A Cognitive Analysis Of Cultivation Metaphors In The Analects

The studies on The Analects can be divided into domestic and overseas studies, covering the aspects of literary research, linguistic research, translations and so on. Although great achievements have been made by the scholars at home and abroad in the studies on the language of The Analects, the approach of most of the studies in this field remains the traditional one, i.e., the rhetoric orientation. Theses studies explore the metaphors merely from the rhetoric perspective, thus can hardly reveal the implied cognitive mechanism, or reflect the cognition process. Therefore, it's hard for them to uncover the inherent conceptual structure embodied by the metaphors in The Analects, and is impossible to analyze the functions of the metaphors in cultivation.Lakoff's Conceptual Metaphor Theory takes metaphors as cross-domain mappings, the main mechanism through which people comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning. The current study examines two important principles in the theory, i.e., the Invariance Principle and the Entailment Hierarchies. Metaphorical mappings obey the Invariance Principle: The image-schema structure of the source domain is projected onto the target domain in a way that is consistent with inherent target domain structure; and the Entailment Hierarchies: Metaphorical mappings do not occur isolated from one another, while they are sometimes organized in hierarchical structures, in which "lower" mappings in the hierarchy inherit the structures of the "higher" mappings. Besides, Lakoff's Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) helps further analyze the cognitive mode in a certain culture. By the approach of this theory, the concrete cognitive mechanism and environment of conceptual metaphors can be investigated.Taking the cognitive approach to the metaphorical use in The Analects, this thesis analyzes the inherent knowledge structure of the conceptual mappings. The current study makes elaboration on the most important metaphors in the book from the perspectives of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and ICM. These metaphors include, "He who rules by moral force is like the pole-star, which remains in its place while all the lesser stars do homage to it", "Only when the year grows cold do we see that the pine and cypress are the last to fade", "The essence of the gentleman is that of wind; the essence of small man is that of grass. And when a wind passes over the grass, it cannot choose but bend", and "As though on the brink of a chasm; As though treading thin ice". In accordance with the Invariance Principle, the Entailment Hierarchies and the ICM, this thesis unravels the scopes of the target and source domain of the conceptual metaphors. By the approach of the image-schema theory, the current study elaborates the genetic factor of the metaphorical structure and comes to the conclusions of the importance of the nature and heaven in the cognitive mode of the ancient people in China. It finally explicates the deep factor of the long-lasting and far-reaching position of the metaphors. The conclusions help provide a new perspective to examine the metaphors in The Analects.