2022年英语习语中的隐喻现象

1、英语习语中的隐喻现象摘要本论文围绕英语习语中的隐喻现象展开先介绍了隐喻的概念和习语的概念比如隐喻的含义从古至今就有不同的人不同的学派对此做过研究至于隐喻和习语之间存在着怎么样的关系许多学者也对此进行了研究本文例举了几位比较有名的学者的研究比如lakoff和 gibbs 这两位学者本文的重点是介绍习语的隐喻特征这部分是通过3 个方面来论证的本位隐喻方位隐喻和结构隐喻这三方面有其不同的特点主要是以例子来说明通过举例的方式可以让读者能更直接地了解英语习语中的隐喻现象关键词习语隐喻派别abstract this paper focuses on the metaphorical phenomenon

2、in english idioms firstly introducing the concepts of metaphor and idiom take the definition of metaphor for example since the old times many scholars of different schools have different ideas in terms of relationship between metaphor and idiom many scholars carried out their own studies this paper

3、cites the viewpoints of several famous scholars like laoff and gibbs this paper emphasizes the metaphorical features of idioms from the ontological metaphors orientational metaphors and structural metaphors these three kinds of metaphors have different characteristics which are explained through exa

4、mples the way of citing examples enables the readers to get access to the metaphorical phenomenon in english idioms more directly keywordsidioms metaphor schools 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 1 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - - - -contents 1 introduction 1 2 the concept of idioms and metaphors

5、3 21the concept of metaphors 3 com definition of metaphors 3 com classification of metaphors 4 22the concept of idioms 4 com definition of idioms 4 com features of idioms 5 3research on the relationship between metaphors and idioms 6 31lakoffs study 6 32the gibbss study 7 33 other scholars study 8 4

6、metaphorical features of idioms 8 41ontological metaphors and idioms 8 comsonification 9 com the container metaphor 9 coma case study of ontological metaphor 11 42orientational metaphors and idioms 11 com the analysis of metaphoric meaning about up-down 12 com the analysis of metaphoric meaning abou

7、t front-back 13 com a case study idioms denoting the concept of love 14 43 structural metaphor and idioms 15 com the internal systematicity 15 com the external systematicity among the different structural 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 2 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - - - -metaphors 16 com a ca

8、se study 18 5 conclusion 19 6acknowledgements 20 7references 21 introduction in our study of english we always come across metaphor which is widely used in english sentences and can indicate vivid meanings however we dont have a clear understanding of this rhetoric traditionally metaphor is a figure

9、 in which one thing is compared to another by saying that one is the other but according to cognitive linguistics metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain or cognitive domain in terms of another conceptual domain the study of metaphor has attracted the attention of many scholars in

10、 the west there have been many different approaches to the study of metaphor in 1457 aristotle studied metaphor as a transference of name which was known as aristotelian approach the traditional linguistic approach studies metaphor as a deviant phenomenon in language which produces either a false st

11、atement or an ungrammatical sentence the pragmatic approach takes metaphor as a special speech act and metaphorical understanding as the interplay between knowledge of the language system knowledge of context and background schematic knowledge about the world and the society and the interaction appr

12、oach understands metaphor as an interaction between two subject systems nietzsche shelly werner cassirer and reddy all reflects on metaphor as cognitive phenomenon from the perspectives of philosophy literary criticism psychology 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 3 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - -

13、 - -anthropology and linguistics respectively the knowledge and language was written by ankersmit in 1993which briefly introduced the theories of metaphor the research ways to metaphor kirsten malmkjaer compared the constructive theory and replacement theory in the linguistics encyclopedia in the en

14、cyclopedia of philosophy 1967 beardsley introduced many kinds of metaphoric theories in particular in china the dominant approach over the centuries has been the rhetorical approach that studies metaphor as a figure of speech lan chun once said this approach pays a special attention to distinguishin

15、g metaphor from other figures of speech and to dividing metaphor into incessantly increasing sub-groups 849 idioms are frequently used in our language both in english and chinese idioms are special kinds of phrases whose meaning can not be grasped from the superficial perspectives according to the s

16、tatistics an adult uses more than 20 million idioms all over his life which means 7000 idioms per week it sounds unbelievable but it is true in this way we may have a better understanding of the important status of idioms in the language in 1994 the scholar nunberg divided the idioms into three kind

17、s decomposable idioms abnormal decomposable idioms and nondecomposable idioms in the comprehensive of idioms cacciari and tabossi divided the idioms into transparent idioms opaque idioms according to the degree of transparency however in the eyes of fernando idioms are composed of pure idioms semi-i

18、dioms and literal idioms in the understanding of mechanism of idioms two explanations have been brought up compositional view and noncompositional view on the basis of noncompositional view in 1973 bobrow 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 4 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - - - -and bell put forward

