A Corpus-based Study Of Metaphorical Use Of "Death" Between English And Chinese

Based on the Theory of Conceptual Metaphor proposed by Lakoff & Johnson, this thesis intends to make a comparison of the concept metaphors on "death" between English and Chinese and study the similarities and differences,as well as the causes for this.The SPSS and Chi-square Test are used to illustrate the conclusions.The data used for analysis are got through English and Chinese dictionaries and second-hand examples provided by other scholars who studied the conceptual metaphor of "death".The total number of the collected data is 344 with 159 in English and 185 in Chinese.They are mainly phrases and idioms.The comparison is undertaken by different mapping models concerning the concept of "death" both in English and Chinese.After the contrastive comparison,the research discovers that both English and Chinese metaphorical uses of "death" possess similarities and differences.This reflects the universal cognitive principle to some degree and confirms Lakoff & Johnson's conceptual theory.Meanwhile,the expression of abstract thought in the two languages are both partly realized by metaphor,meaning that there exist the systematicity of conceptual metaphor and cultural coherence.Besides,rooted in different cultures,because of different experiences and different cognitions,there are also some differences between the two languages.Thus thesis will,to a certain degree,enrich the study on the conceptual metaphor of "death".At the same time,it proves metaphor's cognitive nature and metaphorical nature of human thinking.In addition,this research will be helpful for language learners get a better understanding of the relationships among culture,metaphor and language,guiding their language learning.