Cultural Perspectives In English And Chinese Zodiac Vocabulary Metaphor Analysis

With the birth of conceptual metaphor theory, the recognition of metaphor has changed greatly. It is acknowledged that metaphor is not only a language phenomenon but also a comprehensive cognitive way by which the daily thinking is carried out. Besides, metaphor is closely related to culture. A lot of cultural elements are contained in metaphors, and metaphors make great differences in different cultures, therefore, all kinds of cultural elements should be taken into consideration concerning the study of metaphor. A contrastive analysis is conducted statistically with the help of SPSS17.0 statistical software concerning metaphors of the zodiac words between English and Chinese, and finally we arrive at the conclusion that similarity and difference both exist in the metaphors between English and Chinese. Based on the conclusion, the reasons, contributing to similarity and difference of metaphors between English and Chinese, are analyzed especially from the perspective of culture. Thus, the close relationship between metaphor and culture is certified further. Finally, it is pointed out that the conclusion of this study has a positive effect on foreign language teaching and translation.