A Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Idioms From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending

Idiomatic expressions are unique languages of a nation, place or society. Idioms are refined from phrases, which reflect rich colorful social life. They have the profound historical background and the unique cultural connotation, which are namely the core and essence of language. A nation’s wisdom, people’s experiences of production and social life can be explored from idioms. Idioms can deepen our cognition of life. With the development of linguistics, more and more linguists turn their attention to the study of idioms, however, the previous study focus their studies on idioms from the semantic, pragmatic or cultural perspectives. Since the famous linguists Lakoff and Johnson have published “Metaphor We Live By”, cognitive linguistics provides a new stage and a new perspective to the study of idioms. With the deepening and rapid development of idiomatic study, idiom research from the perspective of cognitive linguistics has become many scholars’ new ideas. At present time, very little explorations are performed from the perspective of construction cognitive mechanisms of both English and Chinese idioms.This paper seeks to make comparative study in definition, classification and characteristics of both English and Chinese idioms from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory vertically and horizontally. The adoption of three different kinds of research methods has been found to be both appropriate and effective in the corresponding components of this paper. They are analytic inductive method, comparative method and literature research method. Through comparative study, we can find that English and Chinese idioms have some similarities and differences in language function, language features, cultural connotation and so on. Through the analytical induction and literature research, we can state the sources of English and Chinese idioms, extended significances and the relationships of cultural indirect sources thoroughly. Although there are similarities and differences between them, people can communicate with each other, which indicate that interchangeability, interoperability and translatability are existed in two languages.This thesis consists of seven chapters: The first chapter introduces the purpose and significance of the research, the methodology of the research, hypothesis of the research and the structure of the thesis; The second chapter presents a global picture of Literature review in domestic and foreign situation of idioms with the perspective of structuralism, function, psychological cognition, traditional and multi-theory, it also state the comparison situation of English and Chinese idioms in previous study. My comments on literature review reveal both the advantages and disadvantages in the previous studies in English and Chinese idioms which laid a solid foundation for my motivation of writing the paper. The third chapter lays out the theoretical foundation of the study. First of all, it introduces the origin of the conceptual metaphor theory, the characteristics and classification of conceptual metaphor, the conceptual integration mechanism of metaphor. Secondly, it leads the deeper levels of the understanding of the characteristics and classification of the idioms, which provide a theoretical framework for the comparative analysis of English and Chinese idioms. The fourth chapter deals with English-Chinese idioms from the facets of structure, semantics, pragmatics, similarities and differences, etc.. On this basis, it focuses on the examples of a large number of English and Chinese idioms in the two languages, the correspondence in representing image of English and Chinese idioms are pointed out through the analysis. The fifth chapter analyzes the projection procedure of semantic meaning of idioms in the four spaces, this chapter is also concerned with the summary of the reasons of the variables in semantic meaning reflection and the construction of the semantic processing mechanisms extracted from idioms under the framework of conceptual blending theory. The sixth chapter gives the translation strategies of corresponding levels of English and Chinese idioms are discussed in this part. The seventh chapter is conclusion. Contrastive study of English and Chinese Idioms from the perspective of conceptual metaphor is a new method and a supplement to the traditional study of idioms. It has an important role in promoting the practice of idiom learning, idiom teaching, translation and so on in the future.The innovation of the paper is based on the comprehensive comparison and analysis of English and Chinese idioms, we can construct semantic processing model of English and Chinese Idioms by conceptual integration theory, we can practice the "semantic" processing of English and Chinese idioms based on the model as a reference point, and it can provide an effective way for the use and understanding of English and Chinese idioms, this is one of the innovations of the paper. The comparative study of English and Chinese idioms from the perspective of conceptual metaphors will not only make us comprehend the mysteries of the English and Chinese idioms more deeply, but also can further increase the understanding of English and Chinese languages, it is necessary to the development of idiom teaching, the exploration of idiom translation strategies, the natural and smooth running of oral communication, these studies are the innovation points of the article. It is hoped that this thesis can help for the study and learning of English-Chinese idioms in the future.