A Special Conceptual Metaphor-Name Metaphor

Metaphor had only been treated as a kind of rhetoric means during quite a long period of time.However the significance of metaphor and the important role it plays in our life have been noticed and dug into full depth as the time pass by.During the trend called Metaphormania after 1970s,Lakoff's conceptual metaphor came into being and became one of the most influential theories during this period.This theory, for the first time,related metaphor with people's thinking mode.However this interesting academic thinking was only proposed and developed on the English data base.As one of the most famous Chinese classic novels,The Story of the Stone is the crystallization of traditional cultures,the reflection of the richness of life and an encyclopedia of the old society.In the novel The Story of the Stone,Cao Xue-qin created more than 600 characters,among which more than 300 characters had names. Naming in this novel was one of the writing devices that aimed to describe characters and present theme.However name study based on the theory of conceptual metaphor is not so common.Though the research on this topic is hot,the emphasis is usually put on homonym.The author just wants to make a combination of the above two "However" in this thesis.So to sum up,this paper presents the discussion of name metaphor based on a Chinese literary work called The Story of the Stone from pure conceptual metaphor perspective.Based on theory requisite and data analysis,the author got following research fruits.+A WOMAN IS A FLOWER+,+A WOMAN IS A JEWELRY+,+A WOMAN IS A FINE BIRD+,+A WOMAN IS WATER+,+A WOMAN IS THE MOON+,+A WOMAN IS THE COLOR OF RED+,these are conceptual metaphors refined from names of female.Dig from names of male characters,the author found hidden conceptual metaphors such as +"文"IS OFFICIAL CAREER+,+"王"IS HIGH STATUS+,+"草"IS SUBORDINATE STATUS+.+ FLOWER AND STONE COMBINATION IS REAL LOVE + and + GOLD AND JADE COMBINATION IS THE FAKE MARRIAGE AFFIRNITY+ are extracted from the two name combinations in the novel.These hidden conceptual metaphors in the names partly inherited the traditional values,while partly violated them.During further exploration of their metaphorical grounds,the author found that beside the general cultural background,the classic poems and lyrics,myths and anecdotes provided richer soil for these name metaphors. And thanks to the rich soil,these names became the carrier of deeper connotation,and thus helped Cao Xue-qin to successfully portrait characters and display theme.The significance of this thesis is closely related with its research questions.The research questions may be concluded as follow:Based on the theory of conceptual metaphor to explore the inner concepts represented,and the cultural impact name metaphors imposed in the novel The Story of the Stone;Use these data in the novel as the Chinese language context to better illustrate the conceptual metaphor theory.So the main significance of this thesis lies in the new angle it takes.To research the names in The Story of the Stone from the conceptual metaphor perspective instead of other traditional angles,to find the inner meaning and hidden cultural significance of these names,to explore the metaphorical ground between the source and target domain of these name metaphors.Meanwhile,the significance of this thesis also lies in providing cross-cultural data base for the theory of conceptual metaphor,and thus to prove the theory's universality.