Language Universals: A Contrastive Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In English And Chinese

The present thesis is a study of language universals based on conceptual metaphors underlying English and Chinese, and seeking to explain the causes of them. Although there are a large amount of differences among the different languages, there are really many language universals existing in all known languages. There are mainly three approaches to study language universals, the first one is Greenberg's Cross- linguistic view of language universals; the second one is Chomsky's mentalism view of language universals; the third one cognitive view of language universals represented by Lakoff, Johnson and Langacker, etc.Metaphor was once viewed as the deviation from the normal usage of language, a figure of speech and a kind of decoration of language. Contrarily, the cognitive linguists represented by Lakoff & Johnson argue that metaphors are not just a way of expressing ideas by means of language, but a way of thinking about things. Lakoff & Johnson put forward the concept'conceptual metaphor', and studied many conceptual metaphors existing in English such as'Time is money'etc. Foreign scholars have done a lot on the study of conceptual metaphor in the light of cognition. In the past few years, many articles on conceptual metaphor, which were written by Chinese scholars from the perspective of cognition, also appeared in various journals or magazines. However, most of them are constrained to the introduction of foreign theories while independent study, especially the contrastive study based on some conceptual metaphors underlying English and Chinese, is still very little.This thesis works for the integration of conceptual metaphors and language universals, and the objectives of it are, by the contrastive study of English and Chinese, to cognitively uncover whether there are language universals based on the conceptual metaphors underlying English and Chinese, and whether conceptual metaphors such as space, time, basic emotions, human body and basic colors in Chinese, are also largely conceptualized through the metaphorical process that goes from the more concrete to the more abstract. Different chapters of the thesis are organized as follows. Chapter one is the brief introduction of the study. Chapter two gives the current study on language universals. Chapter three is an overview of metaphor in cognitive linguistics. Chapter four elaborates language universals and their causes based on conceptual metaphors between English and Chinese in terms of space, time, basic emotions, human bodies and basic colors. Chapter five is the conclusion including some findings, the significance and the applications of the study, limitation of the thesis and directions for further study.By the comparison on conceptual metaphors between English and Chinese, the study, to a certain extent, contributes to the contemporary cognitive theory of metaphor, especially the conceptual metaphor theory. It also has great significance in the teaching of English culture, the teaching of translation and the teaching of English vocabulary.