A Cognitive Analysis Of Metaphors In Lu Xun’s Na Han

With the publication of the book Metaphors We Live By, the study of metaphor entered into a new era. Metaphor is not only regarded as a device of imagination or a figure of speech, it is also viewed as a way of looking at the world and a way for human beings to think. The intrinsic nature of metaphor is a mapping from the source domain to the target domain, which is based on the comparison of the two. Besides, another factor which has an immeasurable influence on meaning, understanding and reasoning is human’s rich imagination. The present thesis intentionally applies these two kinds of imaginative structures----metaphorical mapping and image schema----to the analysis of the metaphors in Lu Xun’s Na Han. Due to the huge and dispersed language data in Lu Xun’s works, the thesis mainly focuses on the analysis of animal image metaphors----wolf and dog images in Lu Xun’s Na Han.Lu Xun was one of the greatest writers and social thinker of contemporary China, and his novel collection----Na Han is the model of Chinese literature. In most of his novels, Lu Xun inclined to use animals extensively and frequently to symbolize and metaphorize the characters so as to achieve a complimented or satirical effect on different kinds of intellectuals in that society. So according to the typicality and frequency of the appearance of animals, the present author selects two kinds of animals in Na Han as the objects of this study, i.e. wolf and dog, and take conceptual metaphor and image schema theory as theoretical foundation to make a systematic, comparative analysis of the image metaphor of the two animals.Through the comparative analysis of the images of wolf and dog, three major findings could be concluded as follows:1. Amongst the animal images in Lu Xun’s novels, the wolf image and dog image belong to two opposite animal image systems. The two animal images stand for two different kinds of intellectuals in Lu Xun’s novels----the wolf image metaphorizes the intellectuals with progressive thoughts, i.e. warriors in the spiritual world while the dog image stands for the slavish intellectuals.2. Grounded on the different traits of wolf and dog, their metaphorical images could be classified as follows:the wolf image can be metaphorized modern intellectuals against feudal ethical code, the wandered and lonely modern intellectuals and the staff and energetic intellectuals. The dog image can be metaphorized the protector of old cultural tradition and the unfair social orders.3. With the comparative analysis of wolf images and dog images, the present author reaches a conclusion that there is a very important image schema between these two animal images:up-down schema. No matter through the contrasts of wolf and dog’s external and internal traits in the real world, or through the different depict of the aspects of wildness, freedom between wolf and dog in the novels, or through the comparison of the different spirits, fates and Lu Xun’s attitudes towards them, there always exists a universal cognitive mechanism, that is up-down schema.Due to the limitations of the present author’s academic ability and the huge and dispersed language data of Lu Xun’s novels, the thesis is incapable of making an exhaustive research on all the metaphors in his novels. Thus from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, the present author chiefly focuses on the animal metaphors and analyzes the establishment and operation of the two typical images----wolf and dog. Hope the thesis has a reference function for future studies interrelated.