A Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Conceptual Metaphors Of Diseases

Metaphor, as a way of thinking and means of cognition, is a common phenomenon in human languages. It is a process by which complex and abstract concepts are constructed by clear and concrete experiences. Metaphorical thinking is pervasive in disease that is ever loaded with various imaginations and myths such as moral, value judgments, ideology, and language is the best carrier that conveys these metaphorical meanings.In this thesis, several kinds of disease metaphors in common use are summarized through analyzing a large number of instances of disease discourses in Chinese and English adequately based on the previous studies of disease metaphors, and a comparative study of these metaphors is made from a diachronic and synchronic perspective. It is found that military metaphor has been a dominant metaphor through the history in both languages, in which a large number of metaphorical expressions are derived systematically. Certain diseases are personified and there are also "disease as target domain" metaphors. Disease is de-mysticized with the advancement of medicine. The differences lie in that there are less metaphors of AIDS and more military metaphors of SARS in Chinese; whereas military metaphors of SARS are rarely found, an internal system of NATURAL DISASTER metaphors abound in English. Then reasons of the findings are concluded: experiential basis of metaphor and its cultural factors including ICM have both similarities and differences. Thus analyzing the national cultural characteristics and ICM through this kind of comparative study of English and Chinese disease metaphors helps us go deeper into the language study from surface to inner, explore the inner rules of language, and also deepen the understanding of language characteristics in different nations and cultures.