A Comparative Study Of Metaphors In English And Chinese Set Phrases And Their Translation

The research of metaphor can be traced back to as early as Aristotle, his view is called "substitute view". Later, it is developed into "comparison view", which dominates the traditional study of the metaphor. But these two theories regard metaphor only as a figure of speech, a rhetorical device. This state of research lasts about two thousand years. In 1960s, I.A.Richards and Max Black put forward "interaction theory", which broke the confining of figure of speech, and changed the starting point of metaphor research from "word" to "vorstellung".In 1980, Lakoff and Johnson clearly posed "conceptual metaphor" in their famous book Metaphors We Live By. It promotes metaphor research from "vorstellung" to "concept". "Conceptual metaphor" theory explains metaphor phenomenon through mapping between source domain and target domain, such as "Time is Money", "Argument is Battle." etc. The conceptual metaphor can be classified into ontological metaphors, orientational metaphors and structural metaphors. Generally speaking, conceptual metaphor can use the familiar and concrete concept to explain unfamiliar and abstract ones.Set-phrases, one of the most important and pervasive aspects of human language, have been attracting much attention of linguists. But the research of set-phrase from the point of metaphor and conceptual metaphor is less. The thesis starts with metaphor research theory, then based on a large number of convincing examples of set phrases and from the angle of cultural analysis, it explores the similarities and differences of vehicles and meanings between English and Chinese set phrases metaphor from four aspects;on the basis of this, it goes deep into the similarities and differences of the conceptual meaning between English and Chinese set phrases. These two nations sometimes use the same metaphor to comprehend the same concept, the thesis uses the set phrases containing "hand" as an example;but mostly, they use different metaphors to express different conceptual meanings, the thesis analyses these differences from three aspects: ontological metaphors, orientational metaphors and structural metaphors. These differences are influenced by their different cultures, andalso they show the obvious characteristics of English and Chinese culture, so as to suggest some strategies for set phrases metaphor translation. Moreover, the similarities and differences also verify this idea that metaphor is both general and specific.