A Comparative Analysis On Textual Metaphor In Zhuangzi And Aesop’s Fables

Metaphor is viewed as a powerful tool for conceptualization of various categories by means of cross-domain mappings. It can be frequently seen in fables and allegories, which is integrated, well-designed and extended. Fable is mainly story which applies personification of animals or plants, etc. to give a moral lesson while allegory is mainly a form of language used to present implied meaning. However, there is a close connection between metaphor and both of them. The meaning is actually the mapping from one conceptual model to another conceptual model. The metaphor of fable and allegory is represented by the whole story or even the whole work. Thus fable or allegory is an extended metaphor, textual metaphor.Zhuangzi and Aesop s Fables are two masterpieces in western and Chinese culture created in almost the same period. Two levels of textual metaphors can be analyzed in them. One is micro-textual-metaphor, which features that each story constitutes the source domain while the theme it tries to express is the target domain. Accordingly, macro-textual-metaphor is that several stories or all the stories in the whole work share with one theme, which can be seen as target domain while again each story play the role of source domain. However, mapping within each allegory abide by the principles of mapping in Lakoff’s theory. In addition, textual metaphors in Zhuangzi and Aesop’s Fables serve as such functions as explanation, textual structuring and fiction.This thesis gives a working definition of textual metaphors in Zhuangzi and Aesop’s Fables and makes a comparison of Zhuangzi and Aesop’s Fables in the aspect of textual metaphor by picking out two typical themes "the distortion of human nature" and "the ways of doing things", trying to figure out mapping mechanism of textual metaphor in them. Based on that, it can be concluded that textual metaphors in these two books are similar in terms of their structural features and functions, which can be reflected in three ways. First, fables and allegories in those two books constitute the source domain to express certain theme or moral, forming cognitive mapping. Second, the source domain is explicit while the target domain is implicit. Third, textual metaphors in the two books shares common functions of explanation, persuasion and construction of texts. Hopefully, all of these can give help in textual comprehension in various types of literature as well as in metaphor study from the perspective of text as a whole.