英语专业论文爱情中的隐喻

晋 中 学 院

本科毕业论文（设计）

题 目 英汉诗歌爱情隐喻 的对比浅析

院 系 外国语学院 专 业 英语 姓 名 张翌芳 学 号 1003111236 学习年限 2010年 9月至2014年6月 指导教师 姜丹丹 讲师 申请学位 文学学士学位

2014年 6月6 日

晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）

Acknowledgements

First of all, I owe my greatest thanks to my supervisor Jiang Dandan for her careful guidance and valuable advice during my writing of this thesis. Without her patient encouragement, it is impossible for me to finish my thesis.

Secondly, I want to express my thanks to all the teachers of the school of foreign languages, for their excellent lectures and sincere guidance in the past three years. The learning experience in the school of foreign languages is unforgettable for me.

Finally, my special thanks are given to my family and friends for their understanding, constant support and encouragement.

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晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）

Comparative Study of Love Metaphors in English and Chinese

Poems

Author’s Name: Zhang Yifang Tutor: Jiang Dandan

Abstract: Metaphor is traditionally treated as a figure of speech, which is in nature an

ornament of language at the linguistic level. Traditional studies on metaphor were mainly confined to literature and rhetoric. With the development of cognitive linguistics in 1980s, the significance of metaphor has been realized from a new perspective, which made metaphor a hot topic in various disciplines. In recent years, the focus of metaphor research has turned to emotion metaphor, and the study, employing daily utterances as corpus, mainly concerns with the emotions like happiness, angry, sadness and fear etc. But there is relatively less study on love metaphor in poems. Poetry is a special way to convey emotions, and there are plenty of rich metaphors in it. Therefore the study of poetic metaphor gradually becomes a new field for the linguists.

Different nations display different cultural experience as well as the same bodily experience, which determines that there may be similarities and differences of metaphors in different cultures. Therefore, this paper examines a large number of verses in English and Chinese poetry, and it found out love metaphors in English and Chinese poetry have great similarities and uniqueness. The conclusion is that it is the factors of bodily and life experience and cultural experience that led to similarities and dissimilarities in Chinese and English

Keywords: love metaphors; poems; comparative study

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晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）

英汉诗歌爱情隐喻的对比浅析

学生姓名：张翌芳 指导老师：姜丹丹

摘 要:传统的隐喻观认为隐喻是一种修辞方式，其在本质上只是一种装饰性的语言现

象，隐喻研究也只局限于文学和修辞方面。二十世纪八十年代，随着认知语言学的兴起，人们对隐喻的重要作用有了全新的认识，隐喻也成为众多学科关注的热门话题。 隐喻研究的焦点逐渐转向情感隐喻，多以日常话语为语料，对喜、怒、哀、恐等情感隐喻进行研究，但对诗歌中爱情隐喻的研究相对较少。而诗歌作为一种特殊的情感表达方式，其间蕴含了丰富的隐喻，诗歌隐喻逐渐成为隐喻研究的一个新领域。

由于不同民族既具有基本相同的身体经验，又具有不同的文化经验，这就决定了隐喻在不同的语言文化中既可能存在着一定的共性，同时又存在着不同的文化特征。沿着这些思路，本文选择与人类密切相关的 “爱情”这一概念，考察了大量英语和汉语诗歌的诗句,发现英语和汉语诗歌中的爱情概念隐喻有很大的相似性和独特性。最后得出由于个体生活经验不同和文化体验不同因素导致了这两种语言中隐喻的相似性和相异性。

关键词：爱情隐喻；英汉诗歌；对比研究

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Contents

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. i Abstract in English .................................................................................................................. ii Abstract in Chinese ................................................................................................................ iii

ⅠIntroduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 ⅡLiterature Review .............................................................................................................. 2 ⅢConceptual Metaphor in English and Chinese Poems ................................................... 3

3.1 The definition of conceptual metaphor ....................................................................... 4 3.2 The characteristics of conceptual metaphor ............................................................... 5 ⅣThe Analysis of English and Chinese Conceptual Metaphors of \Love\...................... 6

