Understanding And Comparing Chinese And English Idioms By Using The Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Language is the main tool for human communication. It functions as the social link between the members of a society and also with those from different societies. Communication is more than just an exchange of words and information. It is also a method for exchanging thoughts, ideas, feelings, and emotions. For those who wish to communicate with others in a foreign language, the challenge of understanding idioms of the target language is a huge obstacle to overcome towards fluency. A traditional view of idioms holds that idioms are not motivated and their formation is arbitrary. However, cognitive linguists suggest that some idioms make sense because they are motivated by conceptual structures that exist independently of language. Idioms are an important part of language and take on the feature of metaphor. Idioms, including many Chinese and English idiomatic expressions are generated from underlying conceptual metaphors. This paper will compare and contrast Chinese and English idioms to better understand the underlying metaphors, or in other words, the way of thinking of the target language. Both Chinese and English are languages which are rich in idiomatic expressions and metaphor. Idioms form a vitally important part of English and Chinese, however, they are sometimes very difficult to understand if one does not understand the culture and thinking behind these expressions. Both English and Chinese idioms are rich in history, culture, customs and consist of many set phrases and short sentences which are unique to their respective cultures and contain many ideas and aspects of the culture that are unique. Cognition refers to the central mental principles and processes that give structure, organization, and meaning to human experience and behavior (Thompson,1975). Each society provides its members with the patterned cultural information that enables them to understand their social and physical environment. Members of Chinese and American society, respectively, lack the natural understanding of the others patterned cultural information. When the underlying conceptual metaphors of idioms are better understood, and then the language learner can have a better understanding of the patterned cultural information or, way of thinking, of the target language and better relate ideas and expressions in terms of their native language. The author hypothesizes that a better understanding of the universal and culture specific cognitive processes that influence Chinese and English idioms may lead to improved language acquisition. The author puts forward to applying Cognitive Metaphor Theory to Chinese and English idiom teaching to increase teachers’ metaphor competence and students’ metaphorical awareness.