（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）英汉语颜色隐喻对比研究.pdf

ma thesis ningbo university - i - 英汉语颜色隐喻对比研究 摘摘 要要 隐喻历来被当作一种修辞手段，能在话语和文章中起到特殊的修饰效果。然而，莱考夫和约翰逊的概念隐喻理论则认为，隐喻不仅仅是一种语言现象，更重要的是一种思维和认知现象。隐喻被定义为从源域到目标域的概念映射，其实质是通过另一类事物来理解和经历某一类事物。语言中的隐喻表达是隐喻性思维的表层体现。 颜色，作为一种普遍现象，对人类认知有着根本性的影响。在英汉语中，我们均能找到大量的以颜色为源域的隐喻表达。本文拟从认知语言学的角度对英汉颜色概念隐喻进行一个系统的对比研究。基于英汉语中八对相对应的基本颜色词隐喻用法的分析，本文提出并考察了两种语言中 40 个主要的颜色隐喻，它们既有相似点，也有相异点。我们通过论证发现：（1）处于伯林和凯的基本颜色词普遍发生顺序左边的颜色（即黑、白、红、绿和黄）比右边的颜色（即蓝、褐、紫、灰等）具有更丰富的隐喻用法；（2）英汉语中一些情感概念都是部分地借助颜色概念来说明，而在英语中用颜色描述情感的现象更为多见；（3）英汉语中同一个意思可能会由不同的颜色隐喻来表示，而一个看似相同的颜色隐喻在这两种语言中并不一定是同一回事。 导致英汉语颜色概念隐喻相似和相异的可能原因可以从认知和文化两个方面进行探讨。相似性在很大程度上归因于不同文化中人类共同的视觉生理基础和认知经验，而相异性则由文化差异所致。导致特定颜色词隐喻用法文化差异的主要因素包括自然环境、历史、传统和习俗、宗教及世界观。总而言之，颜色概念隐喻主要根源于人类经验，同时又受文化模式的影响。 该研究进一步证实和发展了当代隐喻理论，即抽象概念主要是通过隐喻来形成和理解的，而概念隐喻至少是颜色概念隐喻存在着认知普遍性以及文化相对性。 关键词：颜色隐喻， 基本颜色词， 隐喻表达， 对比研究， 英汉语 ma thesis ningbo university - ii - a contrastive study of color metaphors between english and chinese abstract metaphor has traditionally been considered as a figure of speech used for special effects in a speech or an essay. however, a contemporary theory, lakoff and johnsons conceptual metaphor theory, views metaphor not merely as a matter of language but of thinking and cognition. metaphor, whose essence is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another, is defined as a conceptual mapping from a source domain to a target domain. metaphorical expressions in language are the surface realizations of such a mapping. color, as a universal phenomenon, has a fundamental influence on human cognition. there are a large number of metaphorical expressions with color serving as the source domain in both english and chinese. the present thesis is to make a systematic and contrastive study of color conceptual metaphors between the two languages from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. forty major color metaphors including similar and dissimilar ones are presented in my examination of the metaphorical uses of eight pairs of unanimous basic color terms in both languages. and three findings can be demonstrated here: (1) colors on the left of the berlin and kays evolutionary order (i.e., black, white, red, green and yellow) are more productive in creating metaphorical uses than those on the right (i.e., blue, brown, purple, gray, etc.); (2) some emotion concepts are partially conceptualized in terms of color concepts in both languages, but colors are more frequently used to describe a persons emotion in english; (3) the same meaning may be expressed by different color metaphors in english and chinese, but one same metaphor may not be the same thing in the two languages. the possible causes for the similarities and dissimilarities between english and chinese in terms of color conceptual metaphors can be accounted for from cognitive and cultural viewpoints. it is suggested that similarities be largely due to the same physiology of human color vision and the common human experiences of cognition in different cultures, while cultural variation result in dissimilarities of color metaphors in english and chinese. the main factors that may bring about cultural variation in the metaphorical use of certain color terms include natural and physical environment, history, traditions and customs, religion and world outlook. in a word, conceptual metaphors of colors are primarily rooted in human experience, but influenced by cultural models in the meantime. ma thesis ningbo university - iii - the current study reinforces and develops some theories of the contemporary cognitive approach to metaphor, i.e, abstract concepts are largely formed and comprehended via metaphor, and conceptual metaphor, at least color conceptual metaphor, is characterized by cognitive universality and cultural relativity. key words：color metaphors, basic color terms, metaphorical expressions, a contrastive study,english and chinese 独独 创创 性性 声声 明明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得研究成果。尽我所知，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方外，论文中不包含其他人已经发表或撰写的研究成果，也不包含为获得宁波大学或其他教育机构的学位或证书所使用过的材料。与我一同工作的同志对本研究所做的任何贡献均已在论文中做了明确的说明并表示了谢意。 签名：_ 日期：_ 关于论文使用授权的声明关于论文使用授权的声明 本人完全了解宁波大学有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权保留送交论文的复印件，允许论文被查阅和借阅；学校可以公布论文的全部或部分内容，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文。 （保密的论文在解密后应遵循此规定）（保密的论文在解密后应遵循此规定） 签名：_ 导师签名：_ 日期：_ ma thesis ningbo university - 1 - 1 introduction 1.1 aims and significance of the study metaphor has traditionally been considered as a figure of speech used for special effects in a speech or an essay. however, since the publication of lakoff and johnson book metaphors we live by in 1980, there has been a growing interest in metaphor study from the cognitive view. cognitive linguists define metaphor as a conceptual mapping from a source domain to a target domain. according to lakoff and johnson who put forward the idea of “conceptual metaphor”, metaphor is not a mere matter of language but of thinking and cognition. it is the main mechanism through which we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning. in recent years, considerable progress has been made in the cognitive study of metaphor. it is accepted that there are two major tasks for the contemporary metaphor study (lan chun 2005:128-129). on the one hand, more multilingual and cross-cultural research is needed to prove that abstract reasoning is realized, at least partially, metaphorically in terms of our physical experience. studies (e.g. lakoff 1993) have proved that in english many basic abstract concepts like time, quantity, state, change, action, cause, purpose and category are constructed and comprehended via metaphor, but how about the situations in other languages and cultures? on the other hand, more efforts should be made to discuss the universality and relativity of conceptual metaphor system. according to lakoff (1993:245), “metaphorical mappings vary in universality; some seem to be universal, others are widespread, and some seem to be culture-specific.” however, what and how metaphorical mappings are universal, widespread, or culture-specific are to be found out. these two tasks can only be fulfilled through contrastive studies of metaphor in different languages and cultures. at present, cross-cultural studies are far from sufficiency compared to other aspects of metaphor study. as regards to the contrastive studies of metaphor between english and chinese, the most appealing topics, according to the published papers, are emotion metaphor, spatial/ orientational metaphor and temporal metaphor. color metaphor, which is also pervasive in our daily life, hasnt received much attention yet. few books or papers have been presented to hold a systematic and complete discussion about color metaphor. chen jiaxu (2003, 2004) compares the metaphorical cognition of six basic colors in english and chinese, but he lays his stress on the cognition of colors rather than color metaphor; ji xiaojing (2003) makes a comparative study on the metaphors of “red” in english and chinese, but she treats metaphor merely as a figure of speech; li lixue (2003) talks about the comprehension of color metaphor in her thesis, but her emphasis is the metaphorical meanings of color terms. no papers on color conceptual metaphors have been found so far in the core journals of foreign languages in china according to my investigation. in view of the above-mentioned facts, the task i have set myself in the present ma thesis is to conduct a systematic and contrastive study of color conceptual metaphors between english and ma thesis ningbo university - 2 - chinese in terms of cognitive linguistics, in the hope of attracting peoples attention to the research of color metaphor and making a little contribution to the cognitive study of metaphor from the viewpoint of contrastive linguistics. major color metaphors including similar and dissimilar ones between english and chinese will be brought forward through the analysis and interpretation of the collected linguistic data. meanwhile, the possible causes of the similarities and dissimilarities will be explored in the thesis. 1.2 scope of the study it is well-known that one physical property of the surface of an object matters for color. almost everything in our natural environment has a color, and every language in the world has its color terms. english and chinese are both abundant in color terms. among these color terms, there is a special subset known as basic color terms. according to berlin and kay (1969), who carry out a landmark research on color terms, english has eleven basic color terms: black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange and gray. in contrast, the number of chinese basic color terms is still a controversial issue, but the details of the dispute need not concern us here. personally, i am in favor of the proposal made by xie haijiang and zhang liping (2004: 47), who