19、idiom list hypothesis which means the literal meaning of idioms exists prior to the rhetoric meaning however swinney and cutler were against it so lexical representation hypothesis came upon the other hand on the basis of compositional view gibbs and nayak put forward idiom decomposition hypothesis

20、in cognitive psychology in china zhang peiji studied the construction and meaning of idioms in 1998chen daoming issued an article in foreign language talking about the development of understanding idioms also there are many other scholars who contribute to the research of idiom in china like hua xia

21、nfa lin weiyan etc this study based on the previous studies is expected to make clear the definition of idiom and metaphor from different perspectives what is more the relationship between them is also the focus of the study the use of idioms can achieve better communicative effects and are conceive

22、d to be a sign of language proficiency this study has theoretical significance and it may confirm the learnability of idioms through conceptual metaphor approach in the process of learning idioms people can not only remember and imitate but also get access to its deep constructions especially the me

23、taphorical significance of the english idioms 2 the concept of idioms and metaphors 21 the concept of metaphors com definition of metaphors when we refer to the study of metaphor there have been many different approaches in the western countries aristotelian approach studies metaphor as a transferen

24、ce of names the traditional linguistic approach studies metaphor as a deviant phenomenon in language which 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 5 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - - - -produces either a false statement or an ungrammatical sentence the pragmatic approach takes metaphor as a special speec

25、h act and metaphorical understanding as the interplay between knowledge of the language system knowledge of the context and background schematic knowledge about the world and the society in the traditional way we always regard metaphor as a figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another

26、by saying that one is another for example he is a tigerhein the sentence is the target which is the described element whiletigeris called source which is the describing element according to lan chun this approach pays special attention to distinguishing metaphor from other figures of speech and to d

27、ividing metaphor into incessantly increasing sub-groups 8111 the interactionist approach begins to recognize the cognitive value of metaphor thus paving the way for the emergence of the cognitive theory the cognitive view of metaphor can provide new insights into how certain linguistic phenomena wor

28、k it can also shed new light on how metaphorical meaning emerges the work which marks the establishment of the cognitive approach to metaphor is lakoff johnsons metaphor we live by metaphor means metaphorical concept the definition then is explained in the way metaphor refers to understanding one co

29、nceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain it claims that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life not just in language but in thought and action and our ordinary conceptual system in terms of the fact that what we both think and act is fundamentally metaphorical in nature we often talk abo

30、ut life in terms of journey about time in terms of money about love also in terms of journey and many others the concept of journey the source domain is usually used to talk about 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 6 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - - - -the concept of love the target domain the reas

31、on why concept a can be understood in terms of concept b is that there is a set of systematic correspondences between the source and target domain in the sense that constituent conceptual elements of b correspond to those of a com classification of metaphors according to the view of lakeoff johnson

32、metaphor can be divided into three 1 structural metaphor is known as one concept metaphorically structured in terms of another in structural metaphors the source domain provides a relatively rich knowledge structure for the target concept the cognitive function of these metaphors is to enable speake

33、rs to understand target a by means of the structure of source b for example argument is war in this metaphor the target domain argument is structured in terms of a more familiar domain war 2 orientational metaphor does not structure one concept in terms of another but instead organize a whole system

34、 of concepts with respect to one another as they are related to spatial orientation it concerns about up-down in-out on-off deep-shallow and so on for example happy is upsad is down 3 ontological metaphor is described as a way of viewing events activities emotions ideas as entities and substances th

35、at is to say our experience of physical objects and substances provide a basis for an extraordinary wide variety of ontological metaphors for example the mind is an entity the entity refers to something concrete 22 the concept of idioms 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 7 页，共 29 页 - - -

36、- - - - - -com definition of idioms no one can give a noncontroversial answer to the question of what idiom is that is to say there is no clear-cut definition for the term idiom the traditional view holds that idioms are semantically arbitrary what is common in the traditional view is that idioms ar

37、e essentially noncompositional and their meanings are unanalyzable and arbitrary while the cognitive linguistics provides us a new perspective on idioms it argues that the parts of an idiom have their individual meanings and the relationship between the meanings of the parts and the meaning of the i

38、diom is compositional that is idioms are regarded to be analyzable semanticallydifferent dictionaries give the different definitions about it and many linguists hold different opinions a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words new oxfo

39、rd dictionary of english a special kind of phrase it is a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one it would have if the meaning of each word were taken individually collins cobuild dictionary of idioms a phrase whose meaning is different from the meaning of each

40、word considered separately these phrases have a fixed formthey usually cannot be changedand they are often informal but they can also be slang rude slang or even slightly formal many idioms are used in spoken english but they also appear in newspapers and magazines in books and even in academic writ

