Systematicity And Complexity Of EATING Metaphor In Chinese

The metaphorical expressions related to EATING are ubiquitous in Chinese,which are valuable for research from the perspectives of culture and linguistics.Previous studies are restricted to the “chi(eat)+Noun” construction and fail to reveal the metaphorical system associated with EATING.Using Conceptual Metaphor Theory,this thesis tends to explore these expressions thoroughly and unfold the metaphors behind them.Two questions are dealt with:(1)What is EATING metaphor in Chinese?(2)How is systematicity and complexity realized in this metaphor?The thesis explores EATING metaphor in four dimensions,namely,eating/drinking,food,cooking and tools.The findings are:(1)Metaphors in eating/drinking are established through three components(internalization,sensation of agent,and destruction of patient)involving DESIRE IS HUNGER/THIRST,SUFFERING IS EATING,OCCUPYING IS EATING,COVERING IS SWALLOWING,ABSORBING IS EATING,CONSIDERING IS CHEWING,UNDERSTANDING IS CHEWING,UNDERSTANDING IS DIGESTING,and DEPENDING IS EATING.Besides,LEARNING,INVASION and COITUS are the common target domains,which results in LEARNING IS EATING,INVASION IS EATING and COITUS IS EATING;(2)Metaphors in food can be generalized into HUMANS ARE FOOD by partially highlighting the aspects of FOOD;(3)Metaphors in cooking are based on the state of food and the time of cooking,involving GETTING THROUGH IS STEWING/FRYING,TORTURING IS STEWING/FRYING,EXPLOITING IS SQUEEZING,IMMERSING IS STEWING/SOAKING and SPECULATING IS FRYING,DEVELOPING IS COOKING;(4)Metaphors in tools set up through the capture of some features of the entities and KNIFE,JAR,BUCKET,WINESKIN,PLATE and POT are the common source concepts.Through the systematic study of EATING metaphor in Chinese,we can see thatthe Chinese diet culture has a significant impact on the conceptualization of Chinese people,which sheds light on Chinese cultural studies to a certain extent.Besides,the exploration of the metaphor system also provides more cross-linguistic examples for Conceptual Metaphor Theory.