Systematicity and Complexity of IDEA Metaphors in Chinese

ABSTRACT

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.

Notes

¹ It should be pointed out that Chinese examples employed in this article are retrieved from corpora including BCC (Beijing Language and Culture University Chinese Corpus) (http://bcc.blcu.edu.cn/), CCL (Center for Chinese Linguistics PUK) (http://ccl.pku.edu.cn:8080/ccl_corpus/index.jsp?dir = xiandai), and CNCorpus (http://CNCorpus.org).