Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Research on Metaphor in Chinese
This paper reviews the views of the metonymic basis of metaphor,multilevel structures of metaphor,and extended context in Kövecses(2020)'s extended conceptual metaphor theory(ECMT),focusing on the bidirectionality of metaphorical mappings,the relationship between metaphor and metonymy,the systematicity of metaphor,and the interactivity of metaphoric cognition,in comparison with the conceptual metaphor theory(CMT),the MetaNet,and other theories and views.Using metaphorical expressions of LIFE metaphors gathered from the corpora BCC and COCA as examples,the paper further discusses how this theory can inspire research on metaphor in Chinese,namely,the hierarchy and the coherence,the universality and the diversity,and the variability and the ecology of metaphors.The findings are summarized as follows:1)It is argued that the analysis of metaphorical hierarchy and coherence enables a better understanding of how conceptual structures are organized into a systematic network.In particular,vertically,the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY,with multiple levels of specificity,is only a part of the metaphor systems of LIFE metaphors and JOURNEY metaphors,which are parts of the event structure metaphor system;horizontally,different source concepts of the same target concept LIFE might be coherently correlated on the basis of bodily and cultural experience.2)It is shown that crosslinguistic analysis of metaphors can focus on metaphors at the same level or with different degrees of specificity,which could reflect various ways of metaphorical conceptualization.Specifically,the contrastive analysis of LIFE metaphors in Chinese and English reveals that Chinese speakers have a preference for metaphorical uses of words at the more specific level of frame,whereas English speakers have a preference for metaphorical uses at the more general level of image schema.Moreover,even for metaphorical uses at the same level of image schema,Chinese speakers use"direction","starting point"and"destination"more frequently,whereas English speakers use"path"and"obstacles"more frequently,which indicates that Chinese and English speakers profile different elements of the LIFE frame.3)The extended view of context suggests a new account of how novel metaphors are created and used in actual communication with variations within cultures.More specifically,the metaphor LIFE IS WATER itself,as a conceptual-cognitive context,with our multi-faceted perception of water as the bodily context and the more specific situational and discourse contexts,motivate novel metaphorical uses of water for LIFE.In sum,Kövecses(2020)'s extended conceptual metaphor theory opens new pathways for the study of metaphor at the intersection of language,culture and mind.
Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theorybidirectionalitymultilevel viewextended view of context
万方数据
维普
