| Perfume is a commonly used item in people’s daily life.There are few words expressing smells in a dictionary,which makes it difficult for people to describe fragrances effectively.To accurately describe different fragrances,perfume reviewers take advantage of metaphorical expressions in perfume reviews.They use concrete,simple,and mobile concepts to describe concepts related to smells.This research attempts to systematically sort out conceptual metaphors in perfume reviews.It aims to help people appreciate the beauty of conceptual metaphors and create better perfume reviews.This article collected one hundred pieces of linguistic data from three websites:Nose Time(www.nosetime.com),Basenotes(www.basenotes.net),Fragrantica(www.fragrantica.com).The author established a closed corpus,and tried to answer the following questions:(i)What are the commonly used conceptual metaphors in perfume reviews?(ii)What are the factors that influence perfume reviewers’ choices of concepts in the source domain?(iii)What are the effects of using conceptual metaphors in perfume reviews?The thesis explores metaphorical expressions of fragrances in perfume reviews and collects linguistic data under the guidance of Metaphor Identification Procedures Vrije University(MIPVU)at first.Then,it classifies the data according to the conceptual metaphor theory and uses the descriptive method to explain collected conceptual metaphors.Next,this article uses a deductive method to study some subjective and objective factors that influence perfume reviewers’ choices of concepts in the source domain.Finally,the author exemplifies three effects of using conceptual metaphors in perfume reviews.The results suggest that perfume reviewers use their familiar concepts to describe fragrances through mappings.Concepts in the perfume domain are related to the JOURNEY domain,MUSIC domain,PAINTING domain,WEATHER domain,ENTITY domain,HUMAN domain,UP domain,and FRONT domain.Apart from that,raw materials and their volatilization rates in perfumes are two objective factors that play roles in finding similarities between fragrances and other concepts.Perfume reviewers’ imaginations and their olfactory likes are two of the subjective factors that influence their determinations of concepts in conceptual metaphors.Third,using conceptual metaphors in perfume reviews turns smells into other concepts.Its effects include embodying fragrances,providing implied information,and promoting readers’ ability of aesthetic appreciation.Theoretically,the thesis reveals the significant role of using conceptual metaphor in perfume reviews.It allows perfume reviewers to transfer olfactory perceptions into concrete concepts.Using perfume reviews as linguistic data enriches the data to support conceptual metaphor theory and broadens its research scope.It has an enlightening effect for scholars to further studies of metaphor.Practically,studying perfume reviews is necessary,which helps people gain a comprehensive understanding of fragrances and express their olfactory experiences precisely.These metaphorical expressions of fragrances in perfume reviews provide repeatable patterns to describe olfactory experiences,which solve the dilemma of lack of olfactory words in a dictionary. |
