NP-metaphor means that the construction of a metaphorical use is composed by a noun or noun phrases, in which one noun or noun phrase is applied to refer to another unrelated thing. For example:

In English ① I am an album of snapshots, random, a whole show of trailers of old films.

② Religion is the opiate of the masses.

③ Wit is the salt of conversation.

④ Director Matt Busby, the Godfather of the club.

In Chinese ① 一着急，思想的线索要打成结又松散了。

（钱钟书 《围城》：36）

② 高龄八十九的萧乾，仍然是一匹生气勃勃的野马。

（《解放日报》1999/3/5）

③ 鸿渐，你近三十岁的人了，自己改有分寸，用不着我们这些背时的老古董来多嘴。

（钱钟书 《围城》：123）

The above sentences exemplify the use of NP in the construction of metaphor. As

we know, NP itself can act as Subject, Predicate, and Apposition. Therefore NP as metaphorical use can also be Subject (Chinese example① ), or Predicate (English example①, Chinese example②), and Predicate (English example④, Chinese example ③). Examples in English ② and ③ show the NP metaphorical operationalization in the case of possession by the “of” construction. This construction is quite typical in English.

Some of the NP-metaphors can be defined as “naming metaphor” (束定芳 2000: 61). Nickname can be viewed as the typical case. In English, for instance, John Bull is the nickname used for England and the English people, just as Uncle Sam stands for the United State and its people. Although this nickname has its historical origin, yet it nowadays is metaphorized as the jolly, honest, plain-dealing, and hot-tempered people. Uncle Sam refers to a figure that metaphorizes the America’s national symbol.

In Chinese we can also find many examples, such as “猴子”metaphorized as a person who is quite thin or very quick in action, “电灯泡” metaphorized as one who is bald or is not welcomed in the immediate situation, “人类灵魂的工程师” metaphorized as the teacher, and “下海” metaphorized as someone who quit the job to do business, etc..

In the common situation, NP-metaphor is easily identified and also rich in interpretation. On the one hand, most nouns or noun phrases have the property of referring. Thus people can easily capture the conventional referring and the non-conventional referring, in other words, the semantic anomaly of the NP can be readily perceived. On the other hand, NPs as referring to the outer entities can easily arouse people’s imagination. Therefore they are inclined to be employed to metaphorize other things. For instance, the word “restaurant” can quickly arouse people’s schematic imagination.

Props: desks, chairs, tableware, food, menu etc.

Roles: customers, proprietor, cook, waiters or waitress etc.

Entry condition: customers wanting to have a meal, customers having money with them etc.

Results: customers paying the meal, customers satisfied, proprietor making from customers etc.

Scene 1: (customers) entering

Scene 2: ordering

Scene 3: eating

Scene 4: paying

Scene 5: exiting

(from束定芳 2000: 61-62)

This semantic network of the word “restaurant” can form the systematicity and continuation of the semantic shift in their metaphorical uses.

VP-metaphor refers to the metaphorical meaning which derives from the situation in which the verb in the predicate position is contradictory in meaning with its logical subject or object or both of them. For example:

She did not so much cook as assassinate food..

We can build our understanding.

家乡是个贼，他能偷去你的心。

（闻一多 《红烛·你莫怨我》

From the above examples, we can perceive the semantic anomaly in the configuration of the verbs, by which the metaphorical meanings are produced. VP like NP can also intrigue people’s imagination, yet it is closely associated with NP in the metaphorical construction. Without “food”, “understanding” and “他（家乡）”, the metaphorical use of each sentence will be in a vacuum. Therefore if the semantic collocations between appropriate NPs and appropriate VPs are changed, the semantic network of them will be violated, thus generating the metaphorical imaginations.

According to Goatly (1997: 87), the VP-metaphor can be further analyzed into two main movements of processes:

It escapes me.

It strikes me.

It upsets me. etc.

He doesn’t think he’s distorting my argument.

