A Corpus-based Comparative Study On Metaphors Of Chinese And English Basic Temperature Terms

Temperature is a basic and important human experience of the external environment,which plays a key role in the process of constructing abstract concepts.Since Kittay(1987)studied the temperature term“hot”from the perspective of semantics,the polysemy of temperature terms has become a hot topic for linguists.Previous studies mainly focus on the semantic extension of Chinese temperature terms,the metaphorical analysis of a single temperature term,and the introspective study of Chinese and English basic temperature terms.However,there are few qualitative and quantitative studies based on corpus,and the analysis of English temperature terms is too general,lack of systematic and specific analysis.In addition,recent studies of temperature terms only rest on the enumeration of the phenomenon,explanation of the phenomenon remains to be touched.Therefore,based on previous efforts,this thesis proposes the following three questions:(1)What are the characteristics of metaphorical projection range of Chinese and English basic temperature terms?(2)What are the similarities and differences in the metaphorical mappings between Chinese and English basic temperature terms?(3)What are the causes for such similarities and differences in the metaphorical mappings of Chinese and English basic temperature terms?This thesis aims to have a good understanding of the cognitive law of Chinese and English language expression and thinking system in the framework of conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakoff&Johnson(1980)and based on the following corpora like British National Corpus,Corpus of Contemporary American English,Beijing Language and Culture University Corpus Center,the Modern Chinese Dictionary(the 7~thh edition)and the Oxford advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary(the 6~thh edition).The thesis finds that:(1)The metaphorical projection range of Chinese basic temperature terms is wider than that of English.It should be noted that the existence of more temperature metaphors in Chinese is the result of Chinese disyllabification.(2)Apart from basic temperature terms“liang”and“cool”,metaphors between other basic temperature terms share more similarities than differences.Different from Chinese basic temperature term“liang”,half of the metaphorical meanings of“cool”is shown in commendatory aspects.(3)Some temperature metaphors are universal,while others tend to vary from one language to another.The university of temperature experience,the common cognitive mode,synaesthesia and language communication can cause the universal temperature metaphors in Chinese and English,while the subjectivity of human cognition,the distinction of phonetic compositions and culture will lead to the variations of temperature metaphors in Chinese and English.