黑暗与光明的概念隐喻 --- 基于语料的英汉对比研究

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ABSTRACT

The study of metaphor enjoys a two-thousand-year history which can be traced back

to the age of Aristotle. In his eyes, metaphor is treated as a rhetorical device, a kind of

deviation from normal use of language, and something extraordinary rather than

ordinary. The study of metaphor is limited to rhetoric and literature.

Since the 1970’s, as cognitive science and cognitive linguistics developed, metaphor

has been viewed as a way of human thinking and a cognitive tool to conceptualize the

world. Human’s abstract thinking is constructed by metaphor. Human conceptual

system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. Metaphor is no longer something

extraordinary but pervasive in everyday life. Lakoff, in his Conceptual Metaphor Theory,

claims that the working mechanism of conceptual metaphor is cross-domain mapping.

The philosophical basis of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory is experientialism which

states that metaphors are grounded in human embodied experience.

Based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and enlightened by precious studies,

using the interpretative modal proposed by the author, a systematic examination on the

language data of the conceptual metaphors of DARK and LIGHT is conducted in this

thesis. Through the comparative analysis, it is found that the concept DARK and

LIGHT are metaphorically conceptualized to understand abstract concepts in three

domains, namely the domain of cognitive perception, the domain of physical emotion

and the domain of social value. And the conceptual metaphors of DARK and LIGHT in

English and Chinese display great similarities. Most of the mappings are shared by the

two languages, while a few of the mappings are unique to either of the language.

The concepts DARK and LIGHT form a meaning contrast. Through an intralingua

comparative analysis, it is discovered that in English, the target domains of the concept

DARK do not contrast with those of LIGHT. Their metaphorical mappings are not

evenly distributed. English speakers tend to use more DARK to conceptualize the

abstract concepts rather than LIGHT. While in Chinese the metaphorical mappings of

DARK and LIGHT are almost evenly distributed. The two concepts both are of great

importance in constructing abstract conceptual system of Chinese speakers.

The findings of the present study provide linguistic evidence for the philosophical

basis of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory which claims conceptual metaphors are

vii

rooted in human embodied experience, and also support Lakoff and Johnson’s claim

that “Metaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another”

(1989:135). “Metaphorical mappings vary in universality. Some seem to be universal,

others are widespread, and some seem to be cultural specific” (Lakoff, 1993:245). I also

attempt to provide explanations to the universals and diversities from the cognitive and

cultural perspective.

Key Words: conceptual metaphor, DARK, LIGHT, mapping,

viii

摘要

隐喻研究可以追溯到两千多年以前的亚里士多德时期。传统隐喻观认为隐喻

是一种语言修辞手段，是对语言规则的偏离，一种特殊语言现象。传统的隐喻研

究局限于修辞，文学等领域。20 世纪七十年代以来，随着认知科学和认知语言学

的发展，形成了认知隐喻观：隐喻是人类普遍的一种思维方式和认知工具，人类

的思维体系和概念系统本质上都是隐喻性的。抽象思维的建构是通过隐喻来实现

的。隐喻无处不在。

本文以 Lakoff 的概念隐喻理论为理论基础，该理论认为概念隐喻观以经验主

义为哲学基础，概念隐喻植根于人类的生活体验并以跨域映射为工作机制。依据

前人研究成果，作者总结提出一理论分析模型，系统研究了英语与汉语中关于“黑

暗”和“光明”的隐喻表达的语料。通过对比研究，作者发现在英汉两种语言中

“黑暗”和“光明”被用于理解三个目标域中的抽象概念，它们是：认知域，情

感域和社会价值域。英语和汉语中关于黑暗与光明的隐喻系统表现出较大共性：

两种语言共享了“黑暗”和“光明”概念的大部分隐喻投射，如英汉语中都有黑

暗喻悲观，黑暗喻忧伤，黑暗喻未知，黑暗喻违法，黑暗喻邪恶；光明喻快乐，

光明喻希望，光明喻聪明等。此外也存在一定差异，有少部分投射为两种语言各

自所独有如英语中的黑暗喻模糊，汉语中黑暗喻时间，光明喻脸面。此外，通过

语言内对比分析还发现作为一对语义均衡的反义概念，黑暗和光明在英语中的隐

喻投射只有部分呈对应反义关系，分布不平衡，反映了英语民族更多地用黑暗来

构建抽象概念。而汉语中两概念的隐喻投射存在着较大的对应分布，光明和黑暗

在构建汉语的概念系统时发挥着大致相同的作用。这些发现为 Lakoff（1993：245）

的论点提供了数据证明：“隐喻投射在普遍性上存在差异；有些似乎是普遍的，有

些似乎分布很广，有些似乎只属于特定的文化”。对于两种语言中表现出的共性和

差异，作者在本文中尝试从认知，文化方面作出了初步解释。

本文的对比研究从跨文化的角度支持了 Lakoff 关于“隐喻使得我们通过原始

域来理解其他域”的论断以及在英汉语中，黑暗与光明的概念隐喻在构建人类概

念系统时是以身体经验为基础的。作者希望对英汉语黑暗和光明概念隐喻的对比

研究所得出的结论，对现代隐喻理论能有所贡献。

关键词：概念隐喻黑暗光明映射

Contents

Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... i

ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................vi

摘要 ............................................................................................................................... viii

Chapter One Introduction ..............................................................................................1