He has encountered difficulty in putting across his ideas.

Here “my argument” and “his ideas” originally expressed by the concept of “speaking” are metaphorically superseded by physical action “distort” and “put across”. In this kind of substitution, the more concrete and specific the VP is, the more conveniently the metaphorical thinking is aroused (束定芳 2000： 63).

Goatly’s way of analyzing VP-metaphor is quite similar with Halliday’s concept of grammatical metaphor. But Halliday’s analysis of grammatical metaphor is much broader than Goatly’s classification (Halliday 1994). On the basis of his three meta-functions (ideational, interpersonal and textual), Halliday delineates the shift of processes in engendering the metaphorical meaning. However, what Halliday means here is not referring to VP-metaphor, but to the universal phenomenon involving different lexicogrammatical elements and their functions. For example, in the system of transitivity, he says any process can be grammatically metaphorized into another process (ibid.)

They climbed the mountain on the fifth day. (material process)

→B. The fifth day saw their ascent on the mountain. (mental process)

They danced in a Hungarian dance. (behavioral process)

→B. They did a Hungarian dance. (material process)

The above two groups of examples show the grammatical metaphorization from one process to another process.

Acting as qualifiers of nouns or as a part of a predicate, adjectives possess the similar syntactic structures with verbs. Therefore ADJ-metaphor is viewed as a derivative and can be reduced to VP-metaphor or NP-metaphor, for example:

I expect a treaty, a full-fledged treaty on medium-range missiles.

In this sentence, “a full-fledged treaty” equals the metaphorical expression “The treaty is full-fledged”, which also presupposes the meaning “The treaty is a bird or an animal”.

The air was thick with a bass chorus.

The word “thick” in this example qualifies the expression “the air”, so the whole predicate embodies the metaphor “The air is a liquid”.

In Chinese, we can still find the similar examples which show the ADJ-metaphorical operationalization.

每一处新鲜明确的痒，手指迅雷闪电似的按住，然后…

（钱钟书 《围城》：36）

Here “新鲜明确的痒” can also be metaphorically transcribed into “痒是新鲜明确的”, in which one kind of tactile sensation is metaphorized into another.

Compared with NP-metaphor and VP-metaphor, ADJ-metaphor may not be so frequently used in Chinese daily language except in the literary works.

ADVP-metaphor suggests certain similarities between the subject-predicate relations and the manner conveyed by adverbs. ADV-metaphor, compared with other metaphorical operatuinalization, is weak in metaphorical force, because its syntactic form as the identifier for metaphorical use lacks semantic conflict (束定芳 2000：65).

He clambered after her sheepishly.

He clambered after her like a sheep.

In these two sentences, the metaphorical scope in the former is much limited than the latter. In other words, the second sentence has much liberty in interpreting the metaphorical implication according to different situations. As for Chinese, adverbs or adverbial phrases may have the less flexible constructions than those in English, thus ADV-metaphors may be seldom used in daily language.

As is known, English is abundant in prepositions. And the uses of them are also quite flexible in sentences. Therefore, PP-metaphors are quite common in the daily language. Conversely, modern Chinese does not rely on prepositions to construct the sentences. So PP-metaphor is not frequently used in Chinese.

PP-metaphors are always regarded as derivatives of metaphorical concepts from one domain to another, such as from space concept to time concept, from the concrete location to the abstract one, etc., for example:

They were arrested within hours of returning to Shanghai.

A right extremist group is suspected of being behind the killing.

“Within hours” shifts the space concept “in…” to the concept of time sequence, producing the metaphorical sense. And “behind the killing” changes the concept of concrete location to the abstract meaning “manipulate some action”, also engendering the metaphorical interpretation.

