Cognitive Models For "Marriage":Metaphor Analysis Based On Chinese And English Data

Marriage is an ever-lasting topic for humanities and social sciences. In the past, scholars were trying to discuss this topic from literature, law, anthropological and psychological points of view. From the linguistic perspective, people endeavored to offer a clear definition for marriage, yet no satisfactory definition of marriage was given by scholars home and abroad.The development of cognitive science offers us new perspectives in the understanding of marriage. Various hypotheses were proposed by cognitive scientists, concerning the working mechanism of the human brain. Against the cognitive shifts background, metaphor theory was made breakthrough. This dissertation aims to investigate the cognitive models for marriage based on metaphor theory and the latest developments of the theory.Two questions are supposed to be answered:1) How is the concept of marriage constructed metaphorically in Chinese and English respectively?2) Are there any basic and coherent cognitive models for marriage embedded in the marriage metaphors?For the first research question, MIP proposed by Pragglejaz Group is adopted to identify the metaphorically used words in our linguistic data, which derive from interviews, marriage advice columns, films and essays. Then the source domains of marriage metaphor are extracted and classified; For the second research question, Grady’s Primary Metaphor Theory and Kovecses’s Cognitive-Cultural Theory of Metaphor are applied in extracting cognitive models for marriage embedded in those metaphors. The main findings for this research are as follows:First, when marriage is treated as a whole, conceptual metaphor MARRIAGE IS PRIVATE POSSESSION can only be found in English data whereas MARRIAGE IS COOKING APPLIANCE AND MATERIALS can only be found in Chinese data. Other conceptual metaphors are shared in Chinese and English; When marriage is treated as a kind of relation, conceptual metaphors MARRIAGE IS POSSESSIVE RELATION, MARRIAGE IS HOST-GUEST RELATION and MARRIAGE IS MASTER-SERVANT RELATION can only be found in Chinese data, whereas MARRIAGE IS RELATION BETWEEN TEAMMATES can only be seen in English data. Other conceptual metaphors are shared in Chinese and English. Second, when marriage is treated as a whole, cognitive models embedded in marriage metaphors include:marriage is pre-conditioned, marriage is difficult, marriage has constraint and exclusive power, marriage is secular, marriage is risky, marriage is hypocritical, marriage is effortful. Among these,"marriage is secular" is less prevalent in English thinking; When marriage is treated as a kind of relation, cognitive models embedded in marriage metaphors include:marriage is united relation, marriage is intimate relation, marriage is mutually-beneficial relation, marriage is harmonious relation, marriage is competitive relation, marriage is compatible relation, marriage is dominant and submissive relation. Among these,"Marriage is dominant and submissive relation" is less prevalent in English thinking.To sum up, many of the cognitive models are shared in Chinese and English thinking, though certain differences exist. This study tries to give explanations for those differences.