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A Cognitive Study of English and Chinese Spatial Metaphors

Author: LiJuan
Tutor: JiangNing
School: Xi'an University of Electronic Science and Technology
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: Cognition Spatial Metaphor Concept Mapping Image Schema
CLC: H315
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2009
Downloads: 348
Quote: 1
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Abstract


Through a contrastive study of spatial metaphors in English and Chinese from acognitive perspective, this thesis is intended to (1) explore the generality of English andChinese languages and similarities in cognition of their speakers; (2) provide evidencefor the claim that there may exist a universal cognitive approach shared by people ofdifferent languages.Metaphor reflects human’s cognition and severs as a cognitive device. Spatialmetaphor, as an important part of metaphor, can be studied to reveal human cognition.Among all the spatial relations, the vertical relation is the most basic and fundamental.Therefore, this thesis makes a contrastive analysis of the vertical spatial words, up,down, shang and xia.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter I is an introduction to the thesis. Aliterature review is presented in Chapter II, where ideas and achievements concerningmetaphor is presented to lay out the historical background against which the author’scognitive study is conducted. Theoretical prerequisites are studied in the followingchapter to offer a general overview of cognition and metaphor and the relationshipbetween them. Great importance is attached to the working mechanism. In Chapter IV, acontrastive study is made of spatial metaphors UP/DOWN and SHANG/XIAin Englishand Chinese, with a detailed analysis of a great many specific examples in the twolanguages. The space domain is mapped onto abstract domains of QUANTITY,POSITION and STATE, and endows the target domains with a vertical and metaphoricalmeaning. The three abstract domains are divided into several sub-domains. QUANTITYis analyzed from two aspects: NUMBER and DEGREE. The analysis of POSITION ismade from two perspectives: RANK and PLACE. Both states of people and events areanalyzed in the discussion of STATES. Based on the contrastive analysis, Chapter Vdraws a conclusion that there are same or similar metaphorical extensions between UP,DOWN, SHANG and XIA, which further suggests the possibility that people fromdifferent languages may share the same or similar cognitive mode and approach.

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CLC: > Language, writing > FOREIGN > English > Writing,rhetoric
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