A Contrastive Study On Conceptual Metaphors Of “Flower” In English And Chinese Poetry

For the past thirty years, cognitive linguistics has developed rapidly, in which Conceptual Metaphor Theory(CMT) plays a significant role. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson hold the view that metaphors are primarily conceptual constructions of mapping from source domain to target domain based on human beings’ bodily experiences. The thesis presents distinctions between traditional and cognitive study on metaphors in nature. Traditional approaches consider metaphors as instruments to ornament language, while cognitive linguistics believes that metaphors are essential for humans to perceive, understand and conceptualize the world.There are a great number of “flower” metaphors in English and Chinese poems,which carry poets’ deep emotions and profound national cultures. The thesis selects and takes conceptual metaphors of “flower” as study objects, which are classified and analyzed under CMT’s working mechanism. The study discovers that: the distribution of the top two major “flower” metaphors is basically similar in English and Chinese poems, they are: DEVELOPMENT IS A FLOWER, FEMININITY IS A FLOWER,while other minor “flower” metaphors in English and Chinese poems take up different proportions. The amount of “flower” metaphors in Chinese poems are larger than those in English and the conceptual meanings of “flower” metaphors in Chinese poems are also richer than those in English. After summarizing similarities and differences of “flower” metaphors, the thesis makes a detailed analysis on causing factors of these similarities and differences from the perspective of the cognitive components of CMT: bodily experiences and cultural-dependent evaluations. Through deeply decoding their causing factors, the thesis reaches out to discuss during the poems’ production, how the multidimensional interaction takes place among the writer, readers, the textual world and the cognitive world. The thesis achieves to provide a new research angle in studying “flower” metaphors and some referential values in appreciating and adopting “flower” metaphors for English and Chinese learners.