In sum, all the above syntactically different metaphorical constructions are the ways provided for people to think and understand the outer world, and also the convenient means for people to coin words or enlarge their vocabulary. However, because of the syntactic and morphological differences between Chinese and English, the structures of various syntactic metaphors manifested in two languages are also diverse. NP-metaphor, VP-metaphor and ADJP-metaphor are the commonest ways in two languages for people to construct their metaphorical expressions. Yet the rate of using ADVP-metaphor and PP-metaphor in English is much higher than that in Chinese. Especially, PP-metaphor can be said to be the largest portion in English metaphorical operationalization (Langackre, 1986).

In English, many categorical metaphor constructions, such as NP, VP, ADLP, ADVP or PP, are not the derivative uses, but the simple words shifted from one category to another without any change of forms, such as nouns “cloud” and “fog”, which can be directly metaphorized to mean “darkened condition”. Due to the categorical discrepancies, “云” and “雾” in Chinese may not have this property. We have to say “疑云” and “迷雾” to express the metaphorical meaning. In other words, the vehicle has to be preposed by a modifier to carry the metaphorical force. From the stylistic perspective, this phenomenon is named as contracted metaphor (李国南 2001: 67). More examples, are “core” (the hard, central part, containing the seeds, of fruits like apples and pears), “root” (the part of the plant that grows downward), and “source” (the beginning of a brook, or river, spring). They can be metaphorized directly.

The Moslem community on the north side of Tyne is more compact, consisting of a core of some sixty families.

For the love of money is the root of all evil.

A newspaper gets news from many sources.

A lot of verbs in English also contain this property, such as “dig” (to use a machine, shovel, spade, hands, or claws to make a hole or to turn over the ground) and “grind” (to crush into bits or powder) in the following examples.

The writer dug into the family records for the story of his pioneer ancestors.

to get their living…by grinding Latin and Greek (Thackeray)

In Chinese, we have to say “发＋掘” or “挖＋掘” and “研＋究” or “钻＋研”, which actually are the expressions combined by two Chinese monosyllable verb characters. So in the metaphorical use, two vehicles are co-existent, such as:

这样的活动可以充分挖掘你的潜力。

钻研技巧才能提高效率。

As for verbs, Chinese and English have different ways of construction, the former mainly relying on compound, yet the latter mainly depending on conversion or zero derivation (Quirk et al 1985: 1558), for example, in English the word “thunder” (the loud noise that often follows a flash of lightening) can be directly converted into verb, which can be metaphorized to mean “any noise like thunder, or roar”, such as:

The cannon thundered throughout the night.

In Chinese we have to use “雷鸣” or “掌声雷鸣”, in which a verb character “鸣” has to be attached by the noun character “雷” in the metaphorical operationalization.

雷鸣般的怒吼声响彻云霄。

Other salient features are the differences in the metaphorical extension of animal words in Chinese and English. In English, most animal words can be straightly transposed into verbs, which can metaphorize the features of the animals, such as:

fox → v. to trick by being sly and crafty

e.g. We are actually in the gallant British machine that foxes the enemy with its special radar.

duck → v. to plunge or dip the head or the whole body under water and come up quickly, as a duck does

monkey → v. to play in the mischievous way

e.g. Don’t monkey with the television.

pig → to herd, lodge, or sleep together like pigs, especially in filth

e.g. a dozen felons, pigging together on bare bricks in a hole fifteen feet square

dog → v. to worry as if by a dog; beset; afflict

e.g. Injuries dogged the baseball team all season.

wolf → v. to eat like a wolf; eat greedily or ravenously

e.g. The starving man wolfed down the food.

mouse → v. to hunt for by patient careful search

rat → to behave in a low, mean, disloyal way

worm → to get by persistent and secret means

e.g. She tried to worm the secret out of me.

