A Comparative Study On The Emotional Metaphor Of Idiomatic Phrases In Thai And Chinese

Emotion is one kind of human life spirit. Life without emotion is like a walking corpse; a world without emotion is like a black-and-white film, fly in the ointment and without emotional thinking, great literature, music, and other artistic creations wouldn't have been existed in the world. Emotion has added some perfection to verbal expressions. In each verbal expression, human beings can feel the existence of emotion, whether it is a fix-pattern idiom with profound meaning, or a user-friendly proverb with rich grass rooted culture.Various kinds of vehicles are adopted by human beings during oral communications to metaphorize the speakers'inner emotions so that their expressions can be vivid and fully show their emotions. The case is also the same with idiomatic phrases, the metaphors in which can foil on the different emotional characteristics. Each country has its own idiomatic phrases and both similarities and differences among idioms of different countries. Differences exist between Chinese and Thailand in their history, natural environment, social background, customs, etc. Therefore, the value system in understanding basic emotional feelings and social emotions are different, which further leads to differences in the literal meaning and actual meaning of emotional idiomatic phrases.The cultural differences between the two countries also lead to the transfer of native language in Thai students'understanding of the idiomatic phrases. Therefore, the author chooses the emotional metaphor of idiomatic phrases in both Thai and Chinese as the research subject. By way of description and analysis of the emotional idiomatic phrases in the two languages the author adopts the comparison method to further explain the concept and cultural background in choosing different vehicles.The current thesis is composed of altogether five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction, introducing the rationale I choosing the topic, the research trend, research value, research scope, the theoretical framework and method. In chapter two, the essence of metaphor and emotion are discussed. Chapter three gives a general picture of the Thai idiomatic phrase system. The basic concepts of idiomatic phrases in Thai are firstly explained. Then, features of the Thai idiomatic phrases are explored, which is followed by a general introduction to the Chinese idiomatic phrase system. Chapter four is the comparative analysis of emotional metaphors of idiomatic phrases in Thai and Chinese. And chapter five further analyzes the comparison of the social metaphors of idiomatic phrases in the two languages. In chapter six, the phenomenon of Thai students'mistaken use of emotional metaphor in Chinese idiomatic phrases is further discussed. And the last chapter is the conclusion part.It is a focused topic of both metaphor and comparative linguistics that researching the emotional value of vehicles by way of comparing the emotional idiomatic phrases in Thai and Chinese. Therefore, by the comparative research on the emotional metaphors in idioms of the two languages, the current study intends to shed some light on this particular topic.