4.1 General conceptual metaphors of \.................................................................... 6

4.1.1 Love is a journey .............................................................................................. 6 4.1.2 Love is plant ..................................................................................................... 7 4.1.3 Love is illness ................................................................................................... 8 4.1.4 Love is a shining object .................................................................................... 8 4.2 Specific conceptual metaphors of \....................................... 9

4.2.1 Love is a valuable object .................................................................................. 9 4.2.2 Love is sport ................................................................................................... 10 4.3 Specific conceptual metaphors of \.................................... 10

4.3.1 Love is agricultural product ........................................................................... 10 4.3.2 Love is a predestined relationship .................................................................. 11 4.3.3 Love is music .................................................................................................. 12 4.4 Reasons of similarities and differences .................................................................... 12 ⅤConclusion ........................................................................................................................ 14 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 16

晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）

ⅠIntroduction

This paper aims to do a further research in the emotion of love from the cognitive aspects, which pays attention to the comparative study of love metaphors in the English and Chinese poems. Specifically, it studies the similarities and differences of love metaphors in Chinese and English love poems, but it also explores the cause of these similarities and differences in cognitive models and cultural perspectives.

Since the 1980s, cognitive linguistics has become a hot topic in Europe. Cognitive linguists has made many functional studies of metaphors about conceptualization of emotion in the UK, including anger, fear, happiness, sadness , love, lust , pride, shame , and surprises. Love is a basic human emotion. Lakoff and Johnson had listed some love metaphors in their book Metaphors we live by. They think that the concept of metaphor is the base of our daily lives. It is also reflected in our literal language. K?vecses summarized the structure of love metaphors through the research in English language in the book of Metaphors of Anger, Pride and Love. In later studies, K?vecses claims that English speaking people usually use 24 conceptual metaphors of love in everyday communication. The central point of these studies is that love which is abstract in nature, in large part, is conceptualized and expressed in the form of metaphorization.

Although many scholars have succeeded in studying the concept of love metaphors in English, there are few comparative studies about the love metaphors from the perspective of cognitive linguistics to explain the universality of love, and also little research on the base of English and Chinese poetry. This article aims to provide some evidence from cognitive theory of metaphor for contemporary study and offers a broader perspective for the study of metaphor.

This paper will explore the love metaphors in the poetry. Cognitive linguists believe that the understanding of metaphor and emotion occurrence is closely related to the context, but this does not affect us to do research on emotional metaphors. Since some metaphorical expressions of love can only be understood in a certain context, the data is not a random collection. China's main source of data is remarkable love poems. English is collected in the same way. The selected data are derived from the famous characters' classics. Examples

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excited in fact are only a small part of the collection of data in the subsequent studies. In the following section, from the general point of view of concept metaphors, there will be a comparative analysis, because metaphors are common to both two languages.

ⅡLiterature Review

Emotion is very important in human experience and it is the focus of the study in cognitive linguistics, and metaphor is regarded as an important factor in the way we conceive of emotion. In the past two decades, many scholars (Lakoff &Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Lakoff & K?vecses 1987; K?vecses 1988, 2000) have studied the function of metaphor in the conceptualization of emotion in English language. Among the emotion concepts, love plays an important part which connotes profound and mysterious meanings.

The contemporary theory of metaphor is closely associated with cognitive linguistics. The cognitive theory of metaphor is first developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. In 1980 they jointly published Metaphors We Live By, and the book has been regarded as a landmark of cognitive study of metaphor, since they challenged the traditional metaphor theory in a coherent and systematic way. Cognitive linguistics studies language based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it, and cognitive scholars believe that natural language is a product of the human mind. In cognitive linguistics, metaphor is not simply a rhetorical device, but a way of thinking and acting.

As for the emotion of love, Lakoff and Johnson list a few examples of love metaphors in their book Metaphors we live by. In these metaphors, love is conceptualized as war, patient, madness, physical force, etc. They claim that metaphors partially structure our everyday concepts and this structure is reflected in our literal language. In the book Metaphors of Anger, Pride and Love, K?vecses examines the emotions of anger, pride and love that are expressed in different English metaphors. He gives introduction to the structure of romantic love through the study of English language that native speakers employ to talk about the concept of love, and obtains many conceptual systems of love metaphors, such as love is journey, love is unity of parts, love is fluid in a container, love is fire, etc.( in Dong Yingying, 2007)

Later, K?vecses (2000) illustrates the important findings of the love emotion through

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the investigation of the structure of romantic love. He points out that native English-speakers employ 24 conceptual metaphors to conceive love in their everyday communication. The conceptual metaphors related to love are mostly derived from ordinary English language.

