Opposite Of The Head And Tail And The Head / Tail Metaphor Of Cognitive Research

Human beings mapped body parts onto the objective material world in many ways. Now there were many metaphor studies on heart/hand/face and eye and the other parts of the human body. But there has not the metaphor study on head and tail as the important part of the body. Head and tail is a set of antonyms, and belong to the part of the body, so, it has asymmetrical and metaphorical characteristics, and thus has a special research value, replenish the shortage in the metaphor study on the body.Based on this, this thesis is try to describe the meaning of head and tail from a diachronic and synchronic aspects and make a contrast analysis from a cognitive point of view, such as idea cognitive model, image schema theory and metonymy, and this is where the innovation of this thesis. The ultimate goals of this thesis are:1. The metaphorical meaning of Head/tail in Chinese and English are followed the same cognitive view, human beings has the similar cognitive ability in the understanding of the objective material world.2. Head /tail metaphors in Chinese and English can be divided into:ontological metaphors,spatial metaphors, container metaphor, and the other metaphors, the body parts is the basis of abstract concepts and spatial metaphors.3. Head and tail is not always the same in the development of body metaphor, the metaphor of head is more popular than tail, while the animal body followed the metaphor development of the human body.4. Head and tail is asymmetrical in metaphor in Chinese and English.There are differences in head /tail metaphor cognition, that is because, under the influence of different cultures and places, semantic category of Head and tail reflects the difference in the cognitive view; it has their own way of the constructing new concept and the world. So, this study will contribute to teaching foreign language vocabulary and English vocabulary.