A Comparative Research On The Conceptual Metaphor Of Woman In Gilded Aristocratic Family And Gone With The Wind

Metaphor study has a long history. Ever since the age of Plato, the metaphorstudy has passed four stages: rhetorical study of metaphor, poetical study ofmetaphor, linguistic study of metaphor and philosophical study of metaphor.According to the traditional view, metaphor is a type of rhetoric device and the studyof metaphor is limited to linguistic level. The publication of Metaphor We Live Bycollaborated by Lakoff and Johnson in1980opens a cognitive perspective formetaphor study. In this book, they point out metaphor is not only a rhetoric methodand the product of language but also a very important way of thinking. Later, Lakoffand Johnson published respectively Woman, Fire, and Dangerous Things and TheBody in the Mind and established the school of Conceptual Metaphor and EmbodiedCognition. Most of the metaphor studies in China are combined with the study ofsimile and the history of metaphor study from the perspective of cognitive linguisticsis very short. It is until the publication of the theses of cognitive study of metaphorwritten respectively by Zhao Yanfang and Lin Shuwu in1994that the overseascognitive study of metaphor attracts Chinese scholars’ attention.Metaphor is an important means to understand the world. It is a tool for abstractthinking which enables us to construct and understand an abstract concept which islack of internal structure in terms of a structured concrete concept. Woman is amulti-layer and multi-dimentional abstract concept which can not be characterizedby simple words so it is necessary to construct the concept of woman by metaphor.In order to make an analysis of the public’s understanding of woman in differentcultural backgrounds, this paper takes Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory as theoretical foundation and comparative analyzes the woman metaphor inGone with the Wind and Gilded Aristocratic Family from cognitive perspective. Bychoosing49English examples and37Chinese examples with woman metaphorchosen from these two novels, the author summarizes7conceptual metaphors suchas WOMEN ARE ANIMALS, WOMEN ARE FLOWERS and WOMEN AREPRISONERS. It’s worth noting that though these two novels take different timebackgrounds, the authors were born during the same period. Therefore, they werecontemporaries. Besides, since these two novels are female literary works, there aremany female characters which can provide enough woman metaphors for this paper.So it is feasible to analyze the differences in Woman metaphor in English andChinese. On the basis of the analysis of the mapping from source domain onto targetdomain of each woman metaphor from these two novels, the author finds theconceptual metaphors in novels are almost the same and most of the mappings fromsource domain onto target domain are negative and this shows indirectly that at thebeginning of the20thcentury, people have deep prejudice on woman. Although mostof the conceptual metaphors of woman in Gilded Aristocratic Family and Gone withthe Wind share similarities, the specific metaphorical expressions are quite different.Four possible causes lead to this variation: literary works, living environment andcustom, religious beliefs and ethnic psychology.The significance of this paper is the study of the public understanding of theconcept of woman from cognitive perspective. By the comparison of the literaryworks from different countries, the similarities and differences in conceptualmetaphors based on different cultures are explored to reveal the commonness andindividuality in the way of thinking between Chinese and Americans. It alsoprovides a new cognitive perspective in the understanding and appreciation ofliterary works.