All these studies find that the emotion of love is, to a great extent, conceptualized and expressed in metaphorical terms. But all these studies on love metaphor are based on daily communication in English language.

With the development of cognitive linguistics, the study of conceptual metaphor began to attract the attention of Chinese linguists, such as Lin Xinwu, Hu Zhuanglin, Shu Dingfang, Zhao Yanfang, Lan Chun, Wang Yin, etc. In 1990s, book reviews of the important works in metaphor study also began to appear in the core magazines, the representatives are: Metaphor: Its Force and Linguistic Structure by Lin Xinwu.

At the same time, with the further study of emotion metaphors, the focus has also been paid to the love metaphors, and some research work has been done to it. Such as: A Comparative Study of English and Chinese Conceptual Metaphor of Love (Meng Jingyi, 2005); A Comparative Study of Love Metaphor in English and Chinese (Pan Hongying, 2006); A Cognitive Approach to Love Metaphors in English and Chinese Love Songs (Sun Yali, 2006); A Cognitive Comparative Study of English and Chinese Love Metaphors (Li Guanghua, 2008), etc. But in these studies on love metaphors, they all use the everyday utterance or love songs as their research corpus. Up to now, only a few master dissertations and some periodical papers are concentrating with the comparative studies of love metaphors in English and Chinese poems. The representatives are: A Comparative Study of Metaphors of Love in English and Chinese Poems (Wang Dandan, 2005); A Comparative Study of Love Metaphors in XU Zhimo and Yeats’ Poetry from Cognitive Perspective (Dong Yingying, 2007); A Comparative Study of Love Metaphors in English and Chinese Poems (Jiang Zhihao, 2008, (3): 78-81), etc.

ⅢConceptual Metaphor in English and Chinese Poems

According to contemporary linguistic views, metaphor is a kind of cognitive phenomena of human being, far from a matter of decoration or convenience. We

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conceptualize the world with the help of metaphor consciously or unconsciously.

3.1 The definition of conceptual metaphor

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) state that metaphor is in nature to understand and

experience one kind of thing in terms of another. According to Lakoff and Johnson, conceptual metaphor can be classified into structural metaphors, orientational metaphors and ontological metaphors.

Metaphors are viewed as mappings across the source domain and the target domain, and the source domain is concrete whereas the target is abstract. Metaphorical mapping are not arbitrary, but grounded in the body, everyday experience and knowledge; and mappings bear three features: the invariance principle, target domain overrides and asymmetry of mapping. The system of conceptual metaphor is structured by its ontological and epistemic correspondences. Image schema is another cognitive level, and it plays an important role in structuring and understanding more complicated concepts. Metaphorical mappings are not arbitrary because they are largely constrained by image schema. Image schemas are pervasive in our bodily experience, and they structure our experience pre-conceptually, and are mapped by metaphors onto abstract domains, with their basic logic preserved.

In cognitive point of view, metaphor is omnipresent in language; it is systematic because an ordinary conceptual metaphor can produce many metaphorical expressions and various conceptual metaphors then form a large closely related system; metaphor is essentially cognitive because as an efficient method of conceptualization, it makes the understanding of those new and abstract concepts much easier through mapping some concrete concepts onto them (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980).

The traditional language study regarded metaphor as a rhetorical phenomenon and a form of language changing. Gibbs concluded that, based on the views of many linguists and philosophers, if it is interpreted literally, a metaphor is \anomalous, conceptually absurd or simply false\rhetoric found its position in poems as a rhetoric phenomenon. Barfield claimed that this is a kind of form, a little-known term is compared to a better-known term, and then the latter may explain former in 1973. Aristotle in his book poetics and rhetoric, point out that metaphor refers to the intrinsic relationship between the literal expression and their

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corresponding expressions.

3.2 The characteristics of conceptual metaphor

From a cognitive perspective, conceptual metaphor has three characteristics : Metaphor is conceptual in nature. Metaphor is ubiquitous, and metaphor is systematic.

