A Contrastive Study Of Chinese And English Dish Names From The Cognitive Linguistic Perspective

Traditional studies on dish names mainly revolve around their grammatical structures and Chinese-English translation. With the rise of cognitive science, it's meaningful to carry out a cognitive linguistic study on dish names to unveil its conceptual properties, as stated in Introduction.The corpus for the research in the paper is built on a collection of relevant linguistic items from internet, books and others'academic papers. Based on this comparable corpus, the conceptual semantic structures of Chinese and English dish names are analyzed in terms of 1) base-profile organization and 2) metaphorical mapping and blending, respectively in Chapter One and Two.Through the research, it is found that Chinese and westerners have similar preference for profiling ingredients, cooking methods and audio-visual effects, and neither of them favors profiling in kitchenware, dishware and eating manners in dish names. This is in line with our similar salient experience in cooking. Besides, we have noticed the outstanding differences: Chinese's preference for profiling flavoring and eating effects, and westerners'preference for profiling producers and cooking styles, which are resulted from their different views of catering rooted in their respective cultures. In metaphorical analysis, more metaphors are formed from easily perceived correspondences. This abides by cognitive principles of prominence and economy. Meanwhile, we have found much more metaphorical dish names and much wider range of source domains in Chinese dish names than in English ones. This reveals our Chinese's peculiar aesthetic pursuit in dish naming.With its findings, this paper demonstrates that language is embodied, that is to say, it is based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it. In Chapter Three, we have resorted to aspects of our personal experiences and our cultures for the interpretation of the similarities and differences we have found between Chinese and English dish names and this have confirmed that language is shaped by cognition.The last part sums up the findings and conclusions mentioned above, pointing out the limitations of the study and putting forward some suggestions for future research on the topic.