An Analysis On Conceptual Metaphors In Medical Language From The Perspective Of Cognitive Linguistics

With the development of science and technology,the medicine has made a great progress as well;there are about 1,500 new word and expressions arising every year.While how to make the unavoidably obscure expression acceptable and understandable become a problem to medical professionals and linguistics.Then the appearance and application of conceptual metaphors provide the solution to the problem.The interest in metaphor and the study of its structure,mechanism,function and cognitive nature had developed rapidly in the past few decades.This thesis is mainly based on the conceptual metaphor theory raised by Lakoff and working mechanism of conceptual metaphor put forward by Laokoff&Jhonson(1989).The author aims to uncover the conceptual metaphors in medical texts.And Lakoff&Jhonson’s book Metaphors We Live By is the inspiration and theoretical basis.With the data collected from different sources,mostly from common used professional books,still some from magazines,websitesand blogs,we categorize three metaphors on the basis of Lakoff&Johnson’s classifications then we discuss the working mechanism of the these metaphors.The cases studies reveal that metaphors are ubiquitous in ESP,and the usage of metaphors helps people get a new insight to explore the unknown and unfamiliar knowledge.Furthermore,the research in this thesis has both cognitive and practical implications;for one thing,metaphors help people perceive the world in much wider and easier way by providing different angles.For the other thing,findings can also be applied in medical teaching,building a bridge for new learners and professionals,fulfill people’s communicative needs and help solve the word shortage problem.