An Analysis Of Conceptual Metaphor In Sula

In 1980, with the publication of the book Metaphors We Lived By, the research of metaphor moves onto a new stage. In this book, author Lakoff and Johnson have proposed conceptual metaphor theory. Metaphor is a linguistic and cognitive phenomenon, then, it is also a mapping mode in our experience of life, and it affects our perception of the outside world. With the development and improvement of cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor research becomes increasingly popular. Conceptual metaphor theory holds that metaphor is conceptual and cognitive:it is a cross-domain projection from a concrete concept to another abstract concept.Based on conceptual metaphor theory, this paper tries to analyze conceptual metaphor that applied in Toni Morrison’s novel Sula and even explains how conceptual metaphor is reflected from the perspective of cognitive linguistics.The paper consists of three parts:Introduction, Body and Conclusion. Its main contents are as follows:The first part is Introduction. It refers to the research history and present situation of conceptual metaphors as well as the significance of studying the novel Sula. Metaphor has developed multiple stages. Sula is a typical novel of black literature and full of metaphors, which is true of the analysis of metaphor theory, but so far, there is only a few works that study the novel Sula from the perspective of conceptual metaphor, which is also the creative place of the paper, and it will attract readers to study the literary works and the deeper meaning from a new perspective.The second part is the body, consisting of three parts.The first chapter is mainly about development stage of metaphor and the relevant points of conceptual metaphor:the source domain, the target domain and the mapping. At the same time, it also discusses the three types of conceptual metaphor:structural metaphor, orientational metaphor, and ontological metaphor. Structural metaphor can be used to construct rather strange and abstract concepts with highly familiar and specific concepts. Orientational metaphor uses the concept of spatial orientation such as up and down, inside and outside, before and after, the depth, the distance, the center edge, etc. to express the concepts which are not spatial orientation. Ontological metaphor takes an account of the abstract concept such as thought, emotion, event, state etc. through the concepts of object and material. The latter can be regarded as an object and material that can be divided further, so as to be able to be categorized, referred and quantified. The functions of conceptual metaphor consist of systematic function and coherence function.The second chapter mainly describes the three types of conceptual metaphors and how they are applied in the novel Sula. Firstly, the structural metaphor is mainly reflected in the characters’ names such as Sula, Jude as well as "water" "fire" "birthmark-black rose" and "the Bottom community" that appear many times in the novel Sula. Different things have different metaphorical entailments. Secondly, the orientational metaphor analyzes the selected text from the perspective of metaphor images, namely, hierarchical structure is understood according to PART-WHOLE schemas; radial structure in categories is understood in terms of CENTER-PERIPHERY schemas; relational structure is understood according to link schemas. Finally, the ontological metaphor is mainly studied from the container metaphor and personification metaphor respectfully. These three different kinds of conceptual metaphors are analyzed from the cognitive view in detail for the purpose of exploring how the features of the source domains are projected onto the target domains and understanding the experience basis of the metaphorical expressions and their embodiments in the novel, which offers a new view and method for studying literary works.The third part mainly states the application of systematic function and coherent function in the novel Sula. The systematicity of conceptual metaphor can be analyzed through two aspects:language level and concept level. Firstly, the systematicity of structural metaphors is studied from the features of "highlighting and hiding". Then, taking "DOWN" as an example of orientational metaphor, the section mainly discusses the application of it through the following three metaphors:BOTTOM IS DISPOSSESSION, BOTTOM IS AN ESCAPE, BOTTOM IS DESTRUCTIVE FORCE. Finally, Sula is analyzed from the perspective of coherent function. The coherent function of Conceptual Metaphor refers to a few conceptual metaphors, through the sharing metaphorical implication, not only make the conceptual metaphor equip with the features of coherence, but also make their metaphorical expressions equip with coherence. It also analyzes two means of coherence and their realization in the novel, namely, coherence across several metaphors within a same target domain and coherence across metaphors.The last part is the conclusion, mainly summarizes the foregoing discussion. Through the discussion in this thesis, it will become easy for readers to get a better understanding of the significance of metaphor in black literary works, as well as showing the sufferings of discrimination and unequal treatment of black men in the past.In this paper, there are still some deficiencies that need to further improve, such as, incomplete corpus, limitations of analysis and so on. We hope that future research can be started from a more scientific perspective and thus it can broaden horizons, and also under a more systematic theoretical framework to study the novels and the conceptual metaphors profoundly and comprehensively.