This article compares the use of Romantic metaphor with the Chinese literary device xiang 象 (which I translate as “thing-metaphor”) in regard to how they embody different metaphysical relations between humans and things. Whereas Romantic metaphor transports a physical thing to the immaterial realm of imagination, xiang is a literary device in which the material qualities of the thing, while creatively interpreted to generate human meaning, retain ontologically a strong physical presence. Xiang therefore epitomizes a theory (...) of creation that challenges the Western dualistic paradigm: that the poet creates not virtual copies of the thing, but meanings of the thing, and therefore our relationships with things. The article concludes with Heidegger’s discourses on metaphor to suggest that my discussion of thing-metaphor has universal applicability. (shrink)

In this essay, I challenge the use of Conceptual Metaphor Theory in the premodern Chinese setting. The dominant, implicit assumption in the literature is that conclusions reached by CMT on the ways in which cognition operates can be applied in toto and without qualification onto the makers of classical Chinese texts. I want to challenge this assumption and argue that textual evidence from premodern Chinese points to a different cognitive process. Differences in the use and conceptualization (...) of image-based thinking as well as differences in the understanding of the relationship between words, images, and the world reveal a different cognitive process. However, I do not wish to argue for a total abandonment of the insights of CMT. Rather, I call for the need to properly qualify its findings in light of premodern Chinese use and conceptions of image-based language. (shrink)

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, EarlyView.

This study analyzes the cognitive and discursive process through which the issue of learning from the West is addressed in four of People's Republic of China founder Mao Zedong's political speeches – On New Democracy (1940), On Coalition Government (1945), On the Ten Major Relationships (1956), and Conversation with Musicians (1956). The study adopts a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective and utilizes blending theory to investigate the metaphorical conceptualizations Mao uses to cope with the cultural dilemma of learning from the (...) West. The study finds that the focus in Mao's conceptualizations is not on a ‘positive Us’ vs. ‘negative Them’ dichotomy between Chinese and Western cultures, but on a good vs. bad dichotomy inside Western culture, implying that only certain parts of Western culture should be (selectively) emulated. While the natural compatibility between Western culture and Chinese society is constructed as out of the question, the possibility of compatibility after human effort is not rejected: the selected part of Western culture should be transformed to serve a new socialist culture in China. In this process, the agency and rational thinking of the Chinese are emphasized. (shrink)

This study aims to contribute to the research on spatial metaphors for morality from the perspective of Chinese. It outlines the linguistic patterns in Chinese that manifest the putative underlying spatial subsystem of moral metaphors, which can be summarized by a central metaphor “MORALITY IS SPATIALITY.” In doing so, it focuses on 17 spatial words that instantiate in real-life discourses five pairs of moral–spatial metaphors in their positive and negative valence. The total of 10 metaphors under study (...) forms a cluster as the spatial metaphor subsystem operating in conjunction and connection with other metaphor subsystems in our moral cognition. It is suggested that the 10 conceptual metaphors emerge from four image schemas: UP-DOWN, BALANCE, PATH, and OBJECT. A unified schematic configuration is proposed to lay out the spatial elements and relations represented by the four image schemas in a single diagram. Based on its linguistic analysis, the study also provides a list of prototypical target as... (shrink)

This paper studies how the concept WATER is metonymically and metaphorically extended to six super-domains: NATURE, LIFE SUSTAINER, MOVEMENT, POWER, PURITY, and WOMAN. We demonstrate that these six target domains are related to each other in intricate ways and within each are a number of sub-domains. This complicated semantic network of WATER is formed via speakers’ embodied experience with their physical as well as cultural environment. We believe that our detailed discussion of the WATER network will contribute to the current (...) research on the relationship between metaphor and metonymy. (shrink)

In Metaphorical Metaphysics in Chinese Philosophy: Illustrated with Feng Youlan's New Metaphysics, Derong Chen examines Chinese philosophy through a critical analysis of Feng Youlan's nnew metaphysics. He views metaphysics in Chinese philosophy as a metaphorical metaphysics separate from Western metaphysics. In examining the historical influences and contemporary reaction to Feng's work, he identify's Feng's system as the continuation of the Chinese philosophical tradition. This approach is most applicable to scholars of comparative philosophy and Chinese philosophy.

