A Comparative Research On The Differences And Cultural Origins Of Love Metaphors In Chinese And English

No matter in English or Chinese literature works, there are a large number of wordsabout love metaphors. On the one hand, they can make literature works more luxuriant,touching. On the other hand, they can also provide a tool for human’s knowing andunderstanding and the society and human itself. Although there is no lack of comparativestudies for English and Chinese love metaphors, yet it is more common in linguisticsangle of view, and it is still rare from the angle of social and cultural causes of Englishand Chinese language love words. To a certain extent, they can influence people’s deepunderstanding and interpretation for literary works, but also influence their understandingfor the kinds of cultures and societies. Therefore, this study tries to help the accuratetranslation between English and Chinese love metaphors, deepen the comprehension ofthe two literature works, and improve the quality of teaching foreign language culture. Atthe same time, it also provides a different perspective for studying English-Chinese lovewords.From the point of view of the intercultural comparability, this study selects the twofamous works Fortress Besieged and Women in Love. It is around three questions,namely, what are the characteristics of Chinese and English love metaphors in the twonovels? What are the orientations of choice of vehicles for the same tenors? And howdoes culture influence the selection of Chinese and English love metaphors in the twonovels? This study is based on the comparative analysis on the two texts. On the basis ofcarding the love metaphors in the two texts objectively, the author first makes a globalcontrast for the love metaphors in the two literature works, looking for rules andcharacteristics. Then the author makes classification and compares the most comparativelove metaphors.Through the comparative analysis, the author mainly concludes three findings: firstof all, there are great differences in terms of the number of English and Chinese lovemetaphors. We can find an objective phenomenon—there are more English lovemetaphors than Chinese love metaphors, which reflects that the English users prefer touse love metaphors relatively. Secondly, English and Chinese language users often choose the tenors that are quite different, and as the same tenors, the choices of vehiclesalso have a very big difference. Finally, the use of love metaphors are mainly affected bythe love values, way of thinking and religious factors, and what make these factorsproduce and play an important role are three cultural dimensions: individualism versuscollectivism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation versus short-termorientation.