Research On Metaphors In Romance Of Western Bower From Conceptual Metaphor Theory Perspective

The subject of metaphor has been the focus of much thought and research since Aristotle. According to Aristotle, metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else(Aristotle, 1954). Then it developed from the traditional to a cognitive conception of metaphor. In 1980, Lakoff and Johnson published a book named Metaphors We Live By. In the book they put forward conceptual metaphor theory. They regard metaphor as the mapping relations between two independent conceptual domains: the source domain and the target domain, by mapping from the source domain onto the target domain based on physical and cultural experience. In addition, they know the essence of metaphor as “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Metaphor acts as cognitive instrument. Metaphor is not just a way of expressing ideas through language, but also a way of thinking about things. Lakoff & Johnson categorize conceptual metaphor into structural metaphors, ontological metaphors and orientational metaphors. Structural metaphor is metaphorically structuring one concept in terms of another. Ontological metaphors have three sub-types: entity and substance metaphor, container metaphor and personification. Entity and substance metaphor is to refer, quantify and identify the abstract concepts. When applying such kind of metaphors, people tend to conceptualize abstract concepts based on our physical experience. Container metaphor is the most representative and typical ontological metaphor(Zhao Yanfang, 2011). Everyone is a container, who has in-out orientation. People project the concepts onto other objects. Personification is also a kind of ontological metaphor. People impose human’s characteristics to nonhuman entity. Orientational metaphor is to organize the concepts in terms of another based on our spatial orientation and cultural experience.In Yuan dynasty, Wang Shifu wrote Romance of Western Bower. It is one of the most important lyrical dramas in Chinese literature history. It enjoys the same privilege as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. However, the Romance of Western Bower was written about 300 years earlier than Romeo and Juliet(Cao Yanqin, 2009). The Romance of the Western Bower consists of a narrative part written in prose and a lyric part written in verse. The drama consists of five acts and twenty scenes. Act One describes the first meeting between the lovers, Zhang Gong and Cui Yingying in the temple. Zhang Gong is a young scholar and Cui Yingying is nineteen-year-old girl and she is the daughter of former Prime Minister Cui. Act Two describes that Zhang Gong saves the temple from the attack by bandits. Madame Cui promises Yingying marrying Zhang Gong, but she soon breaks her promise. Act Three describes Zhang Gong and Cui Yingying yearning for each other. Act Four depicts the departure of the two lovers. The last Act describes their reunion(Luo Hanyan, 2006).Actually, this thesis has collected many sentences from the drama Romance of Western Bower. According to Lakoff & Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory, the sentences can be classified into four categories, spatial metaphors, plant metaphors, animal metaphors and inanimate object metaphors. The author wants to show some linguistic results through the research on metaphors in the drama Romance of Western Bower and the analysis of the conceptual metaphors in Romance of Western Bower may be of some use for the foreigners who are learning Chinese and Chinese culture.