Conceptual Metaphor “THE HEART IS A CONTAINER” in Thai in Comparison with Mandarin Chinese
Keywords:
cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, language and culture, “THE HEART IS A CONTAINER”Abstract
This research aims to study and analyse the figurative meaning of “heart” when used as a metaphor and concept reflecting a container. In addition, it comparatively studies the conceptual metaphor “THE HEART IS A CONTAINER” in Thai and Chinese, following the cognitive linguistics theories on conceptual metaphor and image schema. The findings indicate that there are both similarities and differences in the cognition and comprehension of “heart” as a container in the two languages. The “THE HEART IS A CONTAINER” concept in both Thai and Chinese can be understood from the attributes and compositions of CONTAINER schema, which consist of three elements, namely interior, boundary, and exterior. “Heart” is viewed as a container that can be used to contain things with a boundary separating its internal and external sections. The internal section may be entered, while something may emerge from it. Differences do exist between Thai and Chinese approaches to the terms “container” and “heart,” possibly due to cultural factors in varying social settings. Thus, the comparison of the conceptual metaphor “THE HEART IS A CONTAINER” in Thai and in Chinese allows those who study both of these languages to comprehend the specific differences within the differing cultural senses. It helps people with different cultural backgrounds exchange and communicate across cultures more effectively.
References
Aksan, M. (2006). The Container Metaphor in Turkish Expressions Of Anger. Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 3(2). http://ded.mersindilbilim.info/tr/issue/19500/2078
Bao, Z. (2016). The metaphorical origin of emotional expression in English and Chinese--Taking the language expression of "anger" as an exam-ple (英汉情感表达的隐喻溯源—以 “愤怒” 的语言表达为例). Journal of The Chinese Society of Education, 37(2), 77-79. [in Chinese]
Berendt, E. A., & Tanita, K. (2011). The ‘Heart' of Things: A Conceptual Meta-phoric Analysis of Heart and Related Body Parts in Thai, Japanese and English. Intercultural Communication Studies, 20(1), 65-78.
Boers, F. (2003). Applied linguistics perspectives on cross-cultural variation in conceptual metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 18(4), 231-238.
CASS Institute of Linguistics Dictionary (中国社会科学院语言研究所词典编辑室). (2016). The Contemporary of Chinese Dictionary (现代汉语词典 (第 7 版). The commercial press. [in Chinese]
Cervel, S. P. (2013). A cognitive approach to the role of body parts in the conceptualization of emotion metaphors. Epos: Revista de filología, 30(17), 245-260.
Chen, L., & Qiu, L. (2005). Human behavior in organization (组织行为学). Tsinghua University Press. [in Chinese]
Evans, V., & Green, M. (2006). Cognitive Linguistics: An introduction. Edin-burgh University Press.
Gaby, A. (2008). Gut feelings: Locating Intellect, Emotion and Life Force in the Thaayorre Body. In F. Sharifian, R. Dirven, N. Yu, & S. Niemeier (Ed.), Culture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of Internal Body Organs across Cultures and Languages (2nd ed., pp. 28-44). Mouton de Gruyter.
Geeraerts, D., & Gevaert, C. (2008). Hearts and (angry) minds in Old English. In F. Sharifian, R. Dirven, N. Yu, & S. Niemeier (Ed.), Culture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of Internal Body Organs across Cul-tures and Languages (2nd ed., pp. 319-347). Mouton de Gruyter.
Geeraerts, D., & Grondelaers, S. (1995). Looking back at anger: Cultural tradi-tions and metaphorical patterns. In John R. Taylor, & Robert E. Mac-Laury (Ed.), Language and the Cognitive Construal of the World (pp. 153-179). Mouton de Gruyter.
Gevaert, C. (2005). The ANGER IS HEAT question: Detecting cultural influ-ence on the conceptualization of anger through diachronic corpus analysis. In N. Delbecque, J. van der Auwera, & D. Geeraerts (Ed.), Perspectives on variation: Sociolinguistic, historical, comparative (pp. 195-208). Mouton de Gruyter.
Grady, J. E. (1997a). Foundation of meaning: Primary metaphors and primary scenes [Unpublished Doctoral dissertation]. University of California.
Grady, J. E. (1997b). Theories are buildings revisited. Cognitive Linguistics, 8(4), 267-290.
Ikegami, Y. (2008). The Heart: What it means to the Japanese Speakers. In F. Sharifian, R. Dirven, N. Yu, & S. Niemeier (Ed.), Culture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of Internal Body Organs across Cul-tures and Languages (2nd ed., pp. 169–190). Mouton de Gruyter.
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind. University of Chicago Press.
Kövecses, Z. (1995). The container metaphor of anger in English, Chinese, Japanese and Hungarian. In Kövecses, Z (Ed.). a metaphorical point of view: a multidisciplinary approach to the cognitive content of metaphor (pp. 117-147). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110867831-008
Kovecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press.
Kövecses, Z. (2003). Metaphor and emotion: Language, culture, and body in human feeling. Cambridge University Press.
Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge University Press.
Kyung, J. Y. (2008). The Korean Conceptualization of Heart: An Indigenous perspective. In F. Sharifian, R. Dirven, N. Yu, & S. Niemeier (Ed.), Cul-ture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of Internal Body Or-gans across Cultures and Languages (2nd ed., pp. 213–246). de Gruyter.
