英语习语中的隐喻现象(2)

2. The concept of idioms and metaphors

2.1 The concept of metaphors 2.1.1The definition of metaphors

When we refer to the study of metaphor, there have been many different approaches in the western countries. Aristotelian approach studies metaphor as a transference of names; the traditional linguistic approach studies metaphor as a deviant phenomenon in language which produces either a false statement or an ungrammatical sentence; the pragmatic approach takes metaphor as a special speech act and metaphorical understanding as the interplay between knowledge of the language system, knowledge of the context, and background schematic knowledge about the world and the society. In the traditional way, we always regard metaphor as a figure of speech, in which one thing is compared to another by saying that one is another. For example, He is a tiger“He”in the sentence is the target, which is the described element while“tiger”is called source, which is the describing element. According to Lan Chun, this approach pays special attention to distinguishing metaphor from other figures of speech and to dividing metaphor into incessantly increasing sub-groups. [8]111

The interactionist approach begins to recognize the cognitive value of metaphor, thus paving the way for the emergence of the cognitive theory. The cognitive view of metaphor can provide new insights into how certain linguistic phenomena work. It can also shed new light on how metaphorical meaning emerges. The work which marks the establishment of the cognitive approach to metaphor is Lakoff ＆Johnson’s Metaphor We Live By: metaphor means metaphorical concept. The definition then is

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explained in the way: Metaphor refers to understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain. It claims that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action and our ordinary conceptual system in terms of the fact that what we both think and act is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. We often talk about life in terms of journey, about time in terms of money, about love also in terms of journey and many others. The concept of JOURNEY(the source domain) is usually used to talk about the concept of LOVE(the target domain).The reason why concept A can be understood in terms of concept B is that there is a set of systematic correspondences between the source and target domain, in the sense that constituent conceptual elements of B correspond to those of A.

2.1.2The classification of metaphors

According to the view of Lakeoff＆Johnson, metaphor can be divided into three types:

(1) Structural metaphor is known as one concept metaphorically structured in terms of another. In structural metaphors, the source domain provides a relatively rich knowledge structure for the target concept. The cognitive function of these metaphors is to enable speakers to understand target A by means of the structure of source B. For example: ARGUMENT IS WAR, in this metaphor, the target domain ARGUMENT is structured in terms of a more familiar domain WAR.

(2) Orientational metaphor does not structure one concept in terms of another but instead organize a whole system of concepts with respect to one another, as they are related to spatial orientation. It concerns about up-down, in-out, on-off, deep-shallow and so on. For example, HAPPY IS UP,SAD IS DOWN.

(3) Ontological metaphor is described as a way of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas as entities and substances. That is to say, our experience of physical objects and substances provide a basis for an extraordinary wide variety of ontological metaphors. For example, THE MIND IS AN ENTITY, the ENTITY refers to something concrete.

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2.2 The concept of idioms 2.2.1The definition of idioms

No one can give a noncontroversial answer to the question of what idiom is .That is to say, there is no clear-cut definition for the term “idiom” . The traditional view holds that idioms are semantically arbitrary. What is common in the traditional view is that idioms are essentially noncompositional and their meanings are unanalyzable and arbitrary. While the cognitive linguistics provides us a new perspective on idioms. It argues that the parts of an idiom have their individual meanings, and the relationship between the meanings of the parts and the meaning of the idiom is compositional, that is , idioms are regarded to be analyzable semantically.Different dictionaries give the different definitions about it and many linguists hold different opinions.

A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words.(New Oxford Dictionary of English)

A special kind of phrase. It is a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one it would have if the meaning of each word were taken individually.(Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms)

A phrase whose meaning is different from the meaning of each word considered separately. These phrases have a fixed form―they usually cannot be changed―and they are often informal, but they can also be slang, rude slang, or even slightly formal. Many idioms are used in spoken English, but they also appear in newspapers and magazines, in books, and even in academic writing.(Cambridge Dictionary of American idioms)

An idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning can not be worked out from its separate parts.(Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistic) ……

There are broad sense and narrow sense in defining idioms. In its broad sense, idioms in English refer to set phrases, colloquialism, proverbs and slang expressions. In its narrow sense, idioms in English refer to some special fixed phrases. But not all fixed phrases are idioms. For example, close your eyes is a common fixed phrase, but it is not an idiom because each word in it is used in its standard meaning. Keep your

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shirt on, however, is an idiom, because the phrase does not mean not taking off your shirt, but means staying calm.

In my thesis, I will focus mainly on the narrow sense of idiom.

2.2.2The features of idioms

Now, we have discussed the definition of idioms, we have known there exist different views, as different schools or linguists define idioms from different perspectives. Some may describe it from the semantic perspective, claiming the meaning of idioms are analyzable, however, some point out the semantic properties are the most important to idioms. So, here, it is necessary for us to discuss the semantic characteristics of idioms.

According to the view of Luo Shiping, there are five semantic characteristics of English idioms: [19]90

(1) The meaning of an idiom is a single unit. That is to say, an idiom must be learned as a whole. Its overall meaning is not a simple combination of each component’s meaning. For example“let the cat out of the bag”means to tell somebody secret information, which seems to have nothing to do with“cat”and“dog” .

(2) Most idioms have both literal meaning and figurative meaning, and they are different. For example“bread and butter”refers to two kinds of food literally, while figuratively, the idiom means something that people need in order to live, such as money and jobs.

(3) The literal meaning of some idioms are apparently against thinking logic or life logic, such as“eat one’s head off”.

(4) New idiomatic meanings can not be obtained by analogy or inference. Take“under the weather”for example, it is incorrect to coin a phrase“above the weather”to mean to feel well, for the phrase means to feel uncomfortable.

(5) Figurativeness is an obvious feature of the idiomatic meaning as well as a significant figure of speech employed in idioms. In this sense, they include simile idioms such as“as blind as a bat”,“feel like a fish out of water”and metaphorical idioms ,such as“an old flame”,“carry a torch”.

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3. Research on the relationship between metaphors and idioms

In the previous sections, this thesis has discussed the definition of metaphor and idiom from various perspectives. However, they are not independent of each other. The next part is to clarify the relationship between metaphor and idiom, which enables the readers to understand, firstly, what is the relationship between metaphor and idiom, secondly, to what extent the research on the relationship between metaphor and idiom has reached. The thesis elucidates this part by citing the researches made by two important linguists.

3.1 Lakoff’s study

In Lakoff’s book Metaphor We Live By, a large amount of idioms were frequently taken as examples of conventional metaphors, implying the facilitating role of conceptual metaphor in the comprehension of idioms. According to the view of Lakoff, the link between conceptual metaphors and idioms was established with the proposition of the conceptual metaphor theory, language is metaphorically structured, idioms, as a constitutive part of language, are supposed to be metaphorically structured. Lakoff criticized the traditional view that the meaning of idioms are arbitrarily formed, and stated“when idioms have been associated with conventional images, it is common for an independently-motivated conceptual metaphor to map

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