A Comparison between Metaphors of Up in Chinese and English

By Dong Man

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

April, 2017

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my thanks to those who have helped me with my thesis. First of all, I must thank Dr. Zhang Houzhen for being my supervisor. His support and guidance made all the differences in this process. He gave me constructive suggestions and helped me go through all the difficulties in writing this thesis. Without his guidance and encourage, I would not have completed this thesis. I also must thank my former integrated English teachers Mr. Zhou Zhihao and Mr. Zhang Jun for their unconditional care and support with my English study. They are both very professional and outstanding teachers, and they are like close friends, giving me valuable suggestions for my thesis conducting. Last but not the least; I want to show my appreciation for all the support and help from my friends and classmates. They gave me useful advice and suggestions before I decided on this topic.

Contents

Abstract. - 1 -

1. Introduction - 2 -

1.1 Research Background - 2 -

1.2 Significance - 2 -

1.3 Thesis Organization - 3 -

2. Basic Theories of Metaphor - 3 -

2.1 Definition of Metaphor - 3 -

2.2 Previous Studies on Spatial Metaphors - 4 -

2.2.1 Studies on Spatial Metaphor at Home - 4 -

2.2.2 Studies on Spatial Metaphor Abroad - 5 -

3. Comparison between Metaphors of Up and Shang - 6 -

3.1 Domain of Quantity - 7 -

3.2 Domain of Time - 8 -

3.3 Domain of Emotion -9 -

3.4 Domain of Social Hierarchy -10 -

3.5 Domain of Social Evaluation - 11-

4. Underlying Reasons for These Similarities and Differences - 12 -

4.1 Underlying Reasons for These Similarities - 12 -

4.2 Underlying Reasons for These Differences - 13 -

5. Conclusion - 14 -

References - 14 -

A Comparison between Metaphors of Up in Chinese and English

Dong Man

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: This paper is going to discuss the spatial metaphor, which is the most important one among all types of metaphors. Metaphor is a tool that people cognize the world. In this paper, the author choose to study the metaphor of English word “up” and its corresponding Chinese word “shang”. By analyzing the metaphorical meanings and comparing them in different conceptual domains, we can find out their similarities and differences. Finally, on the basis of the previous scholars’ researches, this paper is of certain significance both theoretically and practically. We could better understand and translate these two words.

Key words: spatial words; up; metaphor; comparison of metaphors

摘要：本文论述的空间隐喻是所有隐喻类型中最为重要的类型。隐喻是人们认知世界的一种工具，而本文中则格外研究英文中的 “up” 以及中文对应的“上”所带来的隐喻，通过分析它们在不同的概念域的隐喻意义以及对比，我们可以了解到它们的相同和不同之处。最后，本文在研究前人分析的基础上，在理论和实践上都有一定的价值。我们能够更好地理解和翻译这两个空间词汇。

关键词：空间词；上；隐喻；隐喻对比

1. Introduction

1.1 Research Background

People cognizes the space of up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, and deep-shallow through sensory organs to form spatial concepts. According to the patterns of human cognition, we uses these frequently-used spatial concepts to cognize those abstract and unknown concepts. Therefore, these terms gradually generate many metaphorical extensions in addition to their merely spatial meanings. Cognitive linguistics holds the idea that the metaphorical extensions of these spatial terms in meaning are not arbitrary. On the contrary, they have cognitive motivations.

Lakoff and Johnson present the term “conceptual metaphor”, of which orientational metaphors are a subtype, in which locative terms as the source domain are mapped onto other target domains, making abstract concepts become concrete and helping people cognize other abstract concepts (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003). In addition, according to the viewpoints of Goossens (1990) and other cognitive linguists, metaphor and metonymy sometimes interact with each other in the generation of new meanings of a word.

The relation of “up” and “down” is the most basic concept of space, although much of the subjective experience of human language is consistent with spatial relations, every language consists of its basic semantic meaning extending to its metaphoric usages. The spatial orientation in language refers to the relative relationship between the positions of things. In both languages of Chinese and English, the position of the objects mainly decides their spatial expressions(乔治.莱考夫，马克.约翰逊, 2015).

1.2 The Significance of the Research

Based on the relationship between the expression and the concept of spatial words, Linguists use cognitive linguistics to study form and significance of orientation words, and make some new proposals conclusions, but these new researches mostly just touch the shallow level of concept of time and space without sufficient proof to demonstrate the semantic function of spatial words in other aspects.

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