A Study Of Conceptual Metaphors In Revenge

Traditionally metaphor is viewed as a linguistic phenomenon,a rhetoric device employed to achieve the effect of comparison in literary works.In the emerging cognitive linguistics,metaphor is regarded as an important cognitive tool.In the 1980s,Lakoff and Johnson put forward the Conceptual Metaphor Theory in Metaphors We Live By.They claim that metaphor is pervasive in our abstract concepts and reasoning,which is a cross-domain mapping of structure from a source domain to a target domain.From then on,the study of metaphor has become more and more prosperous.Revenge,as a popular American TV series with the intriguing plots,is full of conceptual metaphors.This thesis chooses 111 samples from season one and season two of Revenge.This study analyzes the conceptual metaphors in Revenge with Lakoff's Conceptual Metaphor Theory as the theoretical framework and qualitative approach as the research methodology.It is found that there are three main types of conceptual metaphors in Revenge,namely,structural metaphor,orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor.This study also analyzes the manifestation of the conceptual metaphors in the three types of Conceptual Metaphor Theory.This study aims at pointing out the cognitive mechanisms of metaphors through the analysis of conceptual metaphors in Revenge,to help people have a better understanding of metaphorical meaning and language form in English cultures from the cognitive perspective.This study has a certain practical significance for English language learning and teaching.