(From World Book 2003: disc version)

On the contrary, in Chinese animal words cannot be directly metaphorized into verb expressions, but have to be compounded with monosyllable verbs (i.e. vehicles added by verb characters to form predicate constructions). For instance:

蛇行，虎视，狐疑， 牛饮，龟缩，鼠窜，雀跃，鸟瞰，蜂拥，鱼贯，蝉联，蚕食，鲸吞

(from《现代汉语词典》)

All the italicized characters above are the added monosyllable verbs to help the animal words to express metaphorical meanings. One reason to capture this phenomenon is the property of symmetry in Chinese expressions. Metaphorical operationalization is also influenced by this feature. So it is not surprising to see why two-character expressions and four-character expressions are much welcomed and frequently used in Chinese. As 《文心雕龙》says “造化赋形，支体必双，神理为用，事不孤立。父心生文辞，运裁百虑，高下相须，自然成对” (刘勰 1981: 384).

English enjoys more freedom in the formation of word forms, such as by affixes or by derivation. So the metaphorical construction on the lexicogrammatical level is also quite flexible. Apart from PP-metaphor and ADVP-metaphor, there is another special case of metaphorical use: metaphor constructed by suffixes, such as:

Spidery: like the legs of a spider, long and thin

volcanic: like a volcano; liable to break out violently e.g. a volcanic temper

bearish: like a bear in manner or temper; rough or surly

motherly: like a mother; kindly

feline: catlike in form or structure

(From World Book 2003: disc version)

Leech views these forms as playing the function of “Quasi-metaphoric” (1981: 215). But in Chinese we have to change these metaphorical uses into similes to express the similar metaphorical meanings:

蜘蛛似的，火山般的，熊样的，慈母般的，猫似的

When metaphor is viewed as a mode of implication containing an implied comparison, in which a word or a phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another, the syntactic features in this view are usually underestimated. Even when we turn a broad view to the understanding of metaphor operationalization from the angle of cognitive force, the syntactic constructions of metaphorical processes are also worth investigating. This section will focus on the syntactic analysis in the operationalization of metaphorical processes, in which the cognitive value is embodied, helping people interpret the world by means of linguistic features.

It is Noam Chomsky who initiates the demarcation of deep structure and surface structure in his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) and furthers his discussion in other works in the mid-1960s. Initially, this demarcation is carried out as a part of the syntactic description of a sentence that determines its semantic interpretation. No matter how the implication of deep structure and surface structure is verified in the later development, this demarcation has exerted great impact on many fields, providing a new track for the researchers to deepen their researches. This influence can also be found in anthropology, psychology, sociology and many other interdisciplinary fields. As for the discussion of the nature of metaphor operationalization, this demarcation can be borrowed. However, it is not necessary to view the concepts of deep structure and surface structure as the same with those initiated by Chomsky in the strict sense in the description of syntactic features. The borrowed concepts here serve the different functions when metaphorical operationalization is investigated.

From the angle of cognition, deep structure of metaphor is associated with the cognitive value in viewing the outer world. It embodies the semantic interpretation of a metaphor, linking the basis of metaphorical concepts to mental processes. On this level, four composites can be distinguished:

tenor (T): the object which is described and explicated, or simply the signified object

vehicle (V): the signifier which is used to metaphorize the object

similarity (S): the basis for metaphorization

dissimilarity (D): the non-compromising semantic features between T and V

Between T and V, S is the magic stick in the metaphorical operationalization, generating the effect of “物虽胡越，合则肝胆” (刘勰语). As for the cognitive view, the bases of metaphor stem from considering T and V not just as surface forms but rather as underlying system of semantic and contextual information (Cameron, 2001: 14).

The generation of metaphor requires the interaction among these four composites. Firstly, T and V can not be identical in generating metaphorical concepts. For instance, the word mother and mom , or “水泥” and “土敏土” can not generate metaphorization. We can not say Mother is like mom or “水泥是土敏土” are metaphors. Secondly, between T and V, certain S should be retained in constituting the foundation for metaphorization. Therefore, their relations can be outlined as:

Between two concepts X and Y:

If X≠Y; ?S; ?[X(D) & Y(D)] (D here referring to the dissimilarities between X and Y)

then X ←→ Y (arrows here indicating the process of metaphorization)

Here either X or Y is viewed as T, the other V. For example:

友情象海水一样深。

The growing savings and loan scandal is a time bomb for President Bush.

