On The STUDY Concept From The Conceptual Metaphor Theory In The Chinese Language

Metaphor study has long been attracting the interests of different scholars who have made their research on this topic from different perspectives and thus proposed different theories. Traditionally it was viewed as a matter of language, as a linguistic phenomenon used for some artistic and rhetorical purpose. According to this view, metaphor is primarily decorative and ornamental in nature. But the contemporary cognitive theory which was first developed by Lakoff and Johnson in 1980 in their book Metaphors We Live By claimed that, metaphor in fact belongs to a kind of cognitive phenomena of human beings. Far from being a mere matter of ornament, it participates fully in the process of knowledge: in replacing some stale "natural" kinds with novel and illuminating categories, in contriving facts, in revising theory, and in bringing us new worlds. In essence, metaphor is a perceptual and conceptualizing tool, by which man understands the changing world around. Thus metaphor is actually cognitive in nature. As a basic cognitive structure, metaphor allows us to comprehend a relatively abstract concept by virtue of a more concrete concept, which is called conceptual metaphor (CM) in the contemporary cognitive theory.CM, which is characterized by a huge system of cross-domain mappings between the source domain and target domain, refers to something internal, operating deep in human thought. Each CM heads and governs a set of linguistic metaphors which are merely surface manifestations of our underlying systemic CMs. And CMs are based on a variety of human experience, including correlation in experience, various kinds of nonobjective similarity, biological and cultural roots shared by the two concepts, and possibly others. And CMs are motivated rather than predicted. The source domain for a particular target cannot be predicted within a given language and the source-to-target mappings can be just understood when they are activated. Although there are numerous possible mappings between the source domain and the target domain, yet it is not likely for us to predict what will be activated.STUDY, an important aspect of human experience, has been among the focuses of cognitive linguistics and the STUDY concept is conceptualized and expressed in metaphorical terms. In view of these factors, this thesis takes up CM on the concept ofSTUDY in Chinese as its topic to study. In addition, this thesis attempts to conduct a detailed research into the conceptualization of STUDY concept from the respect of Chinese. Based on the analysis of a large amount of Chinese linguistic data, it tends to explore the construction of the abstract STUDY concept in the Chinese language and testify the CM theory from the perspective of Chinese language.STUDY is a kind of abstract action. According to the contemporary cognitive views on metaphor, CMs consist of a source domain and a target domain, as well as a set of mappings between them. Then the fairly abstract and less delineated target domain —STUDY is conceptualized and understood through some more concrete or physical and more clearly delineated concepts. After the linguistic analysis, it is found that the Chinese people tend to mostly use human body-part words in their conventionalized expressions of STUDY metaphor such as STUDY IS LEG MOVEMENT, STUDY IS HAND ACTION. Under the generic-level CMs, we still have some specific-level CMs. For instance, STUDY IS WALKING, STUDY IS HOLDING SOMETHING LONG. That is, not only are linguistic metaphors systemically governed by a CM, but CMs themselves also can be systemically related to each other to form a hierarchical structure.Kovescese (2002) has surveyed some of the most common source domains and target domains. As far as the common source domains are concerned, they are the human body, health and illness, animals, plants, buildings and construction, machines and tools, games and sports, money and economic transaction, cooking and food, heat and cold, light and darkness, forces, movement and direction. And all of them depict our world in a simple way in which it seems that there are only people, animals, and plants. The three categories interfere with each other and members in each category also interact with each other. This is an extremely simplified world, but it is exactly the simplified nature of this world that enables us to make use of parts of it in creating and understanding more abstract ones we did not know or understand before. So those human body-part words are adopted in the conventionalized expressions of STUDY metaphor in Chinese.This thesis makes a relatively complete and detailed study of STUDY metaphors, from the cognitive perspective instead of the traditional views. Based on the study in Chinese data, this research not only reveals the construction of STUDY concept in Chinese, but also reinforces and develops some of the cognitive approach to metaphor: Abstract concepts, at least STUDY concept in Chinese, are largely formed andcomprehended via CMs which are rooted in common human bodily experience. In addition, this research will, to a certain extent, be helpful and instructive for vocabulary teaching as well as rhetoric teaching.