英语习语概念结构对比

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中文摘要

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 1

CHAPTER 2 THE SHARED COGNITIVE MODEL ..............................................2

2.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 2

2.2 ONTOLOGICAL METAPHOR ....................................................................................7

2.3 STRUCTURAL METAPHOR .......................................................................................9

2.4 RESEMBLANCE OF LIFE EXPERIENCES ................................................................. 9

2.5 RESEMBLANCE OF MENTAL EXPERIENCES ......................................................... 11

CHAPTER 3 THE SHARED WAY OF CONCEPTUAL BLENDING ....................13

3.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 13

3.2 FOUR- SPACE MODEL ...........................................................................................16

3.3 THE SHARED WAY OF PROJECTION ..................................................................16

3.4 THE SHARED WAY OF SCHEMA FORMULATION ............................................... 17

CHAPTER 4 DIFFERENT CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURES ................................. 20

4.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 20

4.2 DIFFERENT PROTOTYPES ..................................................................................... 22

4.3 DIFFERENT STRUCTURES OF CATEGORIES ......................................................... 24

4.4 DIFFERENT IMAGERY SCHEMA ............................................................................28

CHAPTER 5 DIFFERENT COGNITIVE EXPERIENCES .................................... 31

5.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 31

5.2 ENVIRONMENTAL DIFFERENCES ..........................................................................32

5.3 DIFFERENT CULTURAL BACKGROUNDS .............................................................. 35

5.4 DIFFERENT EXPERIENTIAL GESTALT .................................................................. 37

CHAPTER 6 DIFFERENT RESULTS OF METAPHOR .........................................39

6.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 39

6.2 DIFFERENT MENTAL SPACES ............................................................................... 40

6.3 DIFFERENT RESULTS OF CONCEPTUAL BLENDING .............................................42

CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 45

7.1 DIFFERENT THINKING PATTERNS ........................................................................45

7.2 FIXED CULTURAL FEATURE OF IDIOMS ...............................................................47

REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................49

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... 52

Chapter 1 Introduction

Languages are the wisdom of human beings, while idioms and proverbs are the

condensation of wisdom. The tendency to speak in proverbial or idiomatic language is

found in all countries. It's likely that people use idioms and proverbs to express

themselves more quickly and concisely than in any other way. Idioms and proverbs have

drawn much attention from scholars and researchers who have done rich research of

idioms from different aspects. At the early stage, large amount of Chinese idioms were

translated into English and a great range of English idioms were translated into Chinese

as well. This stage was a prosperous translation period. With the development of

intercultural communication, researchers have begun to analyze the idioms from culture

aspects. These aspects mainly fall into the following categories: idioms concerning

animals, cultural differences between English and Chinese idioms, the translation of

English and Chinese idioms, national and rhetorical features of English and Chinese

idioms, metaphors in English and Chinese idioms, idioms concerning numbers and

different types of idioms.

The benefit from the development of cognitive linguistics is that scholars obtain a

brand new way to illustrate Chinese and English idioms from cognitive aspects. A

noteworthy book is called IDIOMS AND THEIR COMPREHENSION: A COGNITIVE

SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE authored by Zhanghui. This book attempts to investigate

the meaning in the construction of Chinese idioms from a perspective of cognitive

semantics. The object of the research is mainly Chinese fixed four-character idioms

which is typical among various types of Chinese idioms. Through a survey of idiom

researches the author proposed that idioms as a form of conceptual schema of

conventionalized metaphor and metonymy are the inputs to the dynamic processes of

conceptual blending.

This paper tries to compare the conceptual structure of Chinese and English idioms.

Since the way people interact with nature is the same while the specific experiences are

quite different which require various specific reaction towards the world. This process

leads to a different thinking pattern between native Chinese and English speakers.

Through the comparison of the conceptual structure, this article finally draws a

conclusion that the differences between Chinese and English idioms will maintain and

will not be changed in the process of world communication.

Conceptual Structure Comparison between Chinese and English Idioms

Chapter 2 The Shared Cognitive Model

2.1 Introduction

Though people are from different cultural background and the geographical

conditions are various as well, there are bundles of English and Chinese idioms with

nearly the same expressions and meaning, some of which are showed below:

火上浇油

To pour oil on the flame

欲速则不达

More haste, less speed

隔墙有耳

Walls have ears

心情沉重

With a heavy heart

鱼目混珠

To pass fish eyes for pearls

水滴穿石

Constant dropping wears the

stone

时不我待

Time and tide wait for no man

心有余而力不足

The heart is willing , but the

flesh is weak

Those idioms which are only tiny part of huge amount of cultural resemblance

express almost the same meaning. “Huixin” in the Chinese idiom,灰心丧气, expresses

the situation of being horribly sad, which may trigger out a picture of dead fire ash on

Chinese mind, the heart felt like the dead fire ash; “sang” means to lose. This idiom tries

to express that someone loses heart due to frustration and failure. The English idiom “to

lose one’s heart” expresses the same meaning. The Chinese idiom,一石二鸟, means use

one stone to kill two birds and it tries to express the donation that when you do

something you gain more through one action. In the Chinese idiom, 如履薄冰 ,“lv”

(履)means to step on ，“bobing” （薄冰）equals to thin ice. Altogether it expresses

doing something like walking on the thin ice, which is full of potential risks and people

need to be highly cautious during the whole process. We can call all these idioms shared

wisdom. We do share lots of things like our biological structure, but there is something

more fundamental that is because we share the same cognitive model.