Metaphor appears in the process of understanding a thing with the help of another term, it is not only a way of language expression, but also a way of thinking. As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) suggested that metaphors occurs not only in language but also in our thoughts and actions. Human beings’ daily conceptual system through which people's think and behave, in essence, is metaphorical. The meaning of language is that they are an essential part of understanding many new concepts. In short, metaphorical language is not only a phenomenon, but also in the concept of nature.

Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 3) state that \also provide evidence for this point that through theoretical argument and practical investigation, many other scholars have also realized the metaphors. Gibbs (1994)provided the significant evidence through his studies. McNeill (1992) verifies the university of metaphors from a new perspective of gestures. He studied metaphors on the basis of gestures accompanying with people’s talking.

Conceptual metaphor does not exist isolated from each other. In other words, a coherent system of metaphorical concepts and corresponding coherent metaphorical expression systems these concepts can be hidden by metaphor entailments (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). On the contrary, they are the systematic, because the metaphor is closely related to the concept of metaphor system. Undoubtedly, metaphorical conceptual system is systemic, so the concept of expression we talk about is systematic. In other words, each conceptual metaphorical expression is an interconnected system, which is manifested by the way the system of conceptual metaphor.

Conceptual metaphor has target domain and source domain. The mapping process from a specific source domain to the abstract target domain is the working mechanism o metaphor. Mapping process of metaphor is the system between two different domains with fixed correspondence in people's concept.

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ⅣThe Analysis of English and Chinese Conceptual Metaphors of \Love\

English poems are collected from the time of Edward de Vere (1550---1604) in English history to the early 20th century. Chinese poems are collected from the Pre-Qin Period to present time, mainly from the Classic Poetry, partly from the The Story of The Stone and typical poems. Due to the limitation of ability and time, the author cannot collect all the poems but the most classical and typical English and Chinese love poems.

4.1 General conceptual metaphors of \love\

Charles Fraker pointed out that language is often seen as an important tool in the study of cognitive systems. Only through language can we describe things. This proposition has greatly affected the thought of the relationship between language and cognitive understanding. Due to the interaction of cognition and emotion, the study of human emotions constitutes an important part of our exploration of human cognition. A systematic correlation exits between the human emotions and the experience. The following section will discuss in detail how we use language to express love, an abstraction. \is the most common human emotions and most important part of our experience. Although love can be divided into different categories: \family\\and love\\of religion\爱情\

In this section, there will be a detailed analysis of the common metaphor of love in the love poems in English and Chinese. Metaphor is deeply rooted in physical experience. Therefore, similarity of the body experiences leads to the same metaphor in different cultures. Love is a universal phenomenon, either in Chinese or English, for people have similar experiences and physical reactions of love. Therefore, it is easy to find similarity among English and Chinese love metaphors. This section will describes the four common metaphors in English and Chinese and has a detailed analysis. 4.1.1 Love is a journey

\(1)Lyke as a ship that through the Ocean wyde, By conduct of some star doth make her way; (2)Love, shall we start or stay, or sail or row?

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Our way lies where God knows, And love knows where;

\

(1)行行重行行,与君生别离。道路阻且长,会面安可知。 (2)所谓伊人,在水一方。溯洄从之,道阻且长;

Several examples are described above, in which love is mapped to the journey. Firstly, lovers will be mapped to passengers in one trip. Secondly, the relationship of lovers can be seen as the same vehicle on the way. Thirdly, couples who share a common goal is just as travelers' common destination. Finally, the difficulties encountered in the map for obstacles in the journey of love relationships. In a love relationship, a happy ending of love between lovers seems like travel and tourism destination. In short, the concept of love is so clear and easier to understand throughout the concept of the journey. 4.1.2 Love is plant

\” in English Love poems: (1) O my luve's like a red, red rose. That's newly sprung in June;

(2) GO and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root,

\(1)红豆生南国,春来发几枝? (2)涉江采芙蓉,兰泽多芳草。

Several examples are described above, in which love is mapped to the plant. Firstly, lovers will be mapped to plants such as rose, lotus and red been and so on. The beauty and sweer fragrance map the beauty of lover. Secondly, the progress of growing also refers to the occurrence of love. The plant need raised carefully just as the love need treated gently. In short, poets express abstract love with the plants and the readers can feel the sweet emotions in the way.