41、ing cambridge dictionary of american idioms an idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 8 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - - - -whose meaning can not be worked out from its separate parts longman dictionary of applied linguistic there are broad se

42、nse and narrow sense in defining idioms in its broad sense idioms in english refer to set phrases colloquialism proverbs and slang expressions in its narrow sense idioms in english refer to some special fixed phrases but not all fixed phrases are idioms for example close your eyes is a common fixed

43、phrase but it is not an idiom because each word in it is used in its standard meaning keep your shirt on however is an idiom because the phrase does not mean not taking off your shirt but means staying calm in my thesis i will focus mainly on the narrow sense of idiom com features of idioms now we h

44、ave discussed the definition of idioms we have known there exist different views as different schools or linguists define idioms from different perspectives some may describe it from the semantic perspective claiming the meaning of idioms are analyzable however some point out the semantic properties

45、 are the most important to idioms so here it is necessary for us to discuss the semantic characteristics of idioms according to the view of luo shiping there are five semantic characteristics of english idioms 1990 1 the meaning of an idiom is a single unit that is to say an idiom must be learned as

46、 a whole its overall meaning is not a simple combination of each components meaning for examplelet the cat out of the bagmeans to tell somebody secret information which seems to have nothing to do 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 9 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - - - -withcatanddog 2 most idioms h

47、ave both literal meaning and figurative meaning and they are different for examplebread and butterrefers to two kinds of food literally while figuratively the idiom means something that people need in order to live such as money and jobs 3 the literal meaning of some idioms are apparently against th

48、inking logic or life logic such aseat ones head off 4 new idiomatic meanings can not be obtained by analogy or inference takeunder the weatherfor example it is incorrect to coin a phraseabove the weatherto mean to feel well for the phrase means to feel uncomfortable 5 figurativeness is an obvious fe

49、ature of the idiomatic meaning as well as a significant figure of speech employed in idioms in this sense they include simile idioms such asas blind as a batfeel like a fish out of waterand metaphorical idioms such asan old flamecarry a torch 3 research on the relationship between metaphors and idio

50、ms in the previous sections this thesis has discussed the definition of metaphor and idiom from various perspectives however they are not independent of each other the next part is to clarify the relationship between metaphor and idiom which enables the readers to understand firstly what is the rela

51、tionship between metaphor and idiom secondly to what extent the research on the relationship between metaphor and idiom has reached the thesis elucidates this part by citing the researches made by two important linguists 31 lakoffs study in lakoffs book metaphor we live by a large amount of idioms w

52、ere 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 10 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - - - -frequently taken as examples of conventional metaphors implying the facilitating role of conceptual metaphor in the comprehension of idioms according to the view of lakoff the link between conceptual metaphors and idioms

53、was established with the proposition of the conceptual metaphor theory language is metaphorically structured idioms as a constitutive part of language are supposed to be metaphorically structured lakoff criticized the traditional view that the meaning of idioms are arbitrarily formed and statedwhen

54、idioms have been associated with conventional images it is common for an independently-motivated conceptual metaphor to map that knowledge from the source to the target domain 16 lakoffs analysis also shows conceptual metaphor is helpful in distinguishing idioms similar in meaning for examplecrack u

55、pandbreak downboth are used to describe peoples psychological state but it is still confusing to distinguish crack upis governed by the metaphor the mind is a machine as if the mind has an on-off state that is to say when a machine breaks down it simply ceases to function if someone is unable to fun

56、ction for psychological reasons we would like to saycrack upwhilebreak downis governed by the metaphor the mind is a brittle object that is to say when a brittle object shatters it flies into pieces that may cause dangerous consequences such as hurting people around when someone goes crazy wild and

57、violent he or she may hurt somebody else then we would like to saybreak down 32 gibbs study gibbs research contributes greatly to the psychological studies on idiom comprehension and offers us valuable inspiration for the study 精品学习资料 可选择p d f - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 第 11 页，共 29 页 - - - - - - -

58、- -of idioms gibbs view is similar to lakoffs his research proves that idioms are not dead metaphors and they have more complex meanings that are motivated by conceptual metaphors linking the idiomatic phrases to their figurative interpretations the meanings of idioms are not arbitrary but motivated

59、ly peoples tacit knowledge of conceptual metaphors as suggested by lakoff gibbs has carried out a series of experiments the feature of which is the use of mental imagery the subjects were asked to form and describe their mental images for different idiomatic expressions and then they were asked a se

60、ries of detailed questions about their images regarding the causes and effects of different events within their images the result showed that the participants demonstrated great consistency in their responses to the questions for the idioms with similar figurative meanings despite the differences in