A Comparative Study Of Using Dietary Vocabulary As Metaphor In Both Languages Chinese And Korean

The topic of this thesis basically is "A comparative study of using dietary vocabulary as metaphor in both languages Chinese and Korean" this study is starting with the metaphor general theories then making a comparison between using dietary vocabulary as metaphor in Chinese language and Korean language.I have used the comparative theories of the Linguistics,Semantics and languages in analyzing the meaning of the names of food,also analyzing the way that human beings understand the names of food while being hungry,eating and being full.The aspects,nature and usage of the names of food continuously create new meanings.Metaphor is not only a linguistic method,it is also a way of thinking.Metaphor is thinking about things or concepts and match them with each other,thus it illuminates the mechanism of concepts knowledge.Using the dietary vocabulary as metaphor is analogizing a certain feature of food with people or things,this thesis mainly provides a comparative study of using tableware,foodstuff,culinary tools and feelings of food in Chinese language and Korean language,and also observes the generality and individuality of this way of metaphor in both languages.This thesis has used "The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary" and "Korean Grand Dictionary" as references,and has chosen the dietary vocabulary,then has analyzed the statistics of the polysemous words and the words with extended meanings that have been found among them.Afterwards this thesis has chosen more specific vocabularies from "HSK Chinese Proficiency Test Synopsis",because this synopsis has gathered ’vocabularies that are usually used by the foreign students,these vocabularies are tableware,foodstuff,culinary tools and feelings of food and other aspects(five in total),then made an analysis on more than three vocabularies using the features,concepts,display and many other aspects such as the way of thinking of the nation,traditions,culture,history,environment and knowledge.While observing using the dietary vocabularyas metaphor,we found out that this kind of metaphor consists of four factors:analogy,logic,obviousness and transformation.The usage of the dietary vocabulary as metaphor is formed as:analogizing food with other things,analogizing other things with food and analogizing food with food.This kind of metaphor has given proof that Chinese people and Korean people have a similar understanding of the objective things,also has given proof that food can be the source item of the metaphor,also can be the target item of the metaphor.This study has revealed a very close relation between dietary vocabulary and people,and this relation is determined by many aspects such as:tableware and its shape,usage,nature and location could be used in analogizing factors of people such as appearance,personality,behavior and work etc.Foodstuff and its shape,nature and usage could be analogized with people personality,body,behavior,status and life experience.Culinary tools could be analogized with people feelings,behavior,physical life and mental life and many other feelings and experiences and also weather and other natural phenomenon.Food action is analogized with people behavior,ability,and life experience.The feelings of food are analogized with people appearance,status,feelings,language,personality,mental life and physical life.The extended meaning of the dietary vocabulary is usually related to people.The Chinese and Korean both nations have similar understanding and usage of the metaphor.Besides the two nations have different life,history,culture and traditions,which led to a difference in using the names of food as metaphor.