The Spatial Metaphors Of FAR/NEAR

As Lakoff states, metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but also in thought and action. According to Lakoff & Johnson (1980: 14), conventional metaphors are divided into three types: structural metaphor, ontological metaphor and spatial (orientational) metaphor. Spatial metaphor, which is also called orientational metaphor, refers to the metaphor with mapping from spatial orientation as source domain to non-space domain (usually abstract domain) as target domain. They consider that spatial metaphor originates from the direct bodily experience, that is, human beings'body structure and life experience constitute the basis of the spatial metaphor. Spatial metaphor has something to do with spatial orientations: up/down, in/out, front/back, on/off, deep/shallow and central/peripheral. These spatial orientations arise from the fact that we have bodies of the sort and that they function as they do in our physical environment.This thesis firstly reviews the previous studies of spatial metaphors home and abroad and points out their findings and limitations (Chapter 1 and Chapter2); Based on the conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and abundant corpora, we analyze the metaphorical extensions of FAR/YUAN and NEARN/JIN at both the conceptual level and linguistic level to examine the similarities and differences in the two languages (Chapter 3 and Chapter 4); Then we make a comparative study of FAR/YUAN and NEAR/JIN and discuss the bases for the similarities in terms of bodily experience and imagination, and the differences in terms of cultural background and specific linguistic features (Chapter 5); Finally, the thesis sums up the major findings, pointing out the limitations of the present study, and gives some suggestions for further research (Chapter 6).Based on our systematic study and statistical analysis, we come to the following conclusions:1) The metaphorical extensions of FAR/NEAR exist in both English and Chinese. Some of these extensions are common while others are different from each other in the two languages. 2) FAR and NEAR are antonyms, but in English, only some extensions of FAR/NEAR conceptual metaphors correspond to each other, showing that the metaphorical meanings of the two concepts are unevenly distributed. Compared with English, the metaphorical extensions of YUAN/JIN concepts in Chinese are distributed evenly, indicating that the two concepts of YUAN/JIN are used to understand quite a similar number of abstract concepts in Chinese.3) The extensions of FAR/NEAR primarily cover the conceptual domains of DEGREE, TIME, INTELLECT and RELATIONSHIP and so on, but the frequencies of these abstract conceptual domains are not the same. These domains are the basic and important ones in our daily life which illustrates that we understand these abstract concepts via spatial metaphor. It also proves the importance of spatial metaphors in our cognition of the world.As human beings have similar cognition and bodily experience and the spatial metaphor is grounded in the bodily and physical experience, people in both western countries and China understand and perceive spatial metaphors in similar ways. However, different races have different life experience and cultural background which may form specific metaphors of theirs. Human beings know the world by their position and motion in the space environment; our body structure and life experience constitute the basis of spatial metaphor mapping, so no matter whether the extensions are similar or different, they are motivated by space distance. Therefore, making a systematic analysis of the spatial metaphors of FAR/NEAR between English and Chinese will provide a new perspective for a better understanding of English and Chinese culture and facilitate cross-cultural communication.