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 27 Heft: 2 Seiten: 147-180.

Abstract:This article applies hermeneutics and conceptual metaphor theory to the cross-cultural encounter with China's philosophical metaphors. Philosophical hermeneutics draws attention to the fore-structures of understanding and the traditional horizons that condition interpretations of the world, and to a notion of truth as transformative experience. Conceptual metaphor theory draws attention to the ubiquity of cognitive metaphors as structures of anticipation and sources of meaning. Together they give us a notion of "fore-metaphors" that both condition and enable our encounters with (...) truth and meaning. Chinese philosophy's deeply embedded metaphors—such as water, family, and harmony—have profound implications. Thinking through the eff ects of our fore-metaphors can help overcome the cultural distance separating Western and Chinese philosophies. A hermeneutic attitude of openness and willingness to allow further truth to reform our fore-having could help us understand Chinese metaphors in a fusion of horizons that alters our way of being in the world. (shrink)

This study examines the metaphoric meanings in English and Chinese and explores the similar patterns and variations. With specific reference to metaphors with human bodies and animals, the study analyzes the cultural conceptions behind the metaphors and discovers that the interpretation of metaphorical meanings lies in the different cultural values and attitudes. The awareness of metaphor usages in different languages may contribute to smooth intercultural communication.

This book proposes three new metaphysical categories: Meta-One (元一), Multi-One (殊一), and Utter-One (全一). The author argues that this new system of metaphorical metaphysics is rooted in and developed from traditional Chinese philosophy and is the metaphysical foundation of twenty-first century philosophy.

According to conceptual metaphor theory, individuals are thought to understand or express abstract concepts by using referents in the physical world—right and left for moral and immoral, for example. In this research, we used a modified Stroop paradigm to explore how abstract moral concepts are metaphorically translated onto physical referents in Chinese culture using the Chinese language. We presented Chinese characters related to moral and immoral abstract concepts in either non-distorted or distorted positions or rotated to (...) the right or to the left. When we asked participants to identify the Chinese characters, they more quickly and accurately identified morally positive characters if they were oriented upright or turned to the right and more quickly and accurately identified immoral characters when the characters were distorted or rotated left. These results support the idea that physical cues are used in metaphorically encoding social abstractions and moral norms and provided cross-cultural validation for conceptual metaphor theory, which would predict our results. (shrink)

According to the theory of internal organs in traditional Chinese medicine, the gallbladder has the function of making judgments and decisions in mental processes and activities, and it also determines one's degree of courage. This culturally constructed medical characterization of the gallbladder forms the base of the cultural model for the concept of courage. In the core of this cultural model is a pair of conceptual metaphors: (a) "GALLBLADDER IS CONTAINTER OF COURAGE," and (b) "COURAGE IS QI (GASEOUS VITAL (...) ENERGY) IN GALLBLADDER," which partly constitutive of the understanding of the gallbladder and courage in Chinese culture. A description and analysis of the data from the Chinese language show that numerous conventional expressions are systematically tied to each other and contributive to the underlying conceptual metaphors. The study presents a case in which an abstract concept (courage) is understood in part via a conceptual metaphor grounded in the body, but shaped by a culture-specific metaphorical understanding of an internal organ (gallbladder) inside the body. Although the human body is a potentially universal source domain for metaphors structuring abstract concepts, cultural models set up specific perspectives from which certain aspects of bodily experience or certain parts of the body are viewed as especially salient and meaningful in the understanding of those abstract concepts. (shrink)

