Conceptual Metaphors In Li Qingzhao’s Ci

Metaphor is widely used in people’s daily language and literary works. The history of metaphor study can be traced back to Ancient Greece. In traditional rhetoric, metaphor is regarded as a figure of speech. With many scholars’the continual studies, people’s understanding of metaphor is becoming wider and deeper. Especially with the publishment of Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor is believed to be a thinking instrument based on people’s daily experiences. Thus it’s not only a language ornament device, but a conceptual phenomenon. With the thriving of cognitive linguistics, more and more scholars have studied metaphor from the cognitive perspective.This thesis tries to explore metaphors in Li Qingzhao’s ci from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. Source domains of metaphors in Li Qingzhao’s ci are collected and classified. And then the following questions are answered:what are the most frequently used source domains and what are the least frequently used source domains. Finally, the reasons are given. Based on the conceptual metaphor theory and cultural model, generations of metaphors in Li Qingzhao’s ci are analyzed, including the most frequently used metaphors, least frequently used metaphors and some other metaphors in Li Qingzhao’s ci.Based on the investigation, the author finds that source domains of metaphors in Li Qingzhao’s ci can be classified into animate things and inanimate things. Animate things can be further classified into plants and human. Inanimate things include abstract things and concrete things and natural phenomenon. According to the data analysis, the most frequently used domain is people and the least frequently used domains is wave, etc. Generations of metaphors in Li Qingzhao’s ci are based on mappings between source domains and target domains. They are also influenced by cultural model, people’s ways of perceiving the world, knowledge structure and personal experience. Two things from different areas are associated and then some characteristics of source domain are mapped onto the characteristics of target domain. The meaning of metaphor largely depends on the features of source domain and Li Qingzhao chooses different metaphors in different contexts. Those metaphors are all from the poetess’s life experiences, they can help people have a better appreciation of Li Qingzhao’s ci.