| The study of metaphor can be traced back to as early as Plato and Aristotle. Traditionally, metaphor is viewed as a kind of figure of speech and a matter of special and extraordinary language employed primarily in poetry. It is primarily decorative and ornamental in nature. Viewed as such, metaphors are not necessary; they are just nice. In contrast to the traditional view of metaphor, the cognitive linguistic view holds that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. In this sense, metaphor is not merely a figure of speech, but an important means of understanding the world and an essential way of conceptualizing experience. Conceptual metaphor, as an important concept in cognitive linguistics, allows us to understand a relatively complicated and abstract concept in terms of a more familiar and concrete concept. In the past few decades, extensive studies of conceptual metaphor have been conducted by cognitive linguists. A study from the perspective of Zhuang, however, has been left untouched. Idioms are indispensable to each language. So far idiom researchers have made substantial studies of idioms by. In the cognitive field, the past two decades have witnessed a trend of studying metaphor with idioms as linguistic data. The linguistic data of such study, however, has mainly been derived from English. Zhuang idioms, which can be a rich resource for research on conceptual metaphor, have remained an area almost uncultivated. The present thesis thus makes an attempt to conduct a contrastive study of the conceptual metaphors in dog idioms in English and Zhuang, aiming at providing a cross-cultural interpretation of the contemporary theory of metaphor and enriching the study of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) from a cross-cultural perspective. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the research objectives, methodology, and the general framework of the thesis. A brief introduction to Zhuang language and culture is also presented in this chapter. Chapter 2 is a literature review. It provides an overview of both the traditional and contemporary theories of metaphor and a summary of existing studies of conceptual metaphor, both internally and externally, with regard to China. Chapter 3 and chapter 4 constitute the main body of the thesis. Chapter 3 discusses the definitions and characteristics of English and Zhuang idioms. The present study maintains the definition of idioms in a broad sense. Chapter 4 presents a contrastive study of the conceptual metaphors in dog idioms in English and Zhuang. Based on the observation of the linguistic data in this thesis and with reference to Lakoff and K?vecses's theory on conceptual metaphor, the author finds that there are both similarities and differences in the conceptual metaphors in dog idioms in English and Zhuang. Based on the findings, a contrastive study is conducted and reasons accounting for the similarities and differences are carefully examined from the cognitive and cultural perspectives. Based on the analysis of the previous chapters, chapter 5 reaches the conclusions as follows: (1) The Conceptual Metaphor Theory is applicable to the contrastive study of English and Zhuang idioms. There are 11 conceptual metaphors in dog idioms in English and 10 in Zhuang respectively. (2) Similar experience or embodiment of the English and the Zhuangs gives rise to similar or identical conceptual metaphors in dog idioms in English and Zhuang. (3) Differences in the cultural models of English and Zhuang lead to different conceptual metaphors in dog idioms in English and Zhuang. The present thesis ends with the limitations of the present study and implications for further study. The present thesis makes a contrastive study of dog idioms in English and Zhuang from the viewpoint of conceptual metaphor instead of the traditional theory of metaphor. It has both theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, the present study verifies Lakoff and K?vecses's claim that conceptual metaphor is characterized by cognitive universality and cultural relativity, which is of great linguistic typological significance and enriches the study of conceptual metaphor from the perspective of Zhuang. Practically, this research carries the following significance: (1) It is helpful for promoting a better understanding of the English for the Zhuangs, and vice versa. (2) It presents a cross-cultural contrastive model in English idioms teaching in the Zhuang area. (3) It is enlightening in the translation between English and Zhuang.
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