Through the above examples, it is also noticed that the metaphor \Chinese is more than that in the English love poems. China is a large agricultural country, which greatly affects people's concept of love, so even though a similar experience of

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growing plants is shared both in English and Chinese, love metaphor is still diffident as a result of their culture. 4.1.3 Love is illness

\(1) Straight through my heart the wound is quick and keen.

Only your word will heal the injury. (2) 'O it's I am sick, and very, very sick, And it's all for Barbara Allen.'

\(1) 衣带渐宽终不悔。为伊消得人憔悴。 (2) 新啼痕压旧啼痕,断肠人忆断肠人。 今春,香肌瘦几分,裙带宽三寸。

In this section, love is mapped to a disease. It generally reflects a reaction in a love relationship in which one side is injured or can not get the people they love. Disease makes people depressed, and those who were injured or can not get the people they love use this metaphor to express their strong reaction for love. In this metaphor, the pain of love is too abstract to describe, through concrete illness, it is vividly demonstrated. 4.1.4 Love is a shining object

\(1) Shall I your beauties with the moon compare? She’s faithless, you a single purpose own. (2) Or to the general sun, who everywhere Goes common with his light? You walk alone Love is a growing，or full constant light， And his short minute，after noon，is nigh \(1) 人生自是有情痴，此恨不关风和月。 (2) 愿我如星君如月，夜夜流光相皎洁。

In this part, love is compared to a shining object, the most common target sources are

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the moon, the sun and the stars. On the one hand, the moon is always hanging in the sky with the gentle moonlight. Lovers use the metaphor to express their careful companion with their lovers. On the other hand, people also give an expression of looking forward to the happy ending of the love. The concept of love is so clear and easier to understand throughout the concept of the shining objects.

4.2 Specific conceptual metaphors of \love\ in English poems

At the same time, English and Chinese poems have some specific love metaphors. These differences reflect the cultural relativity of these two nations, abstract concepts including emotions are understood metaphorically in respective cultural background. The differences can be accounted for by different cultural perceptions, cognitive models and specific economic patterns, and cultural perceptions play a significant role in constituting our perceiving of the world and the employing metaphors. Aiming at a comparative analysis of love metaphors in English and Chinese poems against cultural background, the thesis is a supplement to the existing ideas of love metaphor, also provides certain perspective to the study of love metaphor. 4.2.1 Love is a valuable object

(1) I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold Or all the riches that the East doth hold. (2) I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven.

Commodity economy has been more developed in west. People of English-speaking nation admire the importance of human values comparatively, promote individualism and egoism, and advocate the commodity, currency or expensive items. So there is metaphorical concepts such as \suspected to exchange the love of each other. This is a rather special kind of love metaphor in English.

In \

to possess. The mappings of the metaphor are: the valuable object is love; the value of the valuable object is the importance of the love relation; the desire to get the valuable object is the desire to have love; the effort to possess the valuable object is the effort to win love; and

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the attitude towards the valuable object is the attitude towards lover.

As we have to cherish the valuable objects which we spend our effort and money to obtain, we are attached to the person we love. Similarly we treasure and take good care of our beloved, and we are proud of possessing the beloved. Just like the economic exchange metaphor, the metaphor \culture. Since in West, personal success is judged by his ossession and individual power, so people are encouraged to accumulate fortune through personal efforts and hard working. This kind of thought is also reflected in their conceptualization of love metaphor. 4.2.2 Love is sport

(1) Judge you that think such sports were harms,

Weren't any harm? No, no, fie, fie! (2) The scorched fly, which once hath es- caped the flame,

Will hardly come to play with fire, Whereby I learn that grievous is the game.

As all mentioned above, metaphor is connected with the context. Westerners admire sports, so there are a lot of love metaphors in terms of sports. In the game of love, there are winners and losers. Within the influence of western environment, the westerners approve of individualism and they fight for what they want.

4.3 Specific conceptual metaphors of \love\ in Chinese poems

It is obvious that culture plays a major role in conceptualization of metaphor. Due to the different cultures, both English and Chinese have their own specific ways of interpreting love. With the influence of cultural experiences, the poets have different expressions of love metaphors.

