英汉爱情隐喻的认知对比分析_英语论文

A Cognitive and Contrastive Study of English and Chinese Love Metaphors

摘要

人们的日常生活中充满了隐喻。传统的隐喻观只是把隐喻看做一种修辞。随着时间的流逝，越来越多的学者开始对隐喻感兴趣,他们开始从语言学、社会科学等各个角度展开研究。二十世纪七十年代之后，随着当代语言学打产生，人们对于隐喻的理解也有了长足的进步。隐喻开始被认为是一种重要的影响着人的认知的思维。事实上，隐喻是一种认知工具。借助它，人们能更好得理解周边的世界，尤其能更好地理解抽象的事物。爱，作为人的日常情绪之一，是抽象的而不能直接对其进行描述的。所以，人们在日常经验积累中学会了使用各种隐喻来表达抽象的感情。但是，由于隐喻产生的文化背景不同，各个民族使用的隐喻既有共同点又有不同点。

这篇论文主要是为了找出中英爱情隐喻的异同之处，并且，借助分析不同的文化背景的影响，找出这些异同的原意。本文因采用了定性研究和定量研究相结合的方式而更具合理性，也能够对爱情隐喻提供更好的理解。

关键词: 爱情隐喻；对比研究；认知语言学

Abstract

Metaphor is previously employed in people’s daily life. Traditionally, metaphor is only regarded as a figure of speech. As the time goes by, more and more scholars begin to take interest in metaphor from different angles, including linguistics, social science and so on. After 1970s, contemporary cognitive linguistics emerged. Since then, the understanding of metaphor has been improved gradually. Metaphor is considered as a significant way of thinking, which has a great influence on human cognition. In fact, metaphor is a cognitive tool that man uses to better understand the changing world, especially the abstract world. On the other side, love, as one of human being’s daily feeling, is too abstract to describe directly. So, with the bodily and life experiences, people always use metaphor to help them to better understand and express love. But because of the influence of different culture background, metaphors, originated in different nations, have both similarities and differences.  

This thesis mainly aims to deal with the similarities and differences of love metaphors between English and Chinese. Then after the study of different culture background, this study also finds out the causes for the universalities and differences. Through using the combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, this thesis seems to be more valid, and could provide a better understanding of love metaphors.

Keywords: love metaphor  contrastive study  cognitive linguistics