A comparative study of trade metaphors across political genres during the U.S.-China trade war

Currently, applied metaphor analysis often focuses on metaphor use in a particular political genre of a single country, overlooking how metaphors legitimize dominant political ideologies across different political genres and different countries. This paper addresses this gap by proposing an innovative categorization of metaphorical functions to systematically examine how trade metaphors are used across three underexplored political genres to legitimize America’s populist-nationalist ideology of trade protectionism and China’s state-nationalist ideology of trade globalism during the U.S.-China trade war (2017–2021). The findings show that metaphor use varies by genre in the service of ideological legitimation. Quantitative analysis reveals that trade metaphors occur most frequently in the informational and persuasive textual genre (News Reports), less frequently in the involved and persuasive spoken genre (Remarks), and least in the abstract and formal textual genre (Policy Documents). Qualitative analysis further shows that the pragmatic functions of trade metaphors differ by genre in legitimizing trade ideologies. Trade metaphors in News Reports perform persuasive and offsite interactional functions; in Remarks, they serve persuasive and onsite interactional functions; in Policy Documents, they fulfill a textual function. These findings contribute to comparative metaphor analysis and comparative political discourse analysis by highlighting genre-dependent metaphor use. They also lay the groundwork for future research, including experimental studies on the real-world impact of trade metaphors across political genres. • This paper addresses the lack of cross-genre comparison in metaphor use. • It focuses on metaphorical functions across three underexplored political genres. • It examines how trade metaphors legitimize trade ideologies in China and the U.S. • The use of trade metaphors varies with communicative purposes of different genres. • Beyond persuasive functions, trade metaphors serve interactional or textual roles.