co-wrote the book contrastive studies on color terms between english and chinese. they argue for the existence of nine basic color terms in modern chinese on the basis of a systematic study. these color terms are黑(black), 白(white), 红(red), 绿(green), 黄(yellow), 蓝(blue), 褐(brown), 紫(purple), and灰(gray). obviously, there are nine shared basic color terms in english and chinese. apart from denoting physical colors and being used in proper names, basic color terms are universally active in conceptualizing subjective experiences and designating abstract concepts. when color terms are associated with subjective experiences or abstract concepts, they are used metaphorically. yang yonglin (2002) points out that, compared with elaborated color terms (like mauve) derived from them, basic color terms (like red) have a broader denotation and richer connotation in a certain culture, thus have more colorful metaphorical meanings. of the nine pairs of unanimous basic color terms black and 黑, white and 白, red and 红, green and 绿, yellow and 黄, blue and 蓝, brown and 褐, purple and 紫 and gray and 灰 in modern english and modern chinese, brown and 褐 are excluded from the discussion because there are few metaphorical expressions of them and the data collected are far from sufficiency. the present study will only concern itself with the metaphorical uses of the rest eight pairs of basic color terms. moreover, color metaphor discussed here is in its broad sense, including metonymy and some idioms. ma thesis ningbo university - 3 - 1.3 methodology and data besides contrastive analysis, descriptive and interpretative methods are employed in the thesis. a number of color metaphors both in english and chinese are presented and classified with the purpose of discovering the similarities and dissimilarities of cross-cultural color metaphor. also, the possible causes of the similarities and dissimilarities are discussed and explored after the contrastive analysis of the data. the linguistic data, on which this study is based, are mostly derived from ordinary language used by and familiar to most, if not all, native speakers. the following dictionaries are the main sources of the data: oxford advanced learners dictionary of current english (forth edition) 1989 collins cobuild english dictionary 1995 oxford dictionary of idioms 1999 辞海 1989 英汉双解英语习语词典 1989 英汉大词典 1993 当代英语习语大词典 1999 现代汉语词典 2001 the metaphorical expressions of basic color terms both in english and chinese are mainly collected from the dictionaries listed above, partly from newspapers and magazines, occasionally from the internet, as well as from this authors own stock of knowledge. as a matter of fact, the examples actually cited below only constitute a small portion of the data collected. in order to save the space and not to bore readers, i do not plan to record the actual sources of the data such as the page and the date of the newspaper from which a particular example is obtained. 1.4 organization of the thesis this thesis consists of six chapters. chapter one is the introduction dealing with the aims and significance of the study, the scope of the study, methodology and data of the study, and organization of the thesis. chapter two provides a review of literature about the metaphor study home and abroad, with contrastive study of metaphor between english and chinese included. chapter three introduces the color metaphor in detail. chapter four serves as the main body of this thesis, which is devoted to a contrastive study of color metaphors between english and chinese. based on the metaphorical expressions collected, the major conceptual metaphors of eight pairs of unanimous basic color terms in the two languages are discussed, together with their motivations. chapter five focuses on the discussion of some findings and the possible causes for the similarities and dissimilarities between english and chinese color metaphors. conclusions are drawn in the last chapter. ma thesis ningbo university - 4 - 2 literature review of metaphor 2.1 studies of metaphor in the west 2.1.1 traditional views: comparison theory and interaction theory “the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. it is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an eye for resemblance.” (aristotle, poetics: 1459a 5) there is no doubt that aristotle is the first man in history to have a systematic treatment on metaphor. his view is called comparison theory. he defines metaphor as “consisting in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else, the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on the ground of analogy” (aristotle, poetics: 1457b). aristotle tends to view metaphor, on which poetry draws heavily, as a departure from ordinary, literal language. his thinking exerts an important influence over the development regarding rhetoric and metaphor. for more than 2000 years, metaphor has been primarily studied by philosophers, rhetoricians, and literary critics as a matter of language or a figure of speech. metaphor is portrayed as a kind of dignifying, enlivening ingredient, a kind of decorative additive to ordinary language, a word-focused rhetorical device imported to language use to achieve some certain effects, to be used in specific ways, and at specific times and places. meanwhile, metaphorical terms are viewed as a kind of error in diction and logic. in 1930s, the theory of interaction was first proposed by i. a. richards. he points out, in the philosophy of rhetoric, that “metaphor is the omnipresent principle of language”, and that “we cannot get through three sentences of ordinary fluid discourse without it” (richards 1936:92). he interprets metaphor by reasoning that “when we use a metaphor we have two thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose meaning is a resultant of their interaction” (richards 1936:93). richards also claims that “thought is metaphoric, and proceeds by comparison, and the metaphors of language derive there from”. in the field of metaphor study, he has been considered as the pioneer to illustrate the cognitive nature of metaphor systematically and explicitly. later on, max black (1962) develops and improves this theory of interactionism of metaphor on the basis of richardss view. they hold that metaphorical meaning is a result of an interaction between a metaphorical expression and the context in which it is used. richards and blacks interaction view breaks away from the traditional rhetoric study of metaphor and begins to see metaphor as a semantic problem which has to be studied at the sentence level. black also places metaphor within the scope of pragmatics for analysis. a successful metaphor is realized in discourse and embodied in the given context, and its effects can never be exhausted because there can be no logical grammar or rule of metaphor. ma thesis ningbo university - 5 - obviously, traditional views of metaphor such as comparison theory and interaction theory are divergent from each other, but still they have some commonly accepted features (kovecses 2002: preface): (1) metaphor is a property of words; it is a linguistic phenomenon. (2) metaphor is used for some artistic or esthetic purpose. (3) metaphor is based on a resemblance between the two entities that are compared and identified. (4) metaphor is a conscious and deliberate use of words, you must have a special talent to be able to do it and do it well. (5) metaphor is a figure of speech that we can do without; we use it for special effects, it is not an inevitable part of everyday human communication, let alone everyday human thought and reasoning. 2.1.2 cognitive approach since late 1970s, there has been a growing interest in metaphor study from a variety of disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, education and linguistics. there seems to have been a “metaphorical revolution” on a large scale and some scholars called this “metaphormania”. many western scholars, especially american cognitive linguists, have greatly contributed to progress in this area. as mentioned above, metaphor has traditionally been viewed as a figure of speech used for certain effects in a speech or an essay. richards, who claims that “thought is metaphoric, and proceeds by comparison, and the metaphors of language derive there from”, has been considered as the pioneer to illustrate the cognitive nature of metaphor systematically and explicitly in the field of metaphor study. however, the forerunners to observe and study metaphor from the perspective of human cognition and to bring metaphor study into the field of linguistics are george lakoff and mark johnson. in 1980, the publication of lakoff and johnson book metaphors we live by declared the cognitive approach to metaphor study. in this book, the idea of “conceptual metaphor” is put forward for the first time. lakoff and johnson claim that “metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamenta