| This study mainly focuses on the metaphorical expressions containing body part term "ear" in Chinese and English. Contemporary cognitive linguists hold the view that metaphor is a cognitive activity in essence rather than a figure of speech. Metaphors, especially the metaphors of body part terms, play a very important role in categorization, conceptualization and reasoning. Therefore, many domestic and foreign scholars are attracted.This thesis adopts the methodology of integrating both the introspective analysis and corpora. For the purpose of avoiding high subjective analysis, a great deal of linguistic data is collected. They are mainly from the corpus BNC and the corpus CCL. Based on the corpora, Chinese and English dictionaries help with analyzing each group of the metaphorical expressions containing body part term "ear". Through the analysis under specific contexts and cultures, it is concluded that the metaphorical expressions containing body part term "ear" share the same conceptual metaphors in Chinese and English:EAR AS OBJECT, EAR AS ABILITY, EAR AS MIND, EAR AS ATTITUDE AND EMOTIONE, EAR AS ACTION, and EAR AS BODY. However, some differences under each mapping cannot be ignored.Through the overall analysis, this thesis reaches the conclusion that the mappings of body part term "ear" in Chinese and English have similarities and differences, the two major forms are:1) similar expressions with similar meanings; 2) different expressions with similar meanings.These metaphors are based on human's common bodily experience. Therefore, it's possible that people from different cultures can be understood. This paper contributes to the cross-cultural study and communication between Chinese and English.
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