| Based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory proposed by Lakoff＆Johnson, this papertries to make a comparison of the concept metaphors of machine＆tool vocabulariesbetween English and Chinese and study the similarities and differences, as well as the causesfor the phenomenon.The author establishes the corpus which this paper’s analysis based on. The data usedfor analysis are gained through English and Chinese dictionaries. The total number of thecollected data is 66 with 31 in English and 35 in Chinese. They are mainly phrases, words andidioms. Quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis are adopted in this study.The comparison is undertaken by different mapping models concerning with themetaphorical use of machine＆tool vocabularies both in English and Chinese. After thecontrastive analysis, the research discovers that both English and Chinese metaphorical usesof machine＆tool vocabularies possess similarities and differences. This illustrates theuniversality of conceptual metaphor to some degree and confirms Lakoff＆Johnson’sconceptual theory. Through analysis of the 66 data, the paper found that there are 21differences and 45 similarities in the metaphorical uses of machine＆tool vocabulariesbetween. These similarities illustrate that there exists the system of conceptual metaphor andcognitive coherence and to some extent prove the scientific nature of conceptual theory.Besides, due to different cultures, different experiences and different cognitions, there are alsosome differences between the two languages.Thus, this paper will, to some extent, enrich the study on the conceptual metaphor ofmachine＆tool vocabularies. Proving metaphor’s cognitive nature and metaphorical natureof human being, the author also tries to confirm the rationality of conceptual metaphor theory.In addition, this study may be helpful for language learners gaining a better understanding of the relationship among culture, metaphor and language, guiding theirlanguage learning. |
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