In the first sentence, X (友情) acts as T and Y (海水) as V. The S (深) is foregrounded, generating the metaphorical interpretation. In the second, “the growing savings and loan scandal” plays the role of T, and a time bomb, V, highlighting the similar feature explosive.

The surface structures of metaphors are the instantiations of deep structures in various ways, linking the conceptual thinking to linguistic organization. For instance, in cognitive metaphor, bodily experiences provide the essential conceptualization for metaphor operationalization. In Lakoff’s words, it is a way “to characterize meaning in terms of the nature and experience of the organisms doing the thinking” (1987: 266). Therefore, these bodily experiences constitute many deep structures of metaphorical concepts. Take one of them as a convenience for analysis:

KNOWING IS SEEING

I see what you are saying.

His answer was clear.

This paragraph is murky.

In the conceptual metaphor KNOWING IS SEEING, T (KNOWING) and V (SEEING) constitute the deep structure of metaphor, which further provides the base for metaphor instantiation on various linguistic levels.

On the surface structure of metaphors, linguistic categories such as NP, VP, and PP etc. play the important role in metaphorical structuring, diversifying the linguistic constructions. Chapter 2 has devoted to the detailed analysis on this level, so here it will not be reiterated. Next section will try to look at metaphor operationalization from the perspective of syntactic movement.

Compared with deep structures of metaphors, surface structures are very abundant, manifested in various and complicated ways. Cognitive researchers seem to ignore their diverse constructions, only emphasizing the cognitive value of conceptual metaphors. However, syntactic features are the intuitive mental choice in constructuring metaphors, and can also generate the cognitive force in various ways.

In the deep structures of metaphors, T IS V is regarded as the paradigm in which different concepts can be inserted to replace T and V, generating various metaphorical concepts. Along with the embodiment of linguistic elements, T IS V is furthered into different surface structures. But the processes of linguistic furtherance are complicated because of people’s cognitive strategies. Broadly speaking, these processes can be generalized into three types.

3.2.1 Extraposition

Extraposition shows the syntactic shift of metaphorization from deep structure to surface structure or vice versa, constituting the networks of expressing the metaphorical concept. Based on the four composites (T, V, S, and D) in deep structure, surface structure requires another composite “connector” (C), which linguistically bridges T and V but is unnecessarily compulsory. C is linguistically instantiated as like , as, seem, resemble and be (am/is/are) in English, and 象，如，仿佛，是，成为 etc. in Chinese.

In metaphorizing a concept for better understanding, people do not merely rely on the single pattern T IS V. On the contrary, they verify this pattern by means of linguistic performances in order to show their particular mode of viewing the same metaphorical concept. For example, the deep structure of one conceptual metaphor is ANGER IS FIRE, which is linguistically instantiated as follows:

Those are inflammatory remarks.

She is doing a slow burn.

He was breathing fire.

After the argument, Dave was smoldering for days.

That kindled my ire.

Boy, am I burnt up.

All these metaphors on surface structures are not always in conformity with “T IS V” pattern, but they can be reduced to this paradigm. So these metaphorical expressions can be considered the extraposition from the deep structure of conceptual metaphor. Meanwhile, the deep structure of the conceptual metaphor seems to be backgrounded and seldom perceived by common intuition. These various syntactic movements from the pattern of T IS V convey the different effects and degrees of “anger”. Chinese also has the partial correspondent metaphorical expressions with those in English.

Deep structure: 愤怒是气/火

他气得直哆嗦。

李四故意气他一下。

她的火气越来越大。

妻子怒气冲天地推门进来了。

Another extraposition influences the conceptual metaphor from surface structure to deep structure, generating different cognitive value. For instance:

党八股象小瘪三。

小瘪三象党八股。

Here the original T and V are changed with each other, highlighting the different metaphorical tendencies; even the S between them is retained. Consequently, metaphorical concept in deep structure is altered in the movement.

