A Comparative Study of Metaphor in Animal Idioms between Chinese and English

Comparison on the Metaphor in Animal Idioms between Chinese and English

By Yu Xueke

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. degree

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

May, 2016

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I hold the deepest gratitude to my supervisor —— Professor Xiong Mingli, for her constant patience, professional advice and encouragement during my thesis writing. I am very grateful that she has devoted considerable portion of her time to offer me valuable advice. Truly, without her help of my drafts, I could not have finished this paper.

Second, I am also deeply obliged to all teachers who directly or indirectly do a favor in this paper. Thanks for their scholarly advice and selfless devotion.

Last but not least, my sincere thanks should also go to my beloved roommates and lovely classmates, thanks for their understand, suggestions and help through all the stages of the thesis writing.

Contents

1.Introduction………………………………………………………..........................1

2. LiteratureReview................................................……………….............................2

2.1 Metaphor research at home and abroad ………………................................2

2.2. Metaphor in animal idioms’ study at home andabroad…………................4

3. Metaphor in Chinese and English Animal Idioms…............................….....…...5

3.1 Metaphor in Chinese animal idioms...........…..................................….....…...5

3.2 Metaphor in English animal idioms………...….............................….....….....6

3.3 Similarity of metaphor in animal idioms between Chinese and English......7

3.4 Differences of metaphor in animal idioms between Chinese and English....8

3.5 Summary…………...………………………………………………………..…9

4. Conclusion…………...…………………………………………..............................9

References………………...………………………………………............................10

Comparison on the Metaphor in Animal Idioms between Chinese and English

Yu Xueke

Department of English

School of Language and Culture

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: Metaphor is a common linguistic phenomenon, and it has been widely used in a lot of fields of language. Metaphor is one of the most basic ways of thinking and cognitive means, idioms are the essence of language and the quintessence of human wisdom, they have distinctive national features. There are many metaphors in Chinese and English idioms. As we all know, there is an inextricable relationship between animals and human beings since ancient times.This paper takes Chinese and English animal idioms as the carrier and bases on the theory of conceptual metaphor, it aims to reveal the similarities and differences between Chinese and English animal idioms through an intensive comparison and study to promote the study of animals’ idioms.

Key words: metaphor; animal idioms; comparison between Chinese and English

摘要：隐喻作为一种常见的语言现象，被广泛应用于语言的许多领域。隐喻是最基本的思维方式和认知方式之一，习语是语言的精华，是人类智慧的结晶，具有鲜明的民族特色，汉语和英语习语中有很多隐喻。众所周知，自古以来动物与人类之间就有着不可分割的关系。本文以中英动物习语为载体，基于概念隐喻理论，通过对中英动物习语中隐喻用法的深入对比和研究，旨在揭示出中英动物习语中隐喻用法的相似点和不同点，希望研究成果可以有助于动物习语的学习。

关键词：隐喻；动物习语；中英对比

1. Introduction

Metaphor is one of the basic thinking and cognitive style of human beings. It is also the basic guarantee of human language formation. It involves the origin of language, the mechism of the mind, the acquisition of concept, interpersonal communication, and the way to understand each other and so on. The researches and theories of metaphor have a long history of over two thousand years. It can be traced back to Aristotle in ancient Greece, who treated metaphor as a rhetorical and stylistic device only used to enrich poetic and literary writings. Metaphor theory is derived from a book Metaphor We Live By, which is co-authored by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). It is described systematically in a paper of Lakoff —The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor. Metaphor is a mapping of system from a specific concept domain to an abstract concept domain. It is a question of thinking level rather than the problem of language expression. Therefore, metaphor is a mode of thinking and cognitive means. British rhetorician Richards (1936) has said that in our session a metaphor may appear in every three sentences. We can find metaphor everywhere in our life, it always express rich meaning in a vivid and concise way. Through metaphor, people can learn about the world, expand the thinking, get the notion and develop the language. Therefore, the use of metaphor reflects the cognitive style of a nation.

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, the definition of idiom is that “Phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit.”. The linguist Moon (1988) thinks that “Idiom is an ambiguous term, used in conflicting ways.” From the historical perspective, idioms are the fruit of language and culture in the long history of human beings; they are also one of the indispensable research objects of conceptual metaphor. With the aid of language form, idioms reflect the awareness of human about the social and culture, in a manner of speaking; idioms are the optimal combination of language and culture. Just like a mirror, idioms reflect the social system of a nation, life style and customs, philosophy of life and cultural thinking. In the light of language and culture characteristics, idioms, which cover the culture elements with distinct personality characteristics and ethnic background, is the most typical and representative language form. In addition, every language in the world contains a large number of idioms, and most idioms also reflect the nature of metaphor. This is the reason of topic selection.

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