英汉上下空间概念的隐喻——基于语料库的比较研究

Metaphorical Extensions of “Up and Down” in English and Chinese: A Corpus-based Comparative Study

本文采用概念隐喻理论,基于中英文本族语语料库,比较分析四个空间概念词(上,下,UP,DOWN)的隐喻拓展。通过比较分析,发现中英文本族语者对这四个空间概念词隐喻拓展如"时间","社会地位","状态","数量","程度","范围"呈现高度的一致性。本项研究发现一方面有助于人们对这四个空间概念词的隐喻拓展使用特征有更深入的理解,另一方面也为验证隐喻普遍性的假设提供参考依据。

This paper reports a comparative study of ＂UP＂and ＂DOWN＂in Chinese and English in terms of orientational metaphor. The study is focused on the spatial metaphor in the domain of conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson. In this paper it is shown that the spatial concepts＂SHANG＂,＂XIA＂and＂UP＂,＂DOWN＂are mapped to the abstract target domains ＂TIME＂,＂QUANTITY＂,＂SOCIAL HIERARCHY＂,＂STATES＂,＂SCOPE＂,＂EXTENT＂. Through statistical analysis,it can be seen that the metaphorical extensions about＂SHANG＂,＂XIA＂and＂UP＂,＂DOWN＂are highly consistent with each other. The findings of this paper can not only help people better understand the essence of metaphorical extensions about these four concepts,but also provide evidence for the hypothesis of common metaphor proposed by Lakoff that common features of metaphorical expressions exist between different languages.