| Metaphor has always been a hot topic of linguistics. The traditional view regards metaphor as a matter of language, while the contemporary view looks on it as a way of thinking and reasoning. Cognitive Linguists commonly agree that orientational metaphor contributes the most to the formation of human concepts among all kinds of metaphors, because the majority of abstract concepts are conveyed and understood by orientational metaphor.The main research objects of this thesis are the fundamental orientational words in Chinese and English, namely SHANG/XIA and UP/DOWN. The thesis comparatively and systematically examines the evolution and ways of manifestation of these two pairs of orientational words, as well as the cognitive style through metaphors by which the two pairs of orientational words are mapped onto QUANTITY, STATES, TIME and SOCIAL HIERARCHY, etc.. It aims to explore the similarities and differences of the cognitive styles of the two peoples. The result proves that the similarities based on the same experiential bases are the majority, and the differences based on different cultural background are the minority. |
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