study in this thesis. In this study, the newspaper articles are collected under the topic of London 2012 Olympic Games from two British national daily newspapers (The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph). Three sections have been chosen for the study: home news, sports and opinion. The period ranged from July 27th 2011 to April 18th 2012. The whole corpus consists of 390,000 words. The common corpus techniques including keywords, concordances, frequency, as well as the semantic annotation are used in data description. The main research question of this thesis is: how is the London 2012 Olympic Games metaphorically represented in the British media? This broad level research question can be further divided into three minor questions: (1) How is the London 2012 Olympic Games metaphorically represented in the British media at the lexical level? (2) What are the common semantic domains employed in each sub-genre and across sub-genres? (3) What kinds of metaphorical patterns are adopted and what are their functions in the London 2012 Olympic Games discourse?The main findings of the research include: the lexical level analysis reveals the linguistic facts on the use of each word in its metaphorical sense. According to the frequency, there are five groups of identified metaphorically-used words chosen as the inquiry terms: the first group is the group of delexicalized verbs, including make, take, come, go and their inflectional forms and derivational forms; the second group is the group of functional words, such as up, in, on, under; the third group is made up by words as home, live in, house, seat and host. The third group is highly related to the status quo of London being the hosting country for 2012 Olympics. The fourth group is the group of adjectives, which consists of words like key, difficult, hard, tight, big, huge, giant, massive, top, hot, tough, strong and their comparatives and superlatives. Besides, another two words peak and heat are also included in the third group. The last group is the group of verbs, including secure, block, hit, blow, develop, deliver, emerge, evolve, follow, hold, face, enter, flow, launch, count, balance, embrace, serve, defend and their inflectional forms and derivational forms. Concordances of these candidates are examined in each sub-genre and comparisons are made across sub-genres. In the analysis of the results, it seems that news is a relatively typical discourse with a high frequency of metaphorical language. According to Biber (1988), news reports are characterized by a prominent use of nouns, prepositions, or adjectives. However, metaphorical nouns are not prominent in the London 2012 Olympic Games Corpus. In contrast, metaphorically used verbs, adjectives and prepositions are more common. The semantic level analysis studies the key semantic domains in the representation of London 2012 Olympic Games. The common source domains shared by both The Daily Telegraph news and The Guardian news include: “Linguistic actions, states & processes”; “Movement, Location, Travel & Transport”; “Architecture, Buildings, Houses & The Home”; “Social Actions, States & Processes”; “N3.2+++ Size: Big”; “E3- Violent/ Angry”. In Sports the common semantic categories shared by both newspapers are: “X9.2+ Success”; “X9.2- Failure”; “X9.2 Success and Failure”; “S7.3+ Competitive”; “S7.3 Competition”; “S1.2.5+ Tough/strong”; “S1.2.5+++ Tough/strong”; “N3.2++ Size: Big”; “N3.2- Size: Small”; “N3.2+ Size: Big”; “G3 Warfare, defence and the army; weapons”; “A1.7+ Constraint”; “Linguistic actions, states & processes”; “Movement, Location, Travel & Transport”; “Architecture, Buildings, Houses & The Home”; “L3: Plants”. This broad level analysis could help to discover the possible differences in metaphor use between the two newspapers in their respective news and sports genres. One step further, doing a detailed study on the word types could help to reveal the forms of metaphor employed. Furthermore, the frequencies of different word types within a source domain could tell us something about the reasons for that domain’s keyness. What has been found from the current study is that it is the high frequency driven by a small number of word types that account for the domain keyness.The discourse level analysis shows WAR metaphor is prevailing through the texts. The use of WAR metaphor in one single text or across different texts contributes to textual cohesion. WAR metaphor in the sample analysis mainly deals with the topic that athletes compete for their qualification for the 2012 Olympics. WAR metaphor in the sample texts normally scatters through the whole text and interacts with other metaphors in one way or another. There are other metaphors interwoven with WAR metaphor in the development of texts. The source domains summarized from the sample analyses include: MOVIE, PERFORMANCE, MOVEMENT, FOOD, SIZE, SHAPE, FIRE, JOURNEY, BODY PARTS, BOOK, and ILLNESS. For the BOOK metaphor, ILLNESS metaphor and BODY PARTS metaphor, it is not used across texts. However, it could be used to illustrate the point that media discourse is good at playing words. With regards to the patterns of metaphor in text, repetition and recurrence are the two common textual phenomena. Metaphor clusters and metaphor chains are also applied quite often. In relations to the functions of these patterning, recurrence and metaphor chains indicate how the text is structured or how a topic is addressed. Metaphor clusters or metaphor chains at the beginning of the text tend to provide an overall view or “frame” the arguments to be discussed. Metaphor clusters or metaphor chains appearing at the end of the text normally function as a summary of the whole text. Metaphor chains or metaphor clusters scatter in the course of text and interact with each other. Sometimes, it performs the function of echoing or making further elaborations. Metaphor extension is not broadly employed in the sample texts.