Positive referential meaning and color metaphor bring beauty: Evidence on aesthetic appraisal of ancient Chinese character from Han, Bai, and Yi ethnic groups

Embodiment of color metaphor: an image-based visual analysis of the Chinese color terms hēi ‘black’ and bái ‘white’

“…Nonetheless, the three-dimensional color perception theory cannot explain why the two meanings 'Free of charge/Cost-free' (lack of cost) and 'In vain/For no reason' (lack of outcome) have opposite emotional valence given that both senses seem to be metaphorically grounded in the same perceptual propertyabsence of hue; nor can it explain why the sense 'In vain/For no reason' is not metaphorically associated with hēi instead, since the black color also shares the perceptual propertyabsence of hueand even the consistent negative valence with the meaning. We speculate that cultural connotations of white and black in the Chinese context (i.e., Zhang et al, 2022) may provide a possible clue for these questions since conceptual metaphors can be understood as a cognitive-cultural phenomenon (Kövecses, 2015). The white color is traditionally plain and sad, and thus it may denote something easy (without cost) and undesirable (without outcome).…”

Animal Metaphors in Indonesian and English

“…Through the concept of metaphor, the idea of linguistic relativism which states that each language has a unique conceptual framework (idiosyncrasy) and differs from other languages becomes clearer and brighter-especially as entering the second phase of the meaning process of a linguistic element that is highly dependent on other elements outside the language. Just like the construction of colour metaphors that has elements of universal similarity and elements of distinctiveness that can only be found in one of the languages (Wijana, 2015;Zhang et al, 2022), animal metaphors in Indonesian and English also have three contrastive elements in them: elements of universality of form and meaning, elements of universality of meaning albeit distinct forms, and elements of distinctiveness that only exist in each language. The element of universality of form and meaning shows that despite being two different languages, the mindsets and perceptions of two different groups of language speakers still have a common thread to harmonise language expressions-even though in some other points, the perceptions are completely different between speakers of one language and those of another language, thus creating different forms of linguistic expression.…”