A Contrastive Study Of Temporal Metaphor In English And Chinese From Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Temporal metaphor is of great practical significance in the lexical contrastive study of English and Chinese,let alone research on temporal metaphor is strongly associated with cultures and perspectives.Since cognition of human beings is derived from their daily physical experience,given that people speaking different languages have more or less similar experience,the concepts of metaphor would be shared somehow in this way.However,rooting in different cultures may lead to various understandings of temporal concepts.This study attempts to reveal the similarities and differences between the two languages at the conceptual and linguistic levels.Lakoff divides the conceptual metaphor into three categories: orientational,ontological metaphor and structural metaphor.Based on these classifications,this thesis has discussed five kinds of mappings of temporal metaphor.In line with contrastive study of these two languages,this thesis intends to probe two research questions:(1)What are the similarities and differences in temporal metaphors between English and Chinese?(2)What are the possible causes of the similarities and differences in temporal metaphors between the two languages?In terms of the research questions,this thesis employs data statistics from two parallel corpora(BNC and CCL)to launch a qualitative and quantitative analysis of temporal metaphor.The data collected draws a conclusion as followings:(1)There are a lot of structural metaphors in both two languages.In frequency,usage of orientational metaphors in Chinese is more abundant than English,while ontological metaphor and structural metaphor are used less;In terms of vocabulary,prepositions in Chinese are more functional than English,for they can represent both the meaning of time and space,yet it is rarely seen in English;In the order of time,Chinese often uses the metaphor model of “ the front is the future,the behind is the past ”,which is opposite to English users;In the aspect of association and rhetoric,temporal metaphor in Chinese tends to be materialized,while English tends to be more personalized.(2)The cause for the similarities in temporal metaphor in English and Chinese is that we have similar experience in understanding the world.Owing to diverse social and cultural background,rhetoric,and thinking patterns,temporal metaphor varies in two languages.This thesis,to some extent,can enhance our knowledge of metaphor,especially temporal metaphor,meanwhile offering useful guides for foreign teaching and cross-cultural communication.