A Comparative Study of Emotion Metaphors between English and Chinese

Abstract

Abstract-Different from traditional linguistics which views metaphor as a means of rhetoric, cognitive linguistics holds that metaphor, instead of being a deviant phenomenon of normal language, is a way of thought and a powerful instrument of cognition. Because of the reason that the traditional linguistics failed to explain the essence of metaphor, the modern linguists began to do research on it from the perspective of language and philosophy. Metaphor has become an essential part in people's cognitive mechanism instead of being perceived as language phenomenon ever since the publication of masterpiece Metaphor We Live By contributed by Lakeoff and Johnson. In this thesis, cognitive linguistics approach is used to make a comparative analysis between the Chinese and English emotion conceptual metaphors. Conceptual metaphor, as an important concept in cognitive linguistics, refers to something internal, opening deep in human thought, such as ARGUMENT IS WAR and TIME IS MONEY. Emotions, as an important aspect of human experience, have been among the focuses of cognitive linguistics. Emotions are conceptualized and expressed in metaphorical terms. This thesis takes up emotion conceptual metaphors as its topic to study, trying to conduct a cross-linguistic research into the conceptualization of emotion concepts. Based on the analysis of linguistic data from English and Chinese, it tends to explore the similarities and differences between Chinese and English in terms of conceptual metaphors of the two most basic emotions including happiness and sadness.

Plant Metaphor of Love in English and Khowar: A Cross-Cultural Linguistic Study

“…Several studies have been conducted in the area of conceptual metaphors in English and other local languages in the context of the world. For example, research has been conducted to study emotion metaphors between English and Chinese (Liu & Zhao, 2013), the cultural basis of conceptual metaphors in Akan and English , conceptual metaphors in English and Shona (Machakanja 2006), a comparative study on basic emotion conceptual metaphors in English and Persian literary texts (Mashak, 2012). In addition, researches have been carried out to study the analysis of conceptual metaphors of selected emotions in the Slovak Language (Retova, 2008) and a cognitive study of happiness metaphors in English, Tunisian Arabic, and Spanish (Hamdi, 2015).…”

A metaphorical analysis of EFL writers’ views about writing in English

“…The literature represents multitudinous studies on various aspects and functions of metaphors. Metaphor is not only a linguistic tool, but also a matter of thought and action associated with close relations to physical environment, social values, culture, experiences, feelings and emotions of individuals as well (Kövecses, 2010;Lakoff & Johnson, 1980;Liu & Zhao, 2013). Thus, a metaphor is viewed as "not simply a figure of speech" but a "figure of thought" that helps understanding more complex topics or situations through mapping one experience in the words of another (Larsson, 2013).…”

The Conceptualisation of Diligence in Malay and Tamil Proverbs through the Hybrid Theory

“…For example, the proverbial elements used among the Malays and Indians may symbolise similar or different meanings. Previous studies on proverbs in two cultures have focussed on binary contradictions (Mohd Zin & Wan Idris, 2017), social aspects (Ragavan & Salleh, 2015), plant metaphors (Filipczuk-Rosinska, 2016) and animal metaphors (Liu & Zhao, 2013). There is a need for the study of proverbial data to go beyond lexical semantics.…”