A Corpus-based Comparative Study Of Temperature-sensation Metaphors In English And Chinese

Metaphor is traditionally viewed as a rhetoric device.However,the publication of Lakoff and Johnson's book Metaphors We Live By in 1980 marks the beginning of studies on metaphor from cognitive perspective.Conceptual Metaphor Theory holds that metaphor is not only a language phenomenon but a sort of cognitive means and thinking mode.As one of the first natural phenomena to be noticed by human beings,temperature affects the lives of human being.Temperature-sensation is a kind of perceptual experience by which people can perceive the world around them.Therefore,temperature-sensation words appear frequently in our daily life.The most representative temperature-sensation words cold/leng,hot/re,warm/wen,and cool/liang are chosen as research objects and two authoritative corpora are used as data sources: Center for Chinese Linguistics,Peking University(CCL)and Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA).Based on Lakoff and Johnson's Conceptual Metaphor Theory,this thesis makes a comparative study on temperature-sensation metaphors in English and Chinese,attempting to answer the following two questions:1)What are the similarities and differences between English and Chinese temperature-sensation metaphors in terms of target domains and mapping?2)What are the motivations for the similarities and differences between English and Chinese temperature-sensation metaphors?The following conclusions have been drawn according to the comparative analysis of the data and the interpretation for the similarities and differences of English and Chinese temperature-sensation metaphors.Though English and Chinese are developed in different nationalities,temperature-sensation metaphors share many target domains.The difference between metaphors of cool and liang is obvious while difference between those of cold and leng is relatively small,and the difference between metaphors of the other two groups are in between.There exists certain tendency of mapping.Chinese temperature-sensation words tend to be mapped onto attitude,temperament,mental state,environment and property of medicine domains whereas English temperature-sensation metaphors tend to be synaesthesia metaphors.Besides,the consistency in objective reality and consistency in physiology as well as similar psychological feelings are the major causes for similarities of temperature-sensation metaphors.Reasons for differences attribute to three aspects: distinction of cultural background,values and thinking modes.The results provide evidence to support Lakoff and Johnson's claim that metaphor is grounded in our bodily experience.This thesis is a supplement for previous study to a certain degree and is expected to provide a better understanding of the interaction among cognition,culture and language and some guidance for translation between English as well as reference for foreign language teaching and learning.