metaphor

理论语言学研究 第 2卷第 2号 2008年 12月 ISSN 1882-4226 (p) 1882-1545 (e) 259 Comparison of Metaphor’s Effects on English Vocabulary and that of Chinese Zou Jiahui Chaoyang Teachers College Abstract: Metaphor is both a phenomenon of language and of thought. It plays an important role in human’s understanding the world, the forming of the conceptual structure and the development of the language. It is a higher stage of cognitive development. Metaphor is common and pervasive not just in English but in all languages and across all dialects and it appears in literary as well as everyday language. So it has a great effect on both English vocabulary and that of Chinese. The following comparison of metaphor’s effects on English vocabulary and that of Chinese proves that metaphor’s effects on English vocabulary have something in common with that of Chinese. And this kind of effect will become one of the most important causes in the process of forming new words both in English and Chinese. Keywords: the effect of metaphor; meaning of words; English vocabulary; Chinese vocabulary 1. Introduction The research on vocabulary learning and vocabulary acquisition is one of the most important parts in English teaching. So many teachers of English have spent much of time studying how to improve students’ vocabulary. Learning any foreign language must be based on one’s native language. Finding the differences and similarities between the developments of English and Chinese vocabulary is still on ascendant. Based on this consideration, this paper adopts a quantitative research approach to find why and how cognitive metaphor affects the development of English and Chinese vocabulary and that the effects of metaphor on the two languages are similar or not. Quantitative methods will be utilized in this analytical process. There are some data collections and a comparison is presented and analyzed. Some new words which are randomly chosen from A Complement to the English-Chinese Dictionary will be analyzed here. A comparison between metaphor’s influence on English words and on those of Chinese is made. 2.1 Method Why and how does cognitive metaphor affect the development of English and Chinese vocabulary? The effects of metaphor on the two languages are similar or not? With these questions 理论语言学研究 第 2卷第 2号 2008年 12月 ISSN 1882-4226 (p) 1882-1545 (e) 260 the writer of this thesis has collected some data from A Complement to the English-Chinese Dictionary and analyzed these new words from the perspective of semantic changes to find the important effects of cognitive metaphor in forming neologisms. After finding the influence of metaphor on English vocabulary, this thesis also makes a contrast with the Chinese neologisms which are taken from Synchronic Situation and Diachronic Change of Contemporary Chinese Words ---the study of current situation of Chinese words in the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan in 90’s by Tang Zhixiang (2001)(1). From the data analysis, we can not only find the important effects of metaphor on the development of English and Chinese vocabulary, but also the similarities of the effects on the two languages. It can give us the instructive direction in English and Chinese vocabulary learning and teaching, even in the English and Chinese learning and teaching. 2.2 Data Collection and Analysis In order to prove the effect of metaphor on the development of English vocabulary, a research is done in this study. Some words are randomly collected from Letter A to Letter S in A Complement to the English-Chinese Dictionary published by Shanghai Translation Press in 1999.The words taken from the dictionary are the new words or the existing words with new meaning since 1980s. For the sake of acceptance as true and valid, a person who does not know what is metaphor is asked to chosen the words randomly. The words classified as metaphor origin are those that can be clearly seen from the meaning of the words. We are sure that there are still some words in the rest part of the new words formed metaphorically, so the figures of the words chosen as metaphor- formation must be less than the real part. According to the parts of speech, we classify the words into four kinds: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs: Table 1. The new words which develop metaphorically form noun adjective verb adverb metaphor % A 13 7 3 0 10 43.5 B 10 7 1 0 11 61.1` C 21 6 2 0 18 62.2 D 8 3 6 1 8 44.4 E 16 1 1 0 11 61.1 F 9 4 0 0 10 76.9 G 11 1 1 0 4 33.3 H 18 2 1 0 18 85.7 I 11 1 1 0 7 53.8 J 1 1 1 0 2 66.7 (1) The original work is written in Chinese, and there is no English version. The English title is translated here by the author of this thesis. 