Metaphor is a pervasive linguistic phenomenon. Human beings use the metaphorical expressions unconsciously in their daily communication. The traditional studies of metaphor are confined only in the realm of rhetoric functions. With the further discovery of the nature of metaphor and the introduction of cognitive linguistic theory, the metaphor studies turn a new page. Differing from the traditional metaphor studies, the modern metaphor theory is not only the linguistic phenomenon but also is a kind of cognitive process as well as the means that the human beings further know and express the world, which exist in our act and thinking. In the book Metaphors We Live By Lakoff and Johnson give the more sounding and systematical explanations for conceptual metaphor theory. They advocate the genius nature of metaphor that is cognitive, conceptual and existing in human life. In Recent years, with the comprehensive and systematic studies of metaphors, metaphors’ studies have been explored from single course to multicourse or cross field. And the study of metaphor has become more systematical and multangular than ever before.The conceptual metaphor is first advocated in the book Metaphors We Live By written by Lakoff and Johnson, which has close relation with human cognitive experiences. On the other hand, plants are the important materials which humans live by providing everything that we need. Therefore the plants studies arrest much attention of the Chinese and English scholars. By observing and cognizing the plants, lots of plant idioms are formed. As one of the important part of idioms, plant idioms are the essence of human’s wisdom and language. And they are also the mirror to reflect one national culture. The plant idiom metaphors are formed by the explorations, usage and endowed perception for the plant idioms. However, few explorations are conducted about contrastive study of plant metaphors and plant idioms metaphors in China. The former contrastive studies of plants are mainly focused on the connotations, culture-loaded meaning and translation. What’s more, their studies are only confined to certain plant terms. Thus, the paper explores and contrasts the plant idioms from a new perspective within the framework of conceptual metaphor based on hundreds of typical metaphorical expressions about plant idioms from dictionary, poems and novels and so on.The paper gives a comprehensive study of the Chinese and English plant idioms on the conceptual metaphor theory. Through research the author finds that there are many plant idioms metaphors in the two languages. There are some similarities and differences in the mapping models, theme and expressions in Chinese and English plant idiom metaphors. Based on the former study, the paper, to a certain degree, will promote the study of plant metaphor research and culture-loaded plant terms in the two languages as well as making up for the deficiency of study of plant metaphor. |