Mental processes of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception,

Chapter 2 The Shared Cognitive Model

reasoning, and judgment are perceived as cognitive processes. Human beings have the

same physical structure with brains, eyes, hands etc. The interactions of body organs

with the nature form the acts or experiences of knowing, including consciousness of

things and judgment about them. The internal structures and processes that are involved

in the acquisition and use of knowledge, including sensation, perception, attention,

learning, memory, language, thinking, and reasoning, are shared by all human beings as

basic cognitive procedures. The core is that the experiences people gained through the

interaction with nature are quite similar. Like kill two birds with one stone, walk on the

thin ice, to pass fish eyes for pearls mentioned before, there are many same idioms born

by similar life experiences.

浑水摸鱼

to fish in troubled water

趁热打铁

strike the iron while it is hot

了如指掌

to know something like the back of one’s

hand

一线希望

a ray of hope

空中楼阁

castles in the air

赴汤蹈火

to go through water and fire

一帆风顺

plain sailing

一文不值

without a penny to one’s name

削足适履

to cut the feet to fit the shoes

易如反掌

as easy as turning over one’s hand

祸不单行

misfortunes never comes single

随波逐流

go with the flow

绞尽脑汁

to rack one’s brains

People have the same experiences which is the reason why they have shared wisdom

despite different locations and different geographical features. Only if they have waters,

fires, mountains, walls, castles, palms, sea, etc. do they have the same opportunity to

learn from their experiences and draw the same conclusion from the accumulation of

life experiences. Though people are from different places, it’s easy for them to find out

Conceptual Structure Comparison between Chinese and English Idioms

that constant dropping wears the stone and strike the iron while it is hot. People pass

those pearls of wisdom to the next generation.

There is something dynamic in that human beings prefer to live in a group; so a

primary cognitive function of all social species is communication, which can be

accomplished by a combination of vocal, gesture, and even hormonal signals. Of all

species on Earth, only humans have developed a communication system based on

abstract signs. This evolutionary development is closely tied to the greater reasoning

capacity of humans as well. All reasoning can be broadly described as pattern

recognition and search. With the same functionality of brains, they start to recognize the

concept they encounter before they begin to search relevant knowledge to reason.

Conceptual knowledge base is searched for relevant information in order to draw a

conclusion, solve a problem, or guide behavior. Thinking often takes the form of a chain

of associations among concepts in long-term memory.

“The most common reasoning strategies include direct retrieval, imaging, means-ends

analysis, analogy, classification, deduction, and formal procedures.”(Lakoff, 1987: 53)

Reasoning by direct retrieval involves retrieving a known fact from memory to solve a

problem. To “pour cold water on” is a typical example for retrieving a known fact from

memory to solve a problem. People use this expression when they want to express the

meaning that when someone really wants to do something with all his might, and then

someone speaks discouragingly to him. It is so vivid that people do not need to search

relevant knowledge to reason. Most of the time people take it as a concept. When this

idiom is applied, it is much easier for people to get an understanding from a known fact

then to do the comparisons until they have a full understanding of the pragmatic

meaning. When this idiom appears in the reasoning domain, people prefer to build the

fire domain and cold water domain in the understanding process which makes the

conveying of the message much easier and more efficient.

Chapter 2 The Shared Cognitive Model

Cold Water

Fire

Discouraging

Words

Enthusiasm

Reasoning involves constructing or retrieving images from conceptual memory and

examining or manipulating them to solve a problem. Means-ends analysis is typically

employed when solving problems in unfamiliar domains. When a solution is not

immediately apparent, reasoners typically compare the goal to the current situation and

select meanings with which to reduce the differences between the two situations. Like

“give green light”( 开绿灯 ) , it won’t take much effort for people to reach full

understanding of this idiom when it appears in any pragmatic situation. Seemingly, it

has no direct relationship with traffic rules but when reasoners compare the situation

“let someone do what he wants without any holdback” to green lights for the drivers or

passengers, it is quite easy to reduce the differences between the two situations and get

clear understanding through comparisons.

“Lover’s hearts are closely linked”(心有灵犀一点通), “with a heavy heart” (心情沉

重) ,“heart and soul” (全心全意) ,“heart to heart” (心心相印) ,“love with one’s heart”

(真心相爱 ), “Time and tide wait for no man. ” ( 时不我待 ) only through

communication systems developed by humans based on abstract signs can people draw

those conclusions. “Lover’s hearts are closely linked” is not only an idiom but also a

concept. When something concerns with heart, it takes time to recognize true stories

involved in the process. People get involved through communication and begin to learn

through the functionality of their brains at the very beginning of each action. Take

“lover” as an example, people start to recognize the concept before they begin to search

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目录中文摘要ABSTRACTCHAPTER1INTRODUCTION...................................................................................1CHAPTER2THESHAREDCOGNITIVEMODEL..............................................22.1INTRODUCTION............................................................................................

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