A Study On The Similarities And Differences Of The Metaphors Of "Flower" Between Chinese And English Cultures

In the traditional research, metaphor was considered as a figure of speech, the decoration of languages, while after years and years development and exploration it is regarded as an important cognitive tool now. Lakoff and Johnson argue that metaphor allows human beings to understand a relatively abstract or inherently unstructured subject matter in terms of a more concrete, or at least a more highly structured subject matter. In recent years metaphor becomes"a big potato"in multidisplinary studies, such as linguistics, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, science of cognition and translation, literary critics and semiotics, etc. We believe that this is the reason why up to now metaphor is taken as an important topic, has enjoyed a long discussion and attracted a number of experts in many different fields. More and more people realize that metaphor plays an important role in our life. It is not bombastic to say we can not live without metaphor. As every experience takes place with a vast background of cultural presuppositions (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 57), people from different cultures may cognize the world in different ways. As a result, they may use different metaphors to conceptualize the world.Metaphor is a kind of cognitive mode, which comes from life and exists everywhere. It is confined to environment and culture, and correspondingly, it influences our language and life. Metaphor does not come out naturally. It is embedded into our culture. Just as linguistics pioneers, like Lakoff (1987) and Turner (1991) point out, a metaphor has its system and entirety.This thesis analyzes the similarities and differences in forming and understanding metaphor meanings of flower existing in Chinese and English cultures from the angle of cognitive linguistics. The comparative study of metaphors of"flower"in English and"花(hua)"in the dissertation quote a large number examples of metaphors of"flower"and"hua"both in English and Chinese are list systematically to make people have a better and clearer understanding of the notion of"flower"and"hua". The similarities and differences of metaphor of flower between English and Chinese cultures on the basis of dictionary-based data in view of the fact that cognitive semantics has reached a point where it has to be supported by cross-cultural research. At the same time, this thesis quotes golden mean in Chinese Confucianism culture and Collective unconsciousness in Western aesthetics to explain the evolvement and reason for similarities and differences of the metaphor meaning between"hua"and"flower"in two cultures. The purpose of this is to know the effects of different cultures on language, reinforce our cultural consciousness, and enhance the ability to understand metaphors.