A Corpus-based Cognitive Analysis Of The Body-part Terms For The Mouth In Modern Chinese

Since the early 1970s, the human body has been attached special importance in various fields such as anthropology, philosophy, sociology and psychology, etc. In the field of linguistics, body-part terms have captured a considerable attention for they are believed to provide a convenient way to look into the cognitive system of human beings. This corpus-based study, conducted within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory (henceforth, CMT) in cognitive linguistics, is an analysis of the non-literal senses of expressions containing the body-part terms for the mouth in modern Chinese. Attempting to make a contribution to conceptual metaphor theory from Chinese perspective, this study aims to investigate how these expressions derive their non-literal senses on the basis of metonymy and metaphor, the two important cognitive mechanisms. Moreover, this study also aims to investigate the role of the mouth in the figurative extensions of these expressions. In order to achieve these, these expressions are discussed according to the motivations underlying them, that is, metaphor, metonymy, and the cases of the interaction between them, proposed by Goossens. This study has produced remarkable findings. In the first place, this study shows that most of the figurative extensions are based on some biological facts about the mouth: it is the opening with certain shapes, into which we put things like food, water, air, and out of which emerges such things as communicative sounds, food, water wastes, air, etc. Secondly, this study demonstrates that a majority of these expressions are metonymically grounded, suggesting that metonymy is more basic to language than metaphor. Thirdly, this study shows that a large number of these expressions are generated by a blend of metaphor and metonymy, indicating that metonymy and metaphor may interact in a fairly intricate way when it comes to language in use. Finally, this case study shows the explanatory value of conceputal metaphor theory for the Chinese language and a corpus-based approach can greatly contribute to that theory.