A Study On Metaphor And Target Culture Acquisition

The research on the metaphor goes back to ancient times,Aristotle and other philosophers explored the nature and function of metaphor from the rhetorical point of view.Nowadays, the theories of metaphor can be generally divided into traditional rhetorical view of metaphor and contemporary cognitive view of metaphor.The traditional view of metaphor regards metaphor as a purely linguistic phenomenon,a deviation and variation from the formal language and a figure of speech;but Lakoff and Johnson,as representatives of the contemporary cognitive view of metaphor,put forward the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and argue that metaphor is not only a rhetorical device,but also a way of thinking,it is this theory that has changed the thinking framework of metaphorical research and thinks that metaphor is essentially a cognitive phenomenon.Language is a kind of organism metaphor.Metaphors,ways of thinking and culture are complementary and closely linked with each other.Metaphor is a natural development of thinking and language,and metaphorical language derives from the concept of metaphor.To some extent,the metaphor is a symbol of culture.In human society,there are similar cultural traditions,customs,habits and life experiences,therefore,some metaphor concepts express the similar cultural connotation;on the other hand,due to the different cultural background, metaphors also show some differences in their cultural connotation.Metaphor and culture interact with each other,metaphor can transmit and reflect the culture and cultural differences affect people's understanding and expression of metaphors.Therefore,the study of the target language metaphors is in favor of second culture acquisition.For Language learners,the key to acquiring the target culture is the mastery of the mode of thinking of target language culture. and metaphor is a shortcut to grasping the mode of thinking,because metaphors are a component of language that is closely linked with culture.This thesis,based on the contemporary cognitive metaphor theory,makes an analysis of cognitive nature of metaphor.From the perspective of applied linguistics,the thesis explores the function of the metaphor in the target language culture acquisition,emphasizes the importance of metaphor in the target culture leaning,teaching and cross-cultural communication,and puts forward the metaphorical culture teaching suggestions and methods.The thesis is composed of six parts.The first part is the introduction to the background and purpose of the study.The second part is literature review,which devotes to the general review of the metaphor theories,including the traditional rhetorical view of metaphor and the contemporary cognitive view of metaphor.The traditional rhetoric view of metaphor include the substitution view of metaphor,the comparison view of metaphor and the interactive view of metaphor;the contemporary cognitive view of metaphor includes conceptual metaphor theory,blending theory and cultural view of metaphor.The third part is about the relationship between metaphor and culture.First,the definitions of metaphor and culture are introduced,and then it elaborates the relationship between metaphor and culture:metaphor is an integral part of culture,and it reflects different values and ideology.In turn,culture has an impact on the emergence and development of metaphor,and constrains the learner's understanding of metaphor.The fourth part tries to make a case analysis of anger metaphors,seemingly equivalent metaphors and nation metaphors which are easy to cause misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication.The fifth part discusses the importance of target culture teaching,analyzes the problems in the foreign culture teaching and puts forward the metaphorical culture teaching suggestions and methods which will promote the students' target culture acquisition.The sixth part is the conclusion which summarizes the whole thesis.It points out the practical significance and the theoretical value of teaching target culture through metaphors.It states that teaching metaphor is in favor of acquiring the target culture and also lists the limitations of the present research.Meanwhile,it points out some limitations of the study.