理论语言学研究 第 2卷第 2号 2008年 12月 ISSN 1882-4226 (p) 1882-1545 (e) 261 K 4 2 1 0 0 0 L 12 6 0 0 12 66.7 M 24 4 2 0 10 33.3 N 14 2 1 1 12 66.7 O 1 3 0 0 4 100 P 12 6 1 0 13 68.4 Q 3 0 0 0 0 0 R 5 1 8 0 11 78.6 S 27 4 4 0 16 45.7 Total 231 61 34 2 177 54.1 Note: A, B, C, D… is the first letter of the new words respectively. If a new word can be both used as noun and verb, or noun and adjective, we regarded the word as two new words. % means the percentage of metaphors in the new vocabulary. From this statistical data, we can find that the largest part of the new words is nouns which cover more than seventy percent of the new words. The number of the verbs is the second large part. The metaphor effect on the development of the English vocabulary is metaphorical cognition through mapping from the original domain to the target domain, from the concrete one to the abstract one, from the familiar one to the unfamiliar one. Human beings can understand the colorful world by creating the new meaning of the old words as well as creating the new forms of the words. Metaphor is the main factor to make it come true. For example, the neologism flatline originally meant the line of electroencephalogram on the screen after a person death. Now it is used as verb which means die or end. Another word finger-pointing means criticize. Virus originally meant a living thing even smaller than bacteria which causes infectious disease in the body, in plants, etc. It now refers to computing a program that enters your computer and damages or destroys information that you have stored. The meanings of these vividly used words come from human cognition mapping from one domain to another. From these new words collected above, 54.1% of them come into being through metaphor. And this figure is very conservative. If we can find the origins of all these words and know the evolutionary process of these words, the number of the words formed by metaphors would become larger and larger. Lakoff and Johnson said that most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature. The development of man’s vocabulary is the process of human cognition. It is also human’s understanding of the world. The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:5).That is the main cause in the changing process of word meaning. The words that we cannot find the etymology and that we are not sure whether they are metaphorical or not are put out of the group of metaphors. So the number of metaphorical words we find here are less than the real existing ones. Among all of these new words, we can also find that the number of the new words formed through compounding is the large part of the new words. And most 理论语言学研究 第 2卷第 2号 2008年 12月 ISSN 1882-4226 (p) 1882-1545 (e) 262 of the compound words are formed metaphorically. Most of the new words are nouns mapping from the familiar domain to the unfamiliar domain. For example, granny dumping means giving up taking care of one’s aged parents; sudden death refers to the overtime of the football game; and golden goal means the first goal of this time. The vivid image of metaphors can make new and abstract things understood easily and clearly. In this survey, there are still a few words which are not chosen because we can hardly find the origin of the words and do not know whether they are metaphor or not. Perhaps they have already finished the process of meaning evolution and become the dead metaphors. In a word, we are sure the number of the words formed metaphorically must be larger than the figure we get here. So it is possible and reasonable that seventy percent of lexical meaning is metaphoric or originated from metaphors (Zhao, 2001:51). Although we can hardly give the exact figure here, the important effect of metaphor on the development of English vocabulary is strong and admits of no doubt. 3. Comparison between English Vocabulary and that of Chinese A second basic point established by Lakoff and Johnson is that metaphor is common and pervasive not just in English but in all languages and across all dialects and that it appears in literary as well as everyday language( Hatch & Brown, 2001:87). Metaphor is also an important factor in the development of Chinese vocabulary. Consider the following examples: (1) new words in political and social reform: jienao（借脑）: to use other’s wisdom for serving oneself paoguan（跑官）: to ask for a higher official position and stronger power in the society through illegal activities daiquanxiahai（带权下海）: leader’s doing business by means of one’s power (2) in economical and financial field jiufeng（纠风）: to correct unhealthy practices/rectify professional malpractices of the officials jingqi（景气）: prosperity; boom lüdeng（绿灯）: permission to go ahead with something (3) in advanced technology and sophisticated products shouji（手机）: mobile phone