A Metaphorical Study Of The Color Term "white" In English

The thesis discusses the symbolic meanings of white color and interprets how metaphorical mapping works in white metaphors and illustrates why white metaphors occur. White metaphors are characterized by some symbolic meanings, such as spotlessness, brightness, purity, nobility, paleness and simplicity. For metaphorical mapping, white metaphors are its good reflection.To be specific, white metaphor examples prove that highlighting the similarities between two domains makes the metaphors possible. White metaphors give positive features to the entities with negative meanings through highlighting its main positive feature of white. White metaphor is a very good embodiment of metaphorical utilization. White metaphor reflects image schema theory. White metaphors can be interpreted from many perspectives such as highlighting and utilization and image schema theory. All in all, a good picture is presented of how metaphorical mapping is applied in color metaphor.Still the thesis states what makes white metaphor possible. Synaesthesia matters much in forming white metaphors. The semantic conflict and psychological similarity are two basic conditions for the formation of color metaphor. White noise sets a good example. The double mental imagery of color words leads to the bipolarity of color metaphor cognition. White is mixed equally with all the visible lights, called full-color light. Therefore, it symbolizes purity, brightness, nobility, etc. On the other hand, due to cultural differences, white color can be related to death, sadness and so on.The thesis totally contains five parts. Chapter one talks about the aims and significance of the study. Chapter two is an introduction of previous studies. Chapter three states the theoretical background of the thesis. Chapter four is the main body of the thesis. In chapter four, the thesis presents data, analyzes data and interprets what causes white metaphors to occur. Chapter five is a conclusion to the whole study.