| Metaphor is conceptual rather than merely a device of poetic imagination and rhetorical decoration superfluous to language. Most of our knowledge about the world and ourselves is achieved by means of metaphor, without which we cannot live.Although the use of metaphor is universal, the choice of specific metaphors for interpreting the world is frequently culture-specific. Idioms are an important part of the language and culture of a nation. A juxtaposed examination of the conceptual metaphors in idioms from two different languages can highlight some important similarities and differences in languages and in people's thought, and therefore, help us better appreciate the cultures and the peoples who speak the languages.The present thesis, based on conceptual metaphor theory and cultural knowledge, is an attempt to make a comparative study of metaphors in English and Chinese idioms. In this thesis, a lot of examples have been given to illustrate the existence of conceptual metaphors in English and Chinese idioms. A cognitive comparison of English and Chinese emotion-related idioms has been made as a case study. The author takes the metaphorical expressions of four basic human emotions (anger, fear, happiness and sadness) in idioms as the objects of research. The similarities and differences between English and Chinese conceptual metaphors of emotion, and the causes of these similarities and differences are stated and analyzed in this thesis. The analysis shows that there exist the same conceptual metaphors for emotions in English and Chinese idioms. That is caused by the universal cognitive mode and experience of human beings. On the other hand, the emotion metaphors in idioms are to a great extent nation-specific and culture-loaded.The findings of the research not only provide supporting evidence for the conceptual metaphor theory, but also help language learners get a better understanding of the relationships between culture, metaphor and language learning. |
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