gainianche（概念车）: conceptual car shengtailou（生态楼）: environmental-friendly building (4) in culture and entertainment ailiao(爱聊): a talk to cure one’s mental illness through showing one’s love and care. zhilidagong（智力打工） : to be an employee through one’s wisdom instead of labor xiwanggongcheng（希望 工程 路基工程安全技术交底工程项目施工成本控制工程量增项单年度零星工程技术标正投影法基本原理 ）: the project of helping the students who drop schools to 理论语言学研究 第 2卷第 2号 2008年 12月 ISSN 1882-4226 (p) 1882-1545 (e) 263 go back to school/Project Hope (5) in the other areas doufuzhagongcheng（豆腐渣工程） : jerry-built projects/projects built with skimpy materials yinxingjiuye （隐性就业）: unregistered employment; veiled re-employment zhengceyinhang（政策银行）: policy bank diye/dige（的爷/的哥）: a taxi driver minzuganqing（民族感情）: the national pride/dignity/sentiments All these words are formed metaphorically. According to Synchronic Situation and Diachronic Change of Contemporary Chinese Words ---the study of current situation of Chinese words in the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan in 90’s by Tang Zhixiang (2001)(2), the growing speed of the new words in Chinese is fast. Now more and more Chinese linguistics are studying the rapid change of the Chinese words. Here Mr. Tang has collected a lot of data of new words in Chinese. The following statistical table is one of them: Table 2: The statistical data of the four kinds of new words in Chinese (1991-1994) nouns verbs adjectives The others number % number % number % number % 1991/142 99 69.7 40 28.2 0 - 3 21.1 1992/216 148 68.5 58 26.9 0 - 10 4.6 1993/285 159 55.6 119 41.6 1 0.3 7 2.4 1994/278 160 57.6 110 39.6 2 0.7 6 2.1 Total: 922 566 61.4 327 35.5 3 0.3 26 2.8 We can find that the growth of the new words in Chinese, to some extent, has the same regularity with English. In the table above, there are 556 nouns which cover 61% of the whole of the new words. The number of the verbs is 327, 35.5%. It is the second largest part. It is the same to the development of the English vocabulary. After the analysis of the data, Mr Tang points out that the most important feature of Chinese word meaning is abstraction and the generalization. The abstraction and generalization of vocabulary, in fact, is formed by metaphorical cognition. Metaphor is one of our most important tools for trying to comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feeling, aesthetic experiences, moral practices, and spiritual awareness (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:193). Vocabulary brings us face to face with the society and the forces of change which influence us daily. It is a world that is changing rapidly, reflecting the way society changes, and where it is difficult to keep up, even as a native-speaker. We desperately need principles of organization, strategies of analysis (Wang, 2000:20). Metaphor is an ideal way of vocabulary (2) The original work is written in Chinese, and there is no English version. The English title is translated here by the author of this thesis. 理论语言学研究 第 2卷第 2号 2008年 12月 ISSN 1882-4226 (p) 1882-1545 (e) 264 development. It is common in any language. In Tang’s book, when he analyzes the change of the meaning of the Chinese words, he mentions two important features: the abstraction and generalization of word meaning and the extension of grammatical meaning of words(3). The following examples can prove it : Goncheng(工程): a piece of work that needs skill, effort, and careful planning, esp. over a period of time. Just refers to building or construction. Usually we use shuiligongcheng（水利工程）, tumugongcheng（土木工程）, jixiegongcheng（机 械工程）， gongchengjindu（工程进度）, gongchengguimo（工程规模）…… Now the meaning of this word is abstract. It means any piece of work that needs great effort by many people. Then many new words formed with the abstract meaning: xiwanggongcheng(希望工 程), yangguanggongcheng（阳光工程）, suzhigongcheng（素质工程）, jiedonggongcheng（解冻 工程）, xingfugongch（幸福工程）, pinpaigoncheng（品牌工程）,songwennuangongcheng（送 温暖工程）,cailanzigongcheng（菜篮子工程）,zaijiuyegongcheng（再就业工程）…… The abstraction of the Chinese words mentioned here is just the metaphorical conceptualization. It is also the effects of metaphor on the development of Chinese vocabulary. Another example, re (热) originally means: 1. the force produced by the movement of groups of atoms 2. a condition of being hot/ high temperature 3. to heat Usually we say reneng（热能）, retianqi（热天气）, reyixiafan（热一下饭）…… With the abstraction and generalization of the word meaning, a lot of new words appear in today’s Chinese vocabulary: gupiaore（股票热）, wenhuare（文化热） , kaoyanre（考研热）, chuguore （出国热）,lvyoure（旅游热）, hanyure（汉语热）, qichere（汽车热）,wenpingre（文凭热）……(4) All these words are formed metaphorically. It shows that metaphor plays an important role not only in the evolution of