This study examined the metaphorical expressions of death in Chinese quadrisyllabic idioms. Specifically, the research investigated the cultural connotations and implications conveyed through death-related idioms by analyzing metaphorical examples. Adopting the ‘Great Chain of Being’ framework (Lakoff and Turner, 1989), a total of 579 death-related idioms with metaphorical and euphemistic meanings were classified and examined. These idioms were further categorized based on the gender of the deceased as well as the initial metaphors and expressions employed. Our research findings highlight (...) cultural parallels evident in death-related idiomatic expressions. Both English and Chinese languages employ metaphors like “DEATH IS SLEEP” and “DEATH IS DEPARTURE.” These pervasive metaphors can be attributed to shared aspects of the human experience. Meanwhile, our findings also revealed a strong intertwining of metaphors and culture within death-related idioms, such that the metaphor “TO DIE IS TO FALL” is frequently used in Mandarin but is not as common in English. The metaphorical mapping mechanisms employed in these idioms reflect the Chinese way of projecting thoughts onto objects and highlight the unique features of the Chinese language. Chinese culture places great emphasis on social classes, relationships, and hierarchical structures. These notions are not only reflected in social etiquette and how one handles interactions, but are also evident in euphemisms and idioms associated with death. (shrink)

This article examines the operation of “skilled feelings” in metaphors for the heart-mind (xin 心) as ruler of the body. It focuses on three Chinese philosophical texts in contexts outside of the “Confucian” texts that have dominated the emerging field of comparative virtue ethics—the Zhuangzi 莊子, Sunzi Bingfa 孫子兵法 (Sunzi’s Art of War), and Huangdi Neijing 黃帝內經 (The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine)—and briefly contrasts the Chinese accounts to influential Greek metaphors of the mind as ruler of (...) the body and passions. (shrink)

Abstract:One of the models that Leibniz considered for his characteristica universalis was the Chinese script, which, after many oscillations, he ended up conceiving as a rational language. In order to explain what "rationality" means in this context, the role of symbolicity and metaphoricity in the characteristica is discussed here. Furthermore, it is argued that Leibniz' idea of a constitutive role of signs for thought led him to produce a concept of writing based not on representation but on expression, in (...) which written signs are structurally connected to the ideas they express. Taking inspiration from Rita Widmaier's metaphorological reading of Leibniz and in Kwan Tze-wan's philosophical theory of the Chinese script, it is shown how the procedures involved in the formation of sinographs shed light on the principles of the characteristica, and how, despite Leibniz' inaccurate understanding of Chinese writing as ideographic, his philosophy can still inspire contemporary research on this script. (shrink)

This paper explores the heart and brain metaphors used in the meaning-making efforts of Chinese individuals diagnosed with depression. Past studies assert that the origin of Chinese language metaphors for thinking and feeling can be found in traditional Chinese medico-philosophical theory, where the heart is viewed as the seat of thought and emotion, and the brain, which constitutes the cognitive center in western theories of the self, is secondary. While most participants employed heart metaphors to express thinking (...) and feeling, many of the participants also employed brain metaphors. Instead of suggesting that this multiplicity implies westernization, this paper argues that cultural understandings of the self can be multiple. To appreciate this, it is necessary to look at spontaneously generated speech in a narrative context. This paper thus analyzes three participant narratives, a process that carries several implications for studies approaching the relationship between metaphor, culture, and the self. (shrink)

Political cartoons make meaning by drawing on scenarios that must be immediately recognizable by their intended audience. Crucial meaning-making mechanisms in these scenarios are verbo-visual ensembles of metaphors and metonymies. In this paper we investigate 69 Chinese and 60 American political cartoons published in 2018 and 2019 that pertain to the two nations’ trade conflict. By examining the cross-cultural similarities and differences between metaphors and metonymies, we chart how Chinese and American cartoonists portray this trade conflict. We end (...) by showing how a complete interpretation of the cartoons requires enrichment with insights provided by yet other analytical instruments. (shrink)

Speakers of different languages perceive time differently depending on various factors such as age, pace of life, religion, time of day, and even pregnancy. In recent years, studies have shown that...

