DifferencesinMetaphorbetweenChineseandWestenCulture英语毕业论文.doc

Differences in Metaphor between Chinese and Western Culture Abstract: Metaphor originates from people’s lives, and plays a very important role in people’s lives. Metaphor is nowadays not only regarded as a figure of speech but also an important tool in culture communication. This thesis tries to explore some differences in metaphor between Chinese and Western culture, and thus helps in the promotion of the culture communication between Chinese and Western countries. Key words: metaphor; Western culture; Chinese culture 1．Introduction Metaphor originates from people’s lives, and plays a very important role in people’s lives. Nowadays, the definitions of metaphor can be found conveniently in dictionaries. According to the Webster’s New World Dictionary, metaphor is defined as: “a figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, different thing by beings spoken of as if it were the other; implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily use of one thing is applied to another.” (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1979:1132) Metaphor is used as a rhetorical device which makes comparison between two elements, unlike simile, this kind of comparison is implied not stated. Peter Newmark referred to metaphor as: “the transferred sense of a physical word; the personification of abstraction; the application of a word or collocation to what it does not literally denote, i.e. to describe one thing in terms of another.” (Newmark, 2001:104) Metaphor shows a resemblance between two similar things, which means image and object. In cognitive linguistics, it is defined as the target domain and source domain. Similarity is the basis of metaphor. For example, “the stars in his eyes”, the basis for the use of “stars” is the similarity between the tears in one’s eyes and the flickering of light in one’s eyes. Both English and Chinese are abound in using metaphors. But different metaphors maybe understood in different cultures. That is to say, metaphor is cult