English vocabulary, but also in that of Chinese vocabulary. It proves that human metaphorical cognition is pervasive. It may be significantly influenced by culture, society, human experiences and other factors, but there is no doubt that it is common for human beings to have the ability to understand one domain of experience in terms of another. Metaphor is a kind of common phenomena. People use a large number of metaphors all the time (Shu, 2000: 1). British rhetorician, I.A.Richard ever said that there is a metaphor in every three sentences of our daily talk (Rechard, 1936: 98). According to Pollio, Barlow, Fine and Pollio (1977), in people’s free talk, there are four metaphors every minute. A person, on average , can use more than 21,000,000 metaphors in (3)These terms are translated by the author of this paper. The original Chinese terms are词汇意义的虚化、 泛化和语法意义的转化、扩大化 (4) All the Chinese words quoted in this paper are taken from 《当代汉语的共时状况及其 嬗变》——90 年代中国大陆、香港、台湾汉语词语现状研究，作者：汤志祥 理论语言学研究 第 2卷第 2号 2008年 12月 ISSN 1882-4226 (p) 1882-1545 (e) 265 one’s life (Shu, 2000: 1). In order to make this thesis understood clearly, the writer also uses a lot of metaphors in it. Metaphors exist anywhere at any time. This is explained by Lakoff and Johnson in their book Metaphors We Live By. Language is dispensable to us. We live by language; Metaphor is dispensable to us. We live by metaphor. So we can imagine the important effects of metaphor on the development of the language, on the development of vocabulary. 4. Conclusion and Its Implication From the data collection and analysis we can find the following results: 1) Cognitive metaphor is the dispensable factor in word forming. In the first data collection, we randomly chose 328 new words from the dictionary. They are 231 nouns, 61 adjectives, 34 verbs and 2 adverbs which are open-class words. With the emergence of new ideas, inventions, etc., new expressions are continually and constantly being added to the lexicon. They are in principle infinite or unlimited (Hu, 2001:81).Most of the meanings of new words are formed metaphorically. It is no doubt that people usually understand the new things with metaphorical cognition mapping from the old and familiar domain to the new and unfamiliar domain by which the meanings of the new words are formed, which is the main way of forming new words. The number of words is limited, but the human cognition is unlimited. So man can use the limited words to express the endless world by metaphorical cognition. That is the main source of the new words. 2) The effects of metaphor on the English vocabulary and that of Chinese are the same. The comparison between English and Chinese vocabulary proves that metaphor is a common and pervasive way of human cognition. Metaphor’s effect on the development of vocabulary is not only in English but also in Chinese and other languages. The regularity of Chinese development is the same as that of English. Most of the new words formed metaphorically in both English and Chinese are nouns, verbs and adjectives which are open-class items. It proves that human’s cognition is the same. The most important features in Chinese development summarized by Tang are abstraction and generalization, which is caused by cognitive metaphor. So we can say that most of the Chinese new words are also formed metaphorically and this trend will develop rapidly. The changing trend of English word meaning may come of human cognition. So does the Chinese words. Although the meanings of the words vary from different cultures, histories and societies, the cognition of human beings is common. People find the similarity between two things, and they understand the abstract one or the difficultly-understood one in terms of the concrete and easily-understood one, or use the simple and vivid to express the complicated. The forming of new word meaning will become complex, not just by one way of compound, conversion, or abbreviation... Human metaphorical cognition will be the main factor of new word forming. 3) To know the effect of cognitive metaphor on the development of English vocabulary can benefit L2 acquisition. Making a comparison between English and our native language is very 理论语言学研究 第 2卷第 2号 2008年 12月 ISSN 1882-4226 (p) 1882-1545 (e) 266 helpful in L2 acquisition. Language practical ability refers to the ability to communicate through language, which is reflected through listening, reading, speaking and writing. Vocabulary has a direct influence on the development of one’s language competence while vocabulary constitutes an important index to estimate one’s ability. Only when a person has sufficient vocabulary storage can he listen and read effectively and can it be possible for him to do well in his writing and translati