A Contrastive Study On Body Metaphorical Cognition Between Chinese And English And Possible Factors

Traditionally speaking, metaphor is a rhetoric device which is frequently used in literary works. However, cognitive approach holds that metaphor is not only a rhetoric device but also a way of thinking by which humans understand the external world. Metaphor is an approach with which human beings understand more complex and more abstract concepts in a new domain with the help of their previous experience of another field.According to the law of human cognitive development, at the very beginning of cognitive development, human beings first know their body. Gradually, they begin to understand more complex and abstract concepts on the basis of previous understanding and knowledge of their bodies. This way of cognition is called metaphorical cognition.The present study, by reviewing the relevant studies on body metaphor and metaphorical cognition both from abroad and at home, carried out a contrastive study on body metaphorical cognition between Chinese and English and explored the factors causing the similarities and differences between body metaphors of the two countries.Embodied philosophy and the law of cognitive development provide the present research with theoretical basis. Data from various sources has been collected, grouped and analyzed so as to carry out a contrastive study on body metaphorical cognition between Chinese and English. The methods of textual analysis and contrastive analysis have been utilized in an attempt to explore answers to the following five research questions:(1) Is there any similarity and difference between Chinese and English body metaphorical cognition?(2) What are the possible similarities and differences between body metaphorical cognition in China and western countries?(3) What are the specific factors causing these similarities and differences?(4) How do these factors cause the similarities and differences?(5) What pedagogical implications can the present study have basing on the influencing factors? By way of textual analysis and through a comparison of collected data of Chinese and English body metaphors, the present study found answers to the above questions and proposed several implications for language teaching. Several conclusions have been drawn from the present research, which will be listed as the following:(1) There actually exist similarities and differences between body metaphorical cognition of the two countries;(2) Similarities overwhelm differences;(3) Both Chinese and English body metaphorical cognitions have the following two projection modes:projection from body domain to specific domain and projection from body domain to abstract domain. Under the second projection, both Chinese and English metaphorical cognition are rich in the following four mappings:mapping from body domain to social status domain, mapping from body domain to emotion domain, mapping from body domain to quality domain and mapping from body domain to action domain. They differ in that Chinese is rich in projections from the relationship between two body parts to the relationship between two objects or events. However, English is vacant on this type of mapping;(4) Geographical features, diversified social values and communicative purposes are thought to be factors that lead to the differences;(5) Cultural perspective holds that humans’cognition only receive the influence passively while communicative angle believes that humans can actively choose the way of cognition according to different communicative purposes.On the basis of the above findings, several practical suggestions have been proposed: Firstly, the teacher should try to make students know that metaphors can be used in daily communication. Secondly, cultural factors need to be paid enough attention to in language teaching. Lastly, students need to be taught to recognize diversified communicative purposes and to choose suitable concepts from source domain.