3.2.2 Embedding

Embedding means the various metaphorical concepts are embedded into the surface structure by means of linguistic combination, generating a new contracted metaphor. For example, supposing there are two metaphorical constructions, they can be embedded to create a new one.

① 祖国象一个人，有眼睛。

② 海岛就象一个人的眼睛。

Then ① (+②) generates ③:

③ 海岛象祖国的眼睛。

In this process, ① is embedded into ②, then the overlapping parts are cancelled. At last, metaphorical constructions ① and ② are condensed into ③. It is usually a common way for people to avoid the redundancies in metaphorization.

3.2.3 Syntagmatic

Syntagmatic is the way by which two or more than two metaphorical constructions are integrated into a new and complicated metaphor. However, syntagmatic of conceptual metaphors is not arbitrary but is conditioned in many ways. For instance, the syntagmatics of various metaphors require either Ts or Vs in identical relation.

T: 《三大纪律八项主义》

V2: 雪天的煤炭

V3: 大旱的甘霖

By deep structure, these four concepts can construct three metaphors:

①: 《三大纪律八项主义》是黑夜的火把。

②: 《三大纪律八项主义》是雪天的煤炭。

③: 《三大纪律八项主义》是大旱的甘霖。

→ 《三大纪律八项主义》是黑夜的火把，雪天的煤炭，大旱的甘霖。

（吴伯箫 《歌声》）

By syntagmatic of metaphors, ①, ② and ③ have the same T and therefore can be integrated into a new metaphorical construction with complicated metaphorical concepts. In rhetoric, this new one is termed as sustained metaphor (李鑫华, 2000: 23). From the angle of cognition, this sustained metaphor involves not only the surface forms but also the underlying concepts.

English also has many such sustained metaphorical constructions. For example:

When forty winters shall besiege the brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,…

(William Shakespeare, Sonnet Ⅱ)

The demarcation of deep structure and surface structure of metaphor sets a new angle to view metaphorical operationalization, investigating the interaction of metaphor with other human cognitive tendencies. Meanwhile, various metaphorical concepts form the underlying basis for the deep structures, from which the linguistic instantiations of metaphors are shaped in order to help people to convey their intentions. However, the movement from deep structure to surface structure is not at random, but conditioned by many factors, in other words, why people utilize different surface structures to express the same concepts by means of metaphorization is influenced by various parameters, such as, situational type, cultural background, personal cognitive impetus or psychological states. It is the fact that “metaphorical language has often been studied in particular contexts of use, thus connecting the cognitive with the socio-cultural” (Cameron, 2001: 8).

In this case, many deep concepts in generating surface structures of metaphors can not be easily identified merely through the linguistic variations. On the contrary, it is necessary to consider carefully which elements are involved in metaphorization. For instance, Lakoff & Johson’s concept of LOVE IS A JOURNEY is actually abstracted from many surface structures in metaphorical uses, in other words, this concept is from a data-collecting investigation, such as:

Look how far we’ve come.

We’ll just have to go our separate ways.

We can’t turn back now.

I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere.

We’ve gotten off the track.

(Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 44-45)

However, this resultant is not so easily captured without the consideration of many extra-linguistic or co-textual environments, because all the metaphorical expressions listed above may be applied to metaphorizing other things rather than the concept of LOVE IS A JOURNEY. That is to say, without a given condition, the expression “We’ve gotten off the track” may not be metaphorized to conceptualize LOVE. It is very possible to provide an environment in which this expression can be metaphorized to describe the relation between the business partners. Therefore, surface structures of metaphorical uses are indeterminate, and deep structures as constructs of human concepts are comparatively set and essential to human cognitive mechanism.

