The Study And Translation Of Sensory Metaphors In Hong Lou Meng

Recently, cognitive linguistics at home and abroad has developed so rapidly that it has begun to gain a dominant position in linguistics theory. Cognitive linguistics is an approach to language that is based on our experience of the world. It mainly tries to explore how human beings perceive and conceptualize the world and focuses on language as an instrument for organizing, processing, and conveying information. Now, metaphor has played an important role in philosophy, cognitive science, linguistics.It is Lakoff and Johnson with their influential Conceptual Metaphor Theory that reinforces the trend of cognitive study on metaphor. According to this theory, the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Our ordinary conceptual system by means of which we live, think and act is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. According to Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor is viewed as a mapping across conceptual domains - the source domain and the target domain. The term mapping refers to the directional interaction between the two domains.Based on the theory of conceptual metaphor, this thesis has made an initial attempt to discover the metaphorical mapping features in sensory domain in Chinese language, looking on Hong Lou Meng as source material, and attempts to make a comparison on sensory metaphors in English and Chinese.Our findings show that in sensory metaphors similarities and differences exist while the cognition of basic experience of the five senses is mostly universal. Correspondence between Chinese and English metaphorical expression can be best confirmed in the sense of sight and the sense of hearing. Meanwhile, differences appear as well. Comparing to the sense of sight and sense of hearing, other three senses (sense of smell, sense of taste, and sense of touch) are not as close to the mind. The research also finds from the cognitive perspective that in spite of some features peculiar to Chinese, most of the synesthetic transferences coincide with each other. The disagreement as reflected in the three senses: sense of smell(香and臭), sense of taste(苦,酸and醋), and sense of touch(寒) is influenced by Chinese culture and specific thinking mode. Although not all the differences can be fully accounted for, the analysis does show that culture casts considerable influence on the creation of metaphors. The thesis makes a thorough study of sensory metaphors from the cognitive perspective. Based on the contrastive study in English and Chinese, this research reinforces some theories of the contemporary cognitive approach to metaphor: conceptual metaphor, at least conceptual sensory metaphor is characterized by cognitive universality and cultural relativity. Meanwhile, it will, to a certain degree, supplement the study of translation from the cognitive perspective. It does translation research on cognitive metaphor theory(CMT) and regards translation process proper as a process of cognition. Cognition of the target domain is very important. Language is basically metaphorical and the understanding of the conceptual metaphor in the source language (SL) can help the translation be more profound and precise. In addition, this research will be helpful to the vocabulary teaching in English and Chinese.Chapter one introduces the metaphorical research and sensory metaphor research made at home and abroad.Chapter two concludes the influential western theory on metaphor.Chapter three focuses on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, its philosophical background, process mechanism and the physiological and psychological theory on the generation of the five senses.Chapter four is the main body of the thesis. In this chapter, Body-as-Mind metaphor is introduced in discussing the mapping from sensory domain to non-sensory domain and the mapping between sensory domains.Chapter five shows the implication of cognitive metaphor theory to the translation. Chapter six is the conclusion of the thesis.