| As one of the basic emotions, love is an important aspect of human experience. Due to its abstraction, LOVE is too difficult to be deeply analyzed. However, the development of cognitive linguistics provides new ways for the research into LOVE. It is commonly believed by cognitive linguists that language is an important source of evidence what human conceptual system is like, so the way that LOVE is conceptualized can be explored through the analysis of the linguistic expressions about love. Since 1980s, many cognitive linguists at home and abroad have done lots of researches on LOVE metaphors, but few of them apply Conceptual Metaphor Theory as well as Idealized Cognitive Model to contrast the similarities and differences of LOVE metaphors between Chinese and English popular songs. Therefore, based on a corpus of Chinese and English popular songs published during recent 16 years, this thesis studies the similarities and differences in metaphorical expressions of LOVE as well as the underlying causes from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and three sub-models of Idealized Cognitive Model. The data will be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Implications will be concluded for improving metaphorical competence development. This thesis intends to answer the following three questions: (1) What major metaphors are employed to structure human understanding of love concept in the lyrics of English and Chinese popular songs? (2) What are the similarities and differences of love metaphors in the lyrics of English and Chinese popular songs? (3) What are the cognitive motivations of the similarities and differences?The data used in this thesis are highest-downloaded 100 Chinese and 100 English popular songs published in 2000-2016 and collected from such famous music websites as Kugou music, Baidu music, TTPOD, etc. The Chinese corpus size is 34324 words and yields 138 metaphoric as well as 19 metonymic expressions of love. The English corpus size is 29066 words and yields 136 metaphoric as well as 11 metonymic expressions of love. The criteria employed for identifying metaphor in the two corpora is "Metaphorical Pattern Analysis"(MPA) proposed by Stefanowitsch (2004, 2006). The LOVE metaphors gained from the corpus are categorized in terms of source domains. By analyzing these LOVE metaphors qualitatively and quantitatively, conclusions are made as follows:(1) Both Chinese and English song lyrics tend to employ specific source domains such as JOURNEY, MOVIE, PLANT, WAR, etc. to conceptualize LOVE emotion.(2) There are eight dominant conceptual metaphors shared by both Chinese and English popular song lyrics, such as LOVE IS JOURNEY, LOVE IS MOVIE/PLAY/STORY, LOVE IS PLANT, LOVE IS WAR, LOVE IS FIRE, LOVE IS APPETIZING FOOD, LOVE IS GAME/SPORT,and LOVE IS FLUID IN A CONTAINER. Four love metaphors such as LOVE IS DESTINY, LOVE IS MOON,LOVE IS SILK and LOVE IS A UNITY OF TWO INSEPARABLE PARTS are Chinese-specific, while four love metaphors including LOVE IS COMMODITY, LOVE IS SUN/LIGHT, THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS DEITY and LOVE IS A UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS are specific in English. Besides, there are two major conceptual metonymies including PHYSICAL ORGANS/ PHYSICAL EFFECTS STAND FOR LOVE and EYE-RELATED METONYMIES OF LOVE as well as three major image schemas like PATH SCHEMA, CONTAINER SCHEMA and LINK SCHEMA of love are found in recent popular songs of both languages. However, although both Chinese and English use physical effects or physical organs to conceptualize LOVE, slight differences still exist. English people use heart only to describe their love concept, while Chinese are inclined to use more organs than English to conceptualize LOVE, such as the hearts, lungs,livers and intestines. Furthermore, PATH SCHEMA and LINK SCHEMA are shared by both languages, but words and specific images used in these two schemas are different.(3) Based on the Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM), this thesis has discovered that the similarities of love metaphors in English and Chinese attribute to the common ICMs based on human being's common physical and psychological experience of the love emotion.However, the differences of love metaphors derive from the different ICMs caused by the different religions, philosophies, production modes and national personalitiesImplications are drawn for second language learners. They should learn to understand the cultural differences behind different ICMs for the better grasping the metaphorical expressions in different languages, finally improving their metaphorical competence. |
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