In the film “Kaili Blues” by Bi Gan, intricate clues create complex connections between the plots steered by various characters. This relationship manifests in splitting time and alternating between dream and reality. This article analyzes Bi Gan’s approach to temporality and dreams by focusing on how he employs various film metaphors to deal with poetic narratives in his films. The article consists of three sections: First, it introduces the (puzzle) storytelling form of “Kaili Blues” as a promising area in many (...) Chinese films. Second, it examines how puzzle films contribute to the ambiguity (plots) between characters from the perspective of infinite games. Moreover, third, the article discusses the two levels of metaphors in “Kaili Blues” that result from the condensation and displacement of metaphors, including the mutual projection of roles caused by the time-forking effect and the audience’s associations caused by the significance of dreams in Chinese tradition (or local) culture. (shrink)

This paper explores metonymical and metaphorical expressions of verbal behaviour in Chinese. While metonymy features prominently in some of these expressions and metaphor in others, the entire dataset can be best viewed as spanning the metonymy-metaphor-continuum. That is, we observe a gradation of conceptual distance between the source and target which corresponds to the gradation of figurativity. Specifically, roughly half of the expressions we encounter are based on the ORGAN OF SPEECH ARTICULATION FOR SPEECH metonymy and can (...) be considered as clustering around the metonymic pole. The other half can be seen as tending towards the metaphoric pole, as they are largely motivated by conceptual metaphors: (a) VERBAL BEHAVIOUR IS PHYSICAL ACTION, (b) SPEECH IS CONTAINER, (c) ARGUMENT IS WAR (or WORDS ARE WEAPONS) and (d) WORDS ARE FOOD. The interaction between metonymy and metaphor is an important cognitive strategy in the conceptualisation of verbal behaviour. The findings (i) evidence the gradient predictability of idiom meanings based on semantic compositionality, (ii) confirm the hypothesis of a bodily and experiential basis of cognition, (iii) suggest the existence of culture-specific models in the utilization of basic experiences, and (iv) point to the role of emotion in the metaphorisation of verbal behaviour as a socio-emotional domain. (shrink)

The role of the two hemispheres in processing metaphoric language is controversial. In order to complement current debates, the current divided visual field study introduced scientific metaphors as novel metaphors, presenting orientation mapping from the specific and familiar domains to the abstract and unfamiliar domains, to examine hemispheric asymmetry in metaphoric processing. Twenty-four Chinese native speakers from science disciplines took part in the experiment. The participants were presented with four types of Chinese word pairs: scientific metaphors, conventional metaphors, (...) literal word pairs, and unrelated word pairs. The first word in each pair was presented centrally, and the second was presented to the left visual field or the right visual field. Event-related potentials were recorded when participants read the target words and judged whether words in each pair were related. The data demonstrated that both hemispheres were involved at the initial stage of metaphor processing, but the right hemisphere took a more privileged role. The significant activation of the left hemisphere for scientific metaphoric processing supports the fine-coarse coding hypothesis. During right-visual-field presentation, the left hemisphere, responsible for the processing of closely related domains, has to integrate the loosely associated domains of scientific metaphor, which greatly increased cognitive taxes. Moreover, the data of late positive components revealed different hemispheric activation between scientific metaphors and conventional metaphors. Compared with literal pairs, conventional metaphors elicited significantly higher LPCs during right visual field presentation, while the scientific metaphor elicited significantly lower LPCs during left visual field presentation. These results suggest different processing mechanisms between novel metaphors and conventional metaphors and the special role of the right hemisphere in novel metaphoric processing at the later mapping stage. (shrink)