4.3.1 Love is agricultural product

(1)桑之未落,其叶沃若。桑之落矣,其黄而陨。 (2)投我以木瓜，报之以琼琚。匪报也，永以为好也。

China has been a predominantly agricultural country. People are effected by the farm psychologically and strongly. Farming is a typical ancient lifestyles in China. Metaphors of

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agricultural products are usual in Chinese love poems. The bloom and the decline of the agricultural products usually are used to be the reflection of highs and lows in the love relationship. This is a special metaphor of love in Chinese.

In ancient times, Chinese ancestors began to raise silkworms and produce silk, and China took the leading position in silkworm raising and silk production. People grew mulberry trees to raise silkworms to produce silk, also the development of the Silk Road led to an economic boom in China, and every household was familiar with silkworm and mulberry leaf. Therefore, love is frequently conceptualized as“丝”(silk), “蚕”(silkworm), and “桑叶”(mulberry leaf) in many poems. The silkworms in Spring will not stop producing silk until they die. So poets often employ this fact to express one’s love for the beloved, just like the silkworm, people in love will not stop missing until they die.

The silk itself has some features shared by love concept. The silk takes the shape long threads for binding things together, with the implication of the binding strength of love; and silk can also be woven into net, reflecting love as something tangled. All these features can be projected into the domain of love. Also in Chinese character, the word \丝) has the same pronunciation with the word \思). Missing each other constitutes a major part in the concept of love, so silk becomes an important target domain in expressing the romantic love and missing, and poets often employ “丝” to indicate the \poems. such as:春情多艳逸，春意倍相思。愁心极杨柳，一种乱如丝。天与多情丝一把，谁厮惹，千条万缕萦心下。

4.3.2 Love is a predestined relationship

(1) 一个是阆苑仙葩，一个是美玉无瑕，若说没奇缘，今生偏又遇着他；若说有奇缘，如何心事终虚话。

(2) 如何让你遇见我，在我最美丽的时刻。为此，我已在佛前求了五百年，求它让我们结一段尘缘。

Conceptual metaphor \is a predestined relationship\is rooted in Buddhism originated in India. After Buddhism came to China, according to Buddhist philosophy, \the Buddhist is faith in cause and effect. In other words, everything in the universe has its causes, and causes create results. Under the influence of this ideology, people think

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marriage is doomed. It is the continual affinity of their previous life. In this way, it is understood that each other's fate is accidental. They know each other, then fell in love, and got married at last. However, this unique origin do not exist in English-speaking countries, so there is no such conceptual metaphors in English love poetry.

Metaphors in the poetry make the poems much more beautiful and help the poets to express the abstract ideas by presenting a logical comparison. The research of the classification of love metaphors in English and Chinese poems and the exploration of respective underlying cultural influence have supported and reinforced the contemporary cognitive theory of metaphor. 4.3.3 Love is music

(1) 今日也鱼水和谐,燕莺成对,琴瑟相调。

(2) 弋言加之，与子宜之。宜言饮酒，与子偕老。琴瑟在御，莫不静好。 Since ancient times, an advocate of music, piano and Joseph appears in the ancient Chinese musical instrument, which are usually played out beautifully together in harmony. The music is used to describe the feelings of harmony between the couple. In this metaphor, the appropriate match of music instruments can also refer to a nice match of the couple, which is a higher evaluation for the marriage in China.

4.4 Reasons of similarities and differences

There are some principles conceptual metaphors shared in English and Chinese. Emergence of these conceptual metaphors is due to a common body and life experience. The bodies and brains of human being are similar in nature, so our cognitive structures are also similar. Owing to the common physiological structure, some basic bodily experiences are common among all human beings. Towards the feeling of love, the physiological response is universal. Since human beings have similar reactions towards love, so it is natural for English and Chinese poets to have similarities in their recognition of the world by means of love metaphors.

