Research Of English And Chinese Animal Metaphors From The Perspective Of Cognitive Mapping

Research of metaphor started long time ago. The early study about metaphorhas always been linked to the rhetoric field. It is not until the publishing of the bookMetaphor We Live By by Lakoff&Johnson that people have got a brand-newcognitive view on metaphor. Current research focus of metaphor has shifted itsorientation from its rhetorical function to its cognitive function. According tocognitive linguistics, metaphor is not only a phenomenon in language but also acognitive activity understanding experiences in one domain with experiences inanother domain. Lakoff&Johnson pointed out that metaphor is pervasive ineveryday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Metaphor is not just amatter of language, but also a carrier of culture and a vehicle of thought.Since time immemorial, animals have been human beings’ closest friends. Anda very close relationship was established between each other after a longtimeinteraction. People often try to understand and describe every kind of things aboutthe outside world, including human beings themselves, with their understanding andexperience towards animals. Therefore, there exist a lot of metaphorical expressionsabout animal---animal metaphors. Animal metaphors are linguistic expressionsformed by human beings’ cognitive mapping on animals’ habits, characters, behaviorand psychological feelings towards them. They are reflections of language, cultureand thoughts. This thesis, under the framework of cognitive linguistics, takesmetaphorical highlighting and metaphorical utilization as the starting points andemploys the GREAT CHAIN OF BEING metaphor theory, which based its birth onconceptual metaphor theory, to launch the research of English and Chinese animalmetaphors from the perspective of cognitive mapping.After a comparative research on English and Chinese animal metaphors, theauthor finds out that there are many animal metaphors of these two languages showup with similar connotations and also different connotations. As for the similar part,same kinds of animals in English and Chinese demonstrate similar connotations, likeparrot, wolf, pig, and snake; and also different kinds of animals, horse in English andcattle in Chinese for example, demonstrate similar connotations too. As for the different part, same kinds of animals in these two languages show differentconnotations, like dragon, phoenix, and dog; and also different kinds of animals,stork, turkey and beaver in English andéº'麟(kylin),饕餮(taotie),鸳鸯(mandarinduck) in Chinese for example, show different connotations for sure.This thesis also tries to display the causes attributing to the connotationsimilarities and differences in animal metaphors. As for similar connotations, thereare two main reasons. Firstly, there is possibility that people of two languages wouldcreate metaphors based on the common features animals honestly present to humansand therefore similar connotations. Another major reason for similarities inconnotation is people’s similar cognitive process of understanding animals, whichwill lead to a great possibility of sharing similar connotations in meaningconstruction of animal metaphors. As for causes attributing to differences inconnotation, there are also two main reasons. The first one is various psychologicalhypotheses in source domain. The metaphorical connection between source domainand target domain is psychological in nature. Then, there would be countlesshypothetic possibilities that people of different languages would create animalmetaphors with different connotations. The second major reason is the culturalinfluences. Generally speaking, cultural factors like history, geography, religion andliterature works would be involved in causing meaning discrepancies in animalmetaphors.With a comparative analysis from the perspective of cognitive mapping, thispaper hopes to present the similar and different connotations of English and Chineseanimal metaphors and together with the causes for them, thus provide somesuggestive clues to the following study of animal metaphors.