| Composed in the latter part of the Warring States period,Dao De Jing is one of the philosophical classics in China,whose philosophy is said to have permeated and continue to impact many aspects of the culture and society of China and even East Asia in general.Divided into Dao Jing with 37 chapters and De Jing with 44 chapters,Dao De Jing consists of formulaic,poetic yet cryptic language with abundant metaphorical expressions.However,this classic still lacks a comprehensive and systematic analysis from a cognitive linguistic perspective.Therefore,based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory(CMT),this study adopts the well-established protocol of Metaphor Identification Procedure(MIP)by Pragglejaz Group(2007)and Critical Metaphor Analysis(CMA)by Charteris-Black(2004)to analyze Dao De Jing in terms of conceptual metaphors.The present research aims to investigate the main metaphors in Dao De Jing and explore their features and functions therein,revealing the cognitive patterns in the book and shedding some light on the influence of this classic on contemporary Chinese culture.The findings show that:1)the conceptual metaphors in Dao De Jing mainly center around five sets of target concepts,namely,DAO and DE,HEAVEN and EARTH,KINGDOM,HUMAN,and LIFE;2)out of the 484 identified metaphorical expressions related to these five sets of concepts,390 instances belong to the Great Chain of Being metaphor system,whose target domains are DAO,DE,HEAVEN,EARTH,KINGDOM and HUMAN.For example,some of the extracted Great Chain of Being metaphors are DAO IS AN OBJECT,KINGDOM IS AN OBJECT and HUMAN IS AN OBJECT.The other 94 instances belong to the Event Structure metaphor system and take the event LIFE as their target concept,in which the main conceptual metaphor is LIFE IS A JOURNEY;3)a large number of the Great Chain of Being metaphors in Dao De Jing use the source domain OBJECT,especially the ones with DAO,DE,and HUMAN as their target domains.These metaphors make use of the structural and value properties of different objects for Dao De Jing’s elaboration on the key concepts and the advocacy of certain human conduct and attributes.For instance,the DAO IS A CONTAINER metaphor maps onto Dao the structure and function of a container so as to explain the ideal way of dealing with things in Dao De Jing;4)the source domain HUMAN is also frequently used.Dao De Jing personifies concepts such as DAO,DE,HEAVEN,EARTH and KINGDOM for its advocacy of ideal human attributes such as humbleness,impartiality and temperance;5)the Event Structure metaphors with the event LIFE as their target concept in Dao De Jing can be further divided into the location-dual and the object-dual.Within the location-dual,the metaphors on LIFE are based on the source domain JOURNEY,while within the object-dual the metaphors are based on OBJECT MANIPULATION.Metaphors in both duals focus on the CHANGES OF STATES aspect of the event LIFE.Overall,this study has investigated the conceptual metaphors underlying Dao De Jing in a comprehensive and systematic way,revealing five sets of main target concepts,namely,DAO and DE,HEAVEN and EARTH,KINGDOM,HUMAN,and LIFE.The relations between these target concepts reflect the theme of "using Dao to govern the country" in Dao De Jing,manifesting the author’s initial purpose for the composition of this classic,that is,to bring the world back to its golden age.Among the extracted conceptual metaphors,the source domains OBJECT and HUMAN are of predominant frequency,exhibiting the tendencies for objectification and personification in Dao De Jing as well as illustrating how the environment and physical experience provide the basis for the construction of conceptual metaphors in Dao De Jing. |
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