A Corpus-based Contrastive Study On The Metaphor Of The Color Term "Red" In English And Chinese

The study on metaphor has always attracted the attention of the linguists. In the traditional research, metaphor is regarded as one kind of rhetoric device. As the research in this area deepens, scholars gradually realize that metaphor is a crucial cognitive mechanism. The conceptual metaphor put forward by Lakoff & Johnson (1980) claims that metaphor is a cross-domain mapping from the source domain to the target domain in the conceptual system, that it is the cognitive mechanism based on the physical experience, and that it is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.Aiming at fulfilling and perfecting the complete and systematic study of color terms in the perspective of cognitive conceptual metaphor, the thesis, based on two corpora (English and Chinese corpus each), will systematically study the "red" metaphors between English and Chinese within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory. The author would make a calculation of the frequency of color metaphors in English and Chinese respectively, and focus on the contrastive study of "red" metaphor. The theoretical basis and the working mechanism of "red" metaphor are to be analyzed, the similarities and the dissimilarities between English and Chinese in "red" metaphor to be explored, and the possible reasons for these similarities and dissimilarities to be discussed from the cultural perspective. The findings of the study are:1) Generally speaking, the color metaphors are more pervasive in Chinese than that in English. The majority of English color metaphors are of "black", "red" and "green" metaphors, while the majority of Chinese color metaphors belong to "white", "black" and "red" metaphors.2) The comparative study of "red" metaphor in English and "红" metaphor in Chinese proves that the similarities and differences co-exist. On the one hand, they share some of the same target domains, such as the emotion, politics, disasters and economics domain and have the same or similar metaphorical meanings. On the other hand, there are dissimilarities between "red" metaphor and "红" metaphor. First of all, there are some non-equivalent target domains between English "red" metaphor and Chinese "红" metaphor. Secondly, even in the same target domain, "red" and "红" may have the different or contrary sub-metaphors.3) The reasons for those similarities can be owed to the common perceptual and cultural experience, and the causes of those dissimilarities are categorized into the different living environments, religions and beliefs, the social conventions and political factors.This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter gives a brief introduction to the subject of the research---color metaphor, and explains the objectives and significance of the study. Chapter two is the literature review, looking back over the research on metaphor and color terms both at home and abroad. It is in this part that the thesis sets up the theoretical framework underlying the cognitive linguistic approach to metaphor. Chapter three describes the methodology adopted in the study, that is, the data collection procedure, and data analysis procedure as well. The fourth chapter is the nuclear part of the thesis. By analyzing the data collected from the English and Chinese corpora, the author will first work out the frequencies of the basic color terms and the frequencies of the color metaphors, and then attach great importance to exploring similarities and differences between English "red" metaphor and Chinese "红" metaphor. Still, the possible reasons for those similarities and differences are probed into. The last part is to draw a conclusion of the study, mainly to sum up the major finding and implications of the study, to point out the limitations of the study, and to provide some suggestions for future research.