A Corpus-based Contrastive Study Of The Conceptual Metaphors Of "Water" In English And Chinese

This thesis aims to explore the similarities and differences of "water" metaphors in English and Chinese and causes of the similarities and differences.In this thesis,a corpus-based contrastive study of "water" metaphors is conducted with WATER as the source domain based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory.Metaphor has been a hot topic in recent years and numerous studies have been conducted by scholars on metaphor.The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one domain called target domain in terms of another called source domain.Generally speaking,the target domain is abstract and unfamiliar while the source domain is concrete and familiar as shown in LIFE IS A JOURNEY.The studies on metaphor usually focuses on familiar elements in our daily lives.As a familiar and important element to us,"water"is used to understand abstract things like"time".Meanwhile,"water" can also be used to refer to concrete things as shown in WATER IS MONEY.Thus,the study of"water"metaphors can be a supplement for Conceptual Metaphor Theory as concrete elements can also be used to understand concrete things.The author selects 2,000 "water" items from the Center of Chinese Linguistics and British National Corpus respectively by random spot checking.In addition,dictionaries serve as assistive tools including Modern Chinese Dictionary,Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary and The Cassell Concise English Dictionary,Apart from the corpus-based method,this thesis also adopts a method of metaphor identification as introduced by Steen in 2002.With methods involving corpus and metaphor identification,we get the main findings reported as below:1.There are seven similar "water" metaphors shared by both languages from the selected corpus including MONEY IS WATER,EMOTION IS WATER,DIFFICULTY IS WATER,TRUTH IS WATER,ATTITUDE IS WATER,WEAKENING OR FAKE THING IS WATER and STANDARD IS WATER;there are six "water" metaphors only found in Chinese corpus including POWER IS WATER,THE PUBLIC IS WATER,TIME IS WATER,TRAFFIC IS WATER,CONDITION IS WATER and DISTANCE IS WATER;there is only one "water" metaphor found in the selected English corpus,that is,HOLY SPIRIT IS WATER.2.Causes of similarities and differences involving "water" metaphors are explained.The author attributes similarities to similar physical experiences in different languages and differences to different geological environments,world outlooks and ranges of "water" meanings.The findings of this thesis can help deepen people’s understandings of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory by means of the conceptual metaphors of "water" and facilitate the cross-cultural communication of different languages through the contrastive study of "water" metaphors.