A Study on Metaphor and Its Differences Between English and Chinese Cultures 英语毕业论文

《A Study on Metaphor and Its Differences Between English and Chinese Cultures 英语毕业论文》由会员上传分享，免费在线阅读，更多相关内容在学术论文-天天文库。

1、AStudyonMetaphorandItsDifferencesBetweenEnglishandChineseCultures　　Abstract　　Metaphorisoneofthemostcommonrhetoricaldevices.Itiswidelyusedeverywhere.ThisthesisisanattempttoillustrateacomprehensiveknowledgeofEnglishmetaphor.Thewriterelaboratesmetaphorthroughsixparts：thedef

2、initionofmetaphor，thedistinctionbetweenmetaphorandsimile，thecategoriesofmetaphor，theapplicationofmetaphor，acontrastivestudyofmetaphoricalcognitionconcernedwithEnglishandChineseculturalbackgroundsandthemagicaleffectsthatmetaphorproduces.Inthisway，thewriterrevealstheimport

3、anceofmetaphorinourdailylife.Keywords：Metaphor；Application；Culturecomparison；Proverb；idiom　　1.THEDEFINITIONOFMETAPHOR　　Metaphorarethemostwidelyusedfigureofspeech.Theyareliketheseasoningsinadishortheflowersinspringthataddsalttolanguage.Manynewwordsspringuprecentlycontainm

4、etaphors.Forexample，termslike“download”，“informationhighway”，“mouse”，“softlanding”，”bottleneck”and“cybersurfing”areallmetaphoricalexpressions.Besides，someadditionalmeaningsofwordsinvolvemetaphorsaswell.Forinstance，theshapeofcloverleafresemblesamotorwayintersectioninapatt

5、ern，sothephrase“cloverleaf”isusedtodescribeamotorintersection.Similarly，peopleuserabbit-warrentoindicateabuildingordistrictfullofnarrowwindingpassages.Obviously，theexamplesmentionedaboveholdtheideathatametaphorservesthepurposeofillustratingthingswhichbearcloseresemblance

6、intheirshapeorcharacter.SoWhat’sametaphor？TheRandomHouseUnabridgedDictionary（secondedition）definesmetaphorasafigureofspeechinwhichatermorphraseisappliedtosomethingtowhichitisnotliterallyapplicableinordertosuggestaresemblance.Metaphoris“characterizedbytheconceptualization

7、ofonecognitivedomainintermsofcomponentsmoreusuallyassociatedwithanothercognitivedomain”（Taylor，1989，pp.132-133）.Itis“aconceptualmappingfromasourcedomaintoatargetdomain，withbothontologicalcorrespondencesandepistemiccorrespondencesentailedbythemapping”（Yu，1998，p.15）.Schroo

8、ts（1991）providesaclearandconciseaccountofthecurrentviewofmetaphorasfollows：　　（a）Metaphorsareconcernedwi