A Corpus-based Contrastive Analysis Of The Conceptual Metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY In Chinese And English

The conceptual metaphor study not only helps us in learning the linguistic manifestations of metaphors,it also facilitates the discovery of underlying social-cultural factors.In comprehending the concept of “life”,we usually rely on some more concrete and simple objects or activities,such as “life is a game”,“life is a show” and “life is wine”.The existing studies of LIFE metaphors are mainly introspective works,and the comparative studies of LIFE metaphors in different languages are far from enough.Based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Frame Semantics theory,this study conducts a contrastive analysis of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY in Chinese and English.Firstly,it outlines the systematic conceptual mappings underlying the metaphor.Then according to this outline,both qualitative and quantitative analysis are carried out with data collected from CCL and COCA.The results are as follows:(1)some conceptual mappings of the JOURNEY metaphor,which exist in our specific language usages,have not been included or discussed in Master Metaphor List,such as “birth is the starting point of a journey”,“death is the endpoint of a journey” and “prohibition and permission of certain actions are traffic lights”.(2)the JOURNEY metaphor has rich and systematic linguistic manifestations both in Chinese and English,but elements of JOURNEY frame differ in terms of their metaphorical percentages.For example,some elements have high metaphorical frequencies both in Chinese and English,such as WATERSHED,TURNING POINT and BEACON;some elements have low frequencies,such as TRAVELER,TOUR GUIDE,and DESTINATION;some elements have significantly higher JOURNEY metaphor frequency in Chinese than in English,such as PATH,JOURNEY and GREEN LIGHT.(3)the linguistic manifestations of JOURNEY metaphor also demonstrate cultural differences between China and western countries.For example,collocations of the element CROSSROAD show that Chinese and western people have different behaviors in confronting life changes and choices.Western people employ more vivid and direct linguistic expressions to show their emotional feelings,and they are more likely to show positive attitudes in such cases.