1.1 The Rationale of the Thesis ..................................................................................1

1.2 The Objective of the Thesis ................................................................................. 2

1.3 Data collection and Methodology ........................................................................3

1.4 The Organization of the Thesis ............................................................................ 4

Chapter Two Literature Review .................................................................................... 5

2.1 The Rhetorical Study of Metaphor .......................................................................5

2.2 The Precognitive Study of Metaphor ................................................................... 6

2.3 The Cognitive Study of Metaphor ....................................................................... 9

2.4 Previous Studies on Vision Metaphor ................................................................ 10

Chapter Three Theoretical Framework — Conceptual Metaphor Theory .............13

3.1 Definition of Conceptual Metaphor ................................................................... 13

3.2 The Pervasiveness and the Systematic Nature of Conceptual Metaphor ...........14

3.3 The Philosophical Basis of Conceptual Metaphor Theory — Experientialism . 16

3.4 The Working Mechanism of Conceptual Metaphor — The Mapping Theory ...18

3.5 Three types of Conceptual Metaphors .............................................................. 18

3.5.1 Orientational Metaphor ............................................................................ 18

3.5.2 Ontological Metaphor .............................................................................. 19

3.5.3 Structural Metaphor ................................................................................. 19

3.6 Interpretative Modal for Data Analysis ..............................................................20

3.7 Summary ............................................................................................................ 21

Chapter Four Conceptual Metaphors of DARK and LIGHT in English and

Chinese ........................................................................................................................... 22

4.1 Conceptual Metaphors of DARK .......................................................................23

4.1.1 Conceptual Metaphors of DARK in the Domain of Cognitive Perception

...........................................................................................................................23

4.1.2 Conceptual Metaphors of DARK in the Domain of Physical Emotion ... 27

4.1.3 Conceptual Metaphors of DARK in the Domain of Social Value ........... 30

4.2 Conceptual Metaphors of LIGHT ......................................................................36

4.2.1 Conceptual Metaphors of LIGHT in the Domain of Cognitive Perception

...........................................................................................................................36

4.2.2 Conceptual Metaphors of LIGHT in the Domain of Physical Emotion .. 41

4.2.3 Conceptual Metaphors of LIGHT in the Domain of Social Value ...........43

4.3 Comparison of the Conceptual Metaphors of DARK and LIGHT in English and

Chinese .....................................................................................................................45

4.3.1 Interlingua Comparison ........................................................................... 45

4.3.2 Intralingua Comparison ........................................................................... 47

4.4 Universals and Diversities of Conceptual Metaphors of DARK and LIGHT in

English and Chinese .................................................................................................50

4.4.1 Universals of Conceptual Metaphors of DARK and LIGHT in English

and Chinese ....................................................................................................... 50

4.4.2 Diversities of Conceptual Metaphors of DARK and LIGHT in English

and Chinese ....................................................................................................... 51

4.5 Summary ............................................................................................................ 52

Chapter Five Conclusions ............................................................................................ 54

5.1 A Brief Summary of the Thesis ..........................................................................54

5.2 Significance and Limitations of the Thesis ........................................................55

References ...................................................................................................................... 56

在读期间公开发表的论文 ............................................................................................ 59

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Rationale of the Thesis

Metaphor study has been enjoying a long history of more than two thousand years

which can be traced back to the time of Aristotle. Aristotle believes that metaphor is

only rhetorical and ornamental in nature which is treated to be the most fundamental

form of figurative language, a matter of special or extraordinary rather than ordinary.

However, this traditional view of metaphor has been strongly challenged by the rising

of cognitive science and modern linguistics. Lakoff and Johnson asserted in their work

Metaphor We Live By that metaphor is pervasive in nature. Metaphor is not only a

matter of linguistic device, but a way of thinking and conceptualizing the human world.

Metaphors exist everywhere in people’s daily life, not only in language which people

speak, but in thought and action (Lakoff, 1980:1). Metaphor is considered as a pattern

of mapping between two domains, namely the source domain and the target domain.

The former is usually the known, visible, physical, and concrete one; the latter is the

abstract, unknown, emotional and cognitive one. Johnson once stated: “metaphor is a

process by which we understand and structure one domain of experience in terms of

another domain of a different kind” (Johnson, 1987:15).

Since the 1970’s, extensive studies on metaphor have been carried out by

philosophers, psychologists, linguists and so on. As Johnson claimed in the preface of

his Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, “we are at the midst metaphor mania”

(1981: 3). During the 1980’s and 1990’s, the cognitive study of metaphor has become

one of the most heated researches in the field of cognitive linguistics.

Lakoff and Johnson are the forerunners in the field of cognitive study of metaphor.

Inspired their Conceptual Metaphor Theory, many empirical studies on linguistic

metaphorical expressions were carried out by linguists and scholars. For the past several

decades, the research of metaphor in the field of cognitive linguistics has been

conducted, mostly if not merely, in the language of English. It is suggested that other

languages than English should be explored so as to find evidence to support the claims

which Lakoff and Johnson has specified.

Linguists who commit themselves to the cognitive study of metaphor face two

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摘要：

viABSTRACTThestudyofmetaphorenjoysatwo-thousand-yearhistorywhichcanbetracedbacktotheageofAristotle.Inhiseyes,metaphoristreatedasarhetoricaldevice,akindofdeviationfromnormaluseoflanguage,andsomethingextraordinaryratherthanordinary.Thestudyofmetaphorislimitedtorhetoricandliterature.Sincethe1970’s,asco...

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