Study On Metaphors In Plain Questions Of Huangdi’s Canon Of Medicine

Objective:To study the metaphors in Plain Questions of Huangdi’s Canon of Medicine from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, to explore the thinking mode and cognitive mode behind metaphors, to retrospect the sources of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) language, to elucidate the unique culture and thinking mode of TCM, and to provide helpful references to the study of other TCM classics.Methods:Based on the metaphorical theory of cognitive linguistics, the study classifies the many types of metaphors in Plain Questions of Huangdi’s Canon of Medicine by applying the comprehensive knowledge in the fields of linguistics, literature, and TCM; And it analyzes the metaphors in Plain Questions of Huangdi s Canon of Medicine by applying the method of explanatory interpretation of texts to explore different types of metaphors and the laws behind them.Object:In the theoretical level, the causes, semantic and cultural features, formation mechanism, and functions of metaphors in Plain Questions of Huangdi’s Canon of Medicine are discussed; in the practical level, four major types of metaphor in Plain Questions of Huangdi’s Canon of Medicine are generalized, including spatial metaphors, ontological metaphors, structural metaphors, and social-relation metaphors, and these metaphors are interpreted from the perspective of cognitive linguistics.Results and Conclusion:Metaphor is one of the fundamental thinking modes of humans, it has not only the rhetorical function, but also the cognitive function. Studying the language and the thinking mode of Plain Questions of Huangdi’s Canon of Medicine from the perspective of metaphors is helpful to the better understanding of the humanistic spirits and the cultural connotation of TCM and the better heritage and development of TCM.Metaphors are ubiquitous. They help to construct many core concepts in TCM, such as wind, water, fire, and earth, etc. The also help to construct fundamentally the theoretical system of TCM, including the Yinyang Theory, Wuxing Theory, Zangxiang Theory, and Essence-qi Theory. Metaphors may bring about similarity, which plays an important role in the creative understanding of the language in Plain Questions of Huangdi’s Canon of Medicine and the creative research of TCM.Metaphors appear objectively in Plain Questions of Huangdi’s Canon of Medicine, and they were the inevitable choice under the historical conditions. In the background of current science, it is vital for the development of TCM to apply the theories of cognitive linguistics to the interpretation and analysis of the metaphorical language in the medical classic.