The theory of embodied semantics holds that verbal metaphors are strongly grounded in sensorimotor experience. Many studies have proven that besides sensorimotor simulation, the comprehension of verbal metaphors also requires semantic abstraction. But the interaction between simulation and abstraction, as well as the time course of metaphorical meaning integration, is not well understood. In the present study, we aimed to investigate whether embodiment or abstraction, or both, is employed in the processing of Chinese verbal metaphor. Participants were asked (...) to read subject-verb metaphorical, verb-object metaphorical, literal-concrete and literal-abstract sentences, and the target words were measured at the verb and the object of each sentence. The results revealed that a similar N400 effect was elicited by the target verbs in the verb-object metaphorical and the literal-concrete sentences, and a similar P600/LPC effect was induced by the target verbs in the subject-verb metaphorical and the literal-abstract sentences, reflecting that the verb-object metaphors trigger a simulation process, while the subject-verb metaphors trigger an abstraction process in the verb processing stage. Moreover, the subject-verb metaphors elicited a stronger P600/LPC effect by the target verbs than the verb-object metaphors, but there was no difference of the P600/LPC caused by the target objects between the two kinds of metaphors, revealing that the metaphorical meaning of a subject-verb metaphor is integrated in the verb processing stage, while that of a verb-object metaphor is reanalyzed in the object processing stage. These results suggest that a verbal metaphor is processed both by simulation and abstraction, and the metaphorical meaning is integrated immediately with the unfolding of the sentence meaning. The position where the semantic conflict lies in a sentence modulates the time course of metaphor sentence comprehension. (shrink)

This paper has two interconnected themes. First, it is a study of metaphor of love in classical Chinese poetry. Second, Josef Stern’s semantic account on metaphor interpretation will be explored. By analyzing the common grounds and remaining differences in Chinese and English, I will try to challenge the view that metaphor is simply a function of semantics, specifically the analogy between metaphors and demonstratives. I will argue that metaphorical interpretation is not solely a semantic matter. (...) With regard to metaphor in classical Chinese poetry, one of the pragmatic factors, Yi Xiang (the cultural image) should also be taken into consideration. (shrink)

Happiness is one of the basic human emotions. This paper takes the metaphorical expressions of “happiness” in English and Chinese idioms as the objects of research. The effort is made to find the differences and similarities between English and Chinese metaphorical systems of emotional concepts and the causes of these differences and similarities so as to help people further understand the nature of emotional metaphors.

Through metaphor, we gain distinctive perspectives on reality and communicate in new ways, especially when we use metaphor intentionally. The COVID-19 pandemic broke out in early 2020, causing sign...

Conceptual metaphor is characterized by two important features—systematicity and complexity. This article is primarily concerned with IDEA metaphors in Chinese and attempts to explore how systematicity and complexity have structured the IDEA metaphorical hierarchical system. Four principal IDEA metaphors are investigated, namely, “IDEAS ARE PEOPLE”, “IDEAS ARE PLANTS”, “IDEAS ARE OBJECTS”, and “IDEAS ARE FOOD”. It is found that the relationship between metaphors and human thought is systematic as well as complex and that systematicity and complexity of IDEA (...) metaphors intertwine with each other. (shrink)

In this article, we examine how cognitive metaphor theories might contribute to the theory and practice of poetry translation. We focus on translations from Chinese to English by Xu Yuanchong, both...

Western scholarship on early Chinese thought has tended to either dismiss the foundational role of metaphor or to see it as a uniquely Chinese mode of apprehending the world. This article argues that, while human cognition is in fact profoundly dependent on imagistic conceptual structures, such dependence is by no means a unique feature of Chinese thought. The article reviews empirical evidence supporting the claims that human thought is fundamentally imagistic; that sensorimotor schemas are often used (...) to structure our understanding of abstract concepts; that these schemas can be selectively combined to result in novel structures; and that there are inextricable connections between body, emotion, and thought in both everyday and philosophical cognition. It also provides a review of a recent trend where, explicitly or not, scholars from a variety of backgrounds have begun to take metaphor more seriously as a foundational bearer of philosophical meaning in early China. (shrink)

This article studies the moral metaphor system focusing on a subsystem consisting of five pairs of MORAL and IMMORAL metaphors whose source concepts represent some contrastive categories in our visual experience: WHITE and BLACK, LIGHT and DARK, CLEAR and MURKY, CLEAN and DIRTY, PURE and IMPURE. The study examines whether these moral metaphors are manifested in Chinese and English, looking for linguistic evidence in both languages. It is found that the studied moral metaphors are applicable in both languages (...) at varying degrees. This finding suggests that these metaphors may range from being widespread to being universal. The study then further analyzes them regarding whether they are primary or complex metaphors and whether they are equal in status, applying a decompositional approach to metaphor analysis. The result suggests that the moral metaphors under study are complex rather than primary metaphors, and that they are actually not equal in status, some depending on others in meaning making in our moral cognition. If the analysis is valid, the implications are: some conceptual metaphors are more fundamental than others, those that are more fundamental are more likely to be widespread or universal, and hypotheses can be made about conceptual metaphors based on in-depth analysis of their conceptual composition. (shrink)

