A Semantic Study Of ZUO-YOU From The Perspective Of Conceptual Matephor

As the development of cognitive linguistics, the classical metaphorical theory represented by Aristotle is faced up with a severe challenge of cognitive metaphorical theory. Those linguists represented by Lackoff & Johnson create a whole new perspective to metaphor study by way of cognitive method. The nature of metaphor is cognitive instead of rhetoric, and it is composed of two domains: one is the source domain with a clear inner structure; the other is the target domain with a rather ambiguous structure. Through mapping, cognitive metaphor helps people understand and comprehend the target source via source domain. As quoted in Lakoff & Johnson (1980:3): "We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature." Therefore, we can easily come to the conclusion that metaphor has taken a significant position in our daily life, work and study. So far, whereas the fact that the studies of orientational matephor are mainly focusing on the spatial concepts like UP-DOWN, FRONT-BACK and OVER etc., and almost nobody studies about the conceptual meanings on ZUO-YOU, this paper analyzes the conceptual metaphor of ZUO-YOU under the cognitive metaphorical theories by collecting a large number of corpus, and the findings are, (1) the conceptual metaphorical meanings on ZUO-YOU are MORE QUANTITY IS RIGHT, LESS QUANTITY IS LEFT; HIGHER SOCIAL HIERARCHY IS RIGHT, LOWER SOCIAL HIERARCHY IS LEFT; MORE TIME IS RIGHT, LESS TIME IS LEFT; MORE DESIRABLE IS RIGHT, LESS DESIRABLE IS LEFT; (2) the meanings of the concept metaphor of ZUO-YOU are not only symmetrical but also asymmetrical; (3) the specific structure of ZUO-YOU determines the cognitive mechanism of ZUO-YOU can not be completely explained by the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and the Concept Blending Theory is the best supplement.On the basis of these metaphor theories, this thesis is going to make a research on spatial metaphor of Chinese ZUO-YOU. And it is composed of six chapters as following.Chapter One is the introduction dealing with the reason for the topic selection, aims and methods of study, and basic frames of the thesis.Chapter Two is literature review. The studies of spatial metaphor at home and abroad have been reviewed.Chapter Three introduces several important theories within the cognitive framework: prototype category metaphor, image schema theory, conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory. These theories are the theoretical foundations of this thesis.Chapter Four deals with the basic and extended image schemas for ZUO-YOU and its conceptual metaphorical meanings.Chapter Five is on the analysis of the features of metaphorical conceptual meanings on ZUO-YOU. As orientational terms, ZUO-YOU are symmetrical, but not completely symmetrical. And also discusses about the cognitive mechanisms of ZUO-YOU under Conceptual Metaphorical Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory.Chapter Six is the conclusion of this thesis. It summarizes the whole thesis and meanwhile mentions of the insufficiencies of this study.