Conceptual metaphors such as journey, plants, disease, love, shining objects are derived from common human body experience. The journey, disease, and a shining object, are the reflection of common life experiences. Metaphor theory to human organism is based on their social and physical environment. Generally it is believed that our system is a

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mapping process from abstract concept to a concrete metaphor domain. Metaphorical mapping is not random but is rooted in the basic human experience. Cognitive and linguistic commonalities exist as some basic physical and life experiences are common to all of them. Language is a common experience in different areas. It is part of a rational thought and its performance. Cognitive systems constitute psychological basis of language performance. The reason of the same source domain in English and Chinese love poetry metaphor is the similarity of body structure and body experience. These are common human experiences and materials. Because human cognitive activity are rooted in the everyday experience of physical and material experiences. They are the same for different ethnic people and objects , so the concept of the universality of mankind exits. Common metaphor source domain in Chinese and English love poetry is the result of the fact that Chinese and British peoples have experienced the same physical and material experience.

Since ancient times, China is a landlocked country, so agriculture, inland farming culture consist of traditional Chinese culture, and there are a lot of Chinese poetry and metaphor concepts is related to agricultural production, such as love is in agricultural production.

In addition to the natural environment and the physical environment, a broad cultural context is another factor that could cause differences of love metaphors in English and Chinese poetry. Broader cultural context is a complex system that includes all aspects of a given Culture, such as religion, social values, and customs and so on. In this paper, we will select two basic and key components, religious and social values, to have a detailed analysis.

In China, since Buddhism was introduced into China, most people believe in Buddhism, which influence almost every aspect of people's lives. One important feature is the Buddhist reincarnation of the human soul transmigration. It is believed that the cause and effect, that is to say, all the results are caused by the pre-existence. So human relationships, such as love and marriage is doomed, in the human pre-existence. With the impact of this belief, in a love relationship, many Chinese people will believe in fate, and not express directly or fight for their happiness.

Unlike China's Buddhist, Christian faith is the most influential in western countries. It

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晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）

has become an important part of people's daily lives to the westerners. The Bible, great work of Christianity, is the most valuable and extensive book in western culture. According to the Bible, man is born sinful, so he must try to train himself for courage to conquer nature, and at last he can get God's salvation. Those trying to get what he wants through the industrious brave struggle are highly appreciated and respected by all, and those who obey the fate usually are despised. The famous saying: \itself is a typical expression of this point of view, Westerners do not tend to obey the fate that love is meant to be. Instead, they like to pursuit their lover, and express their love directly and bravely.

To summarize, the natural and physical environment, broader cultural context are two main factors which can cause cultural variation of love metaphors in English and Chinese. Within the factor of broader cultural context, religion and social values are the two most basic aspects which can shape love metaphors due to their all-around influence on people’s characters, beliefs, thought, behaviors etc.

ⅤConclusion

Metaphors in the poetry make the poems much more beautiful and help the poets to express the abstract ideas by presenting a logical comparison. The research of the classification of love metaphors in English and Chinese poems and the exploration of perspective underlying cultural influence have supported and reinforced the contemporary cognitive theory of metaphor. Just as Lakoff proposes that although there is an extensive range of non-metaphorical concepts, as soon as one gets away from concrete physical experience and starts talking about abstractions or emotions, metaphorical understanding is the norm.

This study supports his claim from the aspect of emotions empirically. This thesis analyzes the love metaphors in English and Chinese poems from the perspective of cognition and culture, and provides sufficient evidence to show that English and Chinese poems share many major metaphors in their conception of love. The similarities strongly support the claim that there exist cognitive universality and linguistic universality, since the conceptualization of the world and the metaphorical mappings are grounded in our bodily

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晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）

experiences and physical reactions to the surrounding environment.

At the same time, English and Chinese poems have some specific love metaphors. These differences reflect the cultural relativity of these two nations, abstract concepts including emotions are understood metaphorically in respective cultural background. The differences can be accounted for by different cultural perceptions, and cultural perceptions play a significant role in constituting our perceiving of the employing metaphors.

Aiming at a comparative analysis of love metaphors in English and Chinese poems against cultural background, the paper is a supplement to the existing ideas of love metaphors, and also provides a certain perspective to the study of love metaphors. However, the author only collects the most typical and classical English and Chinese love poems due to limit ability and time, so there may be other love metaphors. It doesn’t touch upon the cultural elements influencing the conceptualization of love metaphors and is not comprehensive, so more aspects need to be included.

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