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh. Basic Books.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
Lan, C. (2003). Spatial metaphor of Chinese and English from the cognitive perspective (从认知角度看汉语和英语的空间隐喻). Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. [in Chinese]
Li, X. (2010). A comparative analysis of English and Chinese idioms-from the perspective of conceptual metaphor of "happiness". Journal of Lan-guage Teaching and Research, 1(4), 473.
Maalej, Z. (2004). Figurative language in anger expressions in Tunisian Arabic: An extended view of embodiment. Metaphor and symbol, 19(1), 51-75.
Maalej, Z. (2008). The Heart and Cultural Embodiment in Tunisian Arabic. In F. Sharifian, R. Dirven, N. Yu, & S. Niemeier (Ed.), Culture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of Internal Body Organs across Cul-tures and Languages (2nd ed., pp. 395-428). Mouton de Gruyter.
Mashak, S. P., Pazhakh, A., & Hayati, A. (2012). A comparative study on basic emotion conceptual metaphors in English and Persian literary texts. International Education Studies, 5(1), 200-207.
Niemeier, S. (2000). Straight from the heart-metonymic and metaphorical explorations. In Antonio, Barcelona (ed.), Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: A cognitive perspective (pp. 185-213). Mouton de Gruyter.
Niemeier, S. (2008). To be in control: Kind-hearted and cool-headed. The head-heart dichotomy in English. Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages, 349-372.
Nomura, M. (1996). The ubiquity of the fluid metaphor in Japanese: A case study. Poetica, 46, 41-75.
Occhi, D. J. (2008). How to have a HEART in Japanese. In F. Sharifian, R. Dirven, N. Yu, & S. Niemeier (Ed.), Culture, Body, and Language: Conceptualiza-tions of Internal Body Organs across Cultures and Languages (2nd ed.,pp. 191-212). Mouton de Gruyter.
Pérez, R. G. (2008). A cross-cultural analysis of heart metaphors. Revista Ali-cantina de Estudios Ingleses/Alicante Journal of English Studies, 21, 25-56.
Qin, Y., Chen, H., Tian, L., & Hua, B. (2013). Discussion on “He”, the Core of Yin-yang and Five Elements Doctrine in TCM (浅论中医之阴阳五行核心是 “和”). World Chinese Medicine, 8(1), 38-39. [in Chinese]
Reddy, M. (1979). The conduit metaphor. Metaphor and Thought, 2, 285-324.
Sun, G., & Zheng, H. (2012). Basic Theory of Chinese Medicine (中医基础理论). China Press of Traditional Chinese Medicine. [in Chinese]
Swan, T. (2009). Metaphors of body and mind in the history of English. Eng-lish Studies, 90(4), 460-475.
The Royal Institute. (2013). Royal Institute Dictionary, 2554 B.E. Nanmee-book Publication. [in Thai]
Ungerer, F., & Schmid, H. (2006). An introduction to cognitive linguistics. (2nd ed.). Long-man.
Velasco, O. I. D. (2001). Metaphor, metonymy and image-schemas: An analy-sis of Conceptual Interaction Patterns. Journal of English studies, 3, 47-64.
Yoon, K. J. (2008). The Korean conceptualization of heart: An indigenous perspective. In F. Sharifian, R. Dirven, N. Yu, & S. Niemeier (Ed.), Cul-ture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of Internal Body Or-gans across Cultures and Languages (2nd ed., pp. 213-243). Ber-lin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Yu, N. (1995). Metaphorical expressions of anger and happiness in English and Chinese. Metaphor and Symbol, 10(2), 59-92.
Yu, N. (1998). The contemporary theory of metaphor: A perspective from Chinese (Vol. 1). John Benjamins Publishing.
Yu, N. (2007). The Chinese conceptualization of the heart and its cultural context. Applied cultural linguistics: Implications for second lan-guage learning and intercultural communication, 7, 65.
Yu, N. (2008). The Chinese heart as the central faculty of cognition. Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages, 7, 131-168.
Yu, N. (2009). The Chinese HEART in a cognitive linguistic perspective: Culture, body and language. Mouton de Gruyter.
Zeng, Z. (2002). How is “Qi” Possible as a Philosophical Concept (“气” 作为哲学概念如何可能). Chinese Culture Research, 10(4), 53-62. [in Chinese]
Zhang, D. (2001). Humoralism and its influence on Western medicine (体液论及其对西方医学的影响). Chinese Journal of Medical History, 31(3), 141-147. [in Chinese]
Zheng, H. (2016). Basic theory of Chinese medicine (中医基础理论). China Press of Traditional Chinese Medicine. [in Chinese]
Zhu, R., Lin, Y., Zhao, H., Zhang, X., Lei, J., & Zhang, H. (2010). The relation-ship between four humoral theory and five elements of Viscera-state Theory and its theory of internal environmental homeostasis in Viscera-state (四行体液学说与五行藏象理论及藏象内环境自稳态学说的关系). China Medical Herald, 1, 88-89. [in Chinese]
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors retain the copyright to their article but the Journal of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkla University reserves the exclusive rights to first publication.