Metaphor has been a feature of poetry for centuries. Some metaphorical phenomena in poetry raise questions for the traditional framework, in which metaphor is a matter of the metaphorical use of individual words. White does not adopt the traditional view. He intro­duces a sentence-approach instead. I argue that the alleged phenomena occur in the Chinese poetry as well. I argue further, that White’s structure of representing metaphor can be used to analyze metaphor in the (...) class='Hi'>Chinese poetry, but that it must be constructed on the basis of working out the relevant cultural implicatures. In effect, interpreting a metaphor involves generating the cultural implicature where a literary quotation is being alluded to, because the quotation acts as the key to understanding the metaphor in the poetry. (shrink)

Sarah A. Mattice develops a comparative intervention in contemporary metaphilosophy. Drawing on resources from hermeneutics, cognitive linguistics, aesthetics, and Chinese philosophy, she explores how philosophical language is deeply intertwined with the definition and practice of the discipline.

Conceptual metaphor theory provides a useful tool with which to think about different philosophical traditions, as it can reveal the deep structure of networks of ideas. Conceptual metaphors are not just linguistic devices, rather they organise whole networks of thought, experience and activity. Paying special attention to the role of the metaphor of sight in certain Indian traditions and that of Dao in Chinese traditions, I explore the idea that different philosophical traditions have developed and matured around (...) particular conceptual metaphors, each giving rise to a distinctive conception of both the practice and the goal of philosophy. I suggest that what it means to practice philosophy in these traditions is governed by the dominant conceptual metaphor in use. I consider the implications of this for the traditional Western conception of philosophy as the love of wisdom. I conclude with some reflections on analytic philosophy, considering to what extent it too can be regarded as a philosophical tradition structured by a dominant conceptual metaphor. (shrink)

The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic calls for and applies a new model of comparative literature - one that, instead of taking for granted the commensurability of traditions and texts, gives incompatibility and contradiction their due. Exposing contemporary literary theory to the risks of ancient Chinese literature (and vice versa), this book considers a linked series of case studies. To what degree does the translation between languages and texts that we call comparative literature depend on allegory or translation (...) within a single text or language? The author offers an important, new perspective on the reading of the Shih-ching or Book of Odes and the question of allegory and metaphor in the Chinese poetic tradition. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPsychotherapy is a mental health activity where therapists assist clients through verbal interaction. The phenomenon of transference, where clients superimpose their past experiences onto present life situations, occurs frequently in psychotherapy, and may have varied effects on treatment outcome depending on how it is managed or “worked through.” While previous work has linked transference to metaphor based on their theoretical similarity, this article explores the relationship on the basis of actual psychotherapy talk between a therapist–client dyad at a (...) class='Hi'>Chinese university counseling center. It combines clinical and discourse analytic observations to the model working through transference as an interactional process of constructing a “PRESENT IS PAST” conceptual metaphor, and suggests that the process involves guiding the client to move from an awareness of correspondences at the conceptual level, to the transferential level (between feelings,.. (shrink)

This essay offers some preliminary reflections on the systematic and non-systematic uses of basic metaphors in relation to Pepper's conception of root metaphor. It is suggested that Pepper's conception represents one sort of systematic use; and that the non- systematic use, as exemplified in Chinese thought, has an independent cognitive status and merit particularly in comparative philosophical inquiry.

ABSTRACTThis is a linguistic study of two primary metaphors with the same target concept, “DIFFICULTY IS WEIGHT” and “DIFFICULTY IS SOLIDITY,” in English and Chinese. The study employs both lexical...