A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study Of FIRE" Metaphors In English And Chinese

The most popular metaphor research in academia mainly concentrated in the traditional metaphor study and modern metaphor study these two aspects. In the view of the traditional metaphor study, metaphor is a kind of rhetoric and modification approach related to poetry or rhetoric. However, the modern linguists believe that the essence of metaphor is in the structure of the conceptual metaphors, to understand and experience a process of concept domain to the target domain. And since ancient times, languages have derived a lot of conceptual metaphors of "fire". Therefore, in recent years, many researchers devote to the exploration of "fire" metaphor, but mainly concentrating on descriptive researches:selecting several common metaphors of "fire" in English and Chinese, comparing the similarities and differences, and then analyzing the reasons. It is a problem that linguistic data is not comprehensive. The research method is monotonous and language materials are lack of the reliability and persuasiveness.This paper used these methods:corpus-based approach, descriptive statistical analysis and contrastive analysis. In order to avoid the situation that linguistic data are not comprehensive and that the research method is monotonous and the data are unconvincing, the author combined the research method of qualitative and quantitative analysis and the introspection of speculative under the guidance of the conceptual metaphor theory. Then, in the theory framework of cognitive linguistics, the author comprehensively collected data, confirmed linguistic data, managed and analyzed corpus based on the theory of conceptual metaphor. It carried out a contrastive study on large numbers of conceptual metaphors of "fire" which found in English and Chinese language, and analyzed the metaphor of "fire" from the perspective of experience philosophy and cognitive culture mode, which showed the universality and distinctiveness in these two different languages. Comparing English and Chinese language at the aspect of "fire" metaphors'universalities and distinctivenesses in the practical corpus, we try to deeply explore internal reasons for the cognition, mentality, language, etc. This study attempts to answer the following questions:(1)What typical "fire" metaphors in English and Chinese can we extract from the two authority corpus---the contemporary English corpus (COCA) and the Chinese modern Chinese corpus linguistics research center of Peking University (CCL)? What are different project scopes of fire metaphors in English and Chinese? What's the relationship between "fire" metaphors in COCA (English) and in CCL (Chinese). (2) We need to know that about "fire" metaphors in English and Chinese, what scopes of "fire" metaphors are similar and what are different. Then, the author materialized data through the corpus-based approach in the way that table-structuring the linguistic data and classifying and comparing the data in order to overcome the problem of past researches which lacking of reliability and low precision. (3) What are deep reasons behind the universalities and distinctivenesses of the "fire" metaphor?According to the linguistic data collected from corpora and the source domain of "fire" metaphor, the author came to the following conclusions:1) There is a great deal of metaphorical "fire" language material both in English and Chinese. The conceptual metaphor mappings of "fire" carry similar and different ideational metaphors in both languages, with more similarities than differences.2) There exist more "fire" metaphors in Chinese than in English according to the calculation of linguistic data in COCA and CCL. That means fire metaphors in Chinese are more widely used than in English. According to the two corpora of COCA and CCL, there are 10 "fire"conceptual metaphors domains in Chinese and 8 target domains corresponding with 8 source domains in English.3) The reasons behind these universalities can date back to their common perception and similar bodily experience; and as for these distinctivenesses, it is can explained from some main aspects such as geography, history background, living and thinking mode and cognition and racial culture.This study belongs to cross-language, cross-cultural research of the conceptual metaphors. Further more, this paper is based on the corpus-based method which has become a mainstream method for language study and is no longer a unique field for computer experts. The research carried out a contrastive study of the metaphor "fire" in English and Chinese by the method of corpus linguistics, and made people deeply understand the relationship between language and culture. There are practical significances for readers learning more about "fire" metaphors from cognitive and corpus' perspective or other imageries' conceptual metaphors in further, or for the interdisciplinary application of the cognitive psychology and corpus linguistics, which are all contained in this thesis. Further more, the study owns the meaningful reference and enlightenment function for foreign language teaching, E-C or C-E translation and cross-cultural communication.