A Study Of "ANGER" Synonyms From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor

Emotion is a crucial aspect of human psychological processes,serving as a vivid reflection of the real world.It can be manifested in various ways,with each emotion possessing unique traits and a rich connotation.For people to understand emotions,they must first study these connotations and traits.However,since emotion is a special psychological state,its abstraction and fuzziness make it difficult for people to express it concretely and vividly in language,but through metaphorical language.Therefore,metaphor plays a key role in the process of emotion conceptualization,which makes conceptual metaphor theory an important theoretical support for understanding and analyzing emotions.Metaphor is a key element in the conceptualization of emotion and is used frequently in emotional expression.As a result,the conceptual metaphor theory is frequently used as a theoretical foundation for comprehending and evaluating emotion.Many researchers have used conceptual metaphor to study emotion in the past and present,but the majority of these studies have a cross-cultural comparative focus.The corpus is also used by some domestic scholars to research emotional synonyms from the standpoint of semantic rhyme.However,there aren’t many studies on the use of conceptual metaphors and emotional synonyms both domestically and internationally.Based on the BNC(British National Corpus),this thesis conducts a conceptual metaphor analysis of “ANGER” synonyms to address three main questions: first,what are the conceptual metaphors of the “ANGER” synonyms? Second,how are these conceptual metaphors distributed in this group of synonyms? Third,what are the similarities and differences in the use of conceptual metaphors in this group of synonyms? To answer the above questions,this study utilizes instruments such as Sketch Engine to conduct an in-depth analysis of the “ANGER” synonyms.Through metaphor identification,the number of conceptual metaphors including the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor,SUBSTANCE metaphor and so on in the use of ANGER,FURY and RAGE is 26,23 and26 respectively,and these conceptual metaphors are classified.By calculating the frequency of these conceptual metaphors,the proportion of type and individual conceptual metaphors are obtained.In order to further analyze the similarities and differences of this group of synonyms,this paper makes an in-depth analysis of the identified conceptual metaphors.On the one hand,there are three similarities in these synonyms: First,there are21 conceptual metaphors that are shared among them,including SUBSTANCE metaphor,ANIMAL metaphor etc;Second,ontological metaphor is the most frequently used conceptual metaphor type among ANGER,FURY,and RAGE,and they all preferred to use the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphors,SBSTANCE metaphors,CONTAINER metaphors,and HUAMAN BEING metaphors to express emotions than others;Third,this group of synonyms maps the characteristics of emotion generation,accumulation,suppression,explosion,and directivity in the target domain using the substance,object,natural phenomenon,organism,human sense,event,and space as the source domains.On the other hand,there are also three differences in this group of synonyms: First,there are 7unique conceptual metaphors in this group of synonyms,which only appear in the use of one or two synonyms;Second,by comparing the proportion of metaphors,it is found that ANGER most often appears in the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor,FURY most often appears in the SUBSTANCE metaphor,and RAGE most often appears in the CONTAINER metaphor;Third,the analysis of the 7 unique conceptual metaphors shows that ANGER pays attention to the danger,generation and growth of emotions;FURY emphasizes the outbreak of emotions,which is devastating and beyond human control;RAGE,on the other hand,focuses on the destructive power of emotion and the great harm it brings to the human body.Through an in-depth analysis of the conceptual metaphors of “ANGER” synonyms,this thesis not only reveals the use and meaning of these synonyms,but also provides a more accurate and richer way of expressing emotions.As a result,this thesis offers guidance and insight into how people communicate and express their emotions,as well as a better understanding of how to use these synonyms.