Deep structure as a resultant from various surface structures related to the same metaphorical uses can also act as a generator for many new metaphorical expressions. For example, if we construct a metaphorical concept “人象文章”, we can extend many metaphorical uses, such as:

一篇文章应当象一个人一样清清爽爽。

一篇文章应当象一个人一样有灵魂。

一篇文章应当象一个人一样不能缺胳膊少腿。

Furthermore, these various metaphorical uses can be integrated into one surface structure to express the same metaphorical concept.

一篇文章应当象一个人一样，不但应当清清爽爽，而且应当有灵魂，不能缺胳膊少腿。

In this sense, metaphorical operationalization in terms of deep structure and surface

structure is bi-directional. Deep structure provides a metaphorical field for various

linguistic instantiations. Surface structure, on the other hand, can manifest various

underlying conceptual metaphors in terms of different conditions.

Metaphor in one form or another is absolutely fundamental to the way language systems develop over time and are structured, as well as to the way human beings consolidate and extend their ideas about themselves, their relationships and their knowledge of the world. In this case, the concept of metaphor unfetters the stylistic curb and extends to the scope of people’s understanding of the world. Therefore, metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 3). This interpretation to the understanding of metaphor is currently popularized as the cognitive approach.

The central claim of the cognitive approach is that metaphor is primarily conceptual in nature, which the conventional metaphors at the linguistic level give us important clues to human cognition, in which human conceptual system is fundamental metaphorically structured. To explicate the conceptual nature of metaphor, we shall investigate the concept ARGUMENT and the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR as an example (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 4). This metaphor underlies a wide variety of expressions in our everyday language.

ARGUMENT IS WAR

Your claims are indefensible.

He attacked every weak point in my argument.

His criticisms were right on target.

I demolished his argument.

I’ve never won an argument with him.

He shot down all of my argument.

辩论是战争

你的观点不堪一击。

他攻击我论据中的每一个弱点。

他的批评正中目标。

我击毁了他的论点。

我在辩论中从没赢过他。

他击溃了我的所有论点。

What is to be noticed is that we do not just talk about arguments in terms of war, but we do our arguing and construe the concept ARGUMENT through the concept of war. Thus we see the person we are arguing with as an opponent; we defend our own positions and attack his; we gain ground when we win arguments and lose ground when we lose arguments; we also plan and use strategies while arguing. It is in this sense that we say the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR structures what we do and how we understand what we are doing when we argue. In other words, we talk about arguments in terms of war because we conceive of arguments through our concept of war, and we act according to the way we conceive of things. This conceptual way of interpreting the world is quite universal in both Chinese and English, and consequently affects the metaphorical use of language. As Lakoff & Johnson point out: “The concept is metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically structured, and, consequently, the language is metaphorically structured” (1980: 5).

Conceptual metaphors do not operate in isolation from each other. Rather “metaphorical entailments can characterize a coherent system of metaphorical concepts and a corresponding coherent system of metaphorical expressions for those concepts” (ibid.: 9). This systematicity of metaphor manifests in the example of three conceptual metaphors of TIME:

TIME IS MONEY

That flat tire cost me an hour..

You need to budget your time.

TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE

You don’t use your time profitably.

You are running out of time.

TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY

He’s living on a borrowed time.

I don’t have the time to give you.

(From Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 7-8)

TIME IS MONEY, TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE, and TIME IS A VALUBLE COMMODITY are all metaphorical concepts in that they capture the way we use our everyday experiences with money, limited resources, and valuable commodities to conceptualize time. Furthermore, together they form a coherent system since in our society money is viewed as a limited resource, which is in turn a valuable commodity. We might say that TIME IS MONEY entails that TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE, which entails that TIME IS A VALUBLE COMMODITY. This feature can diagramed as “TIME IS MONEY ＞TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE ＞ TIME IS A VALUBLE COMMODITY”. This very systematicity that allows us to comprehend one aspect of a concept in terms of another (e.g., comprehending an aspect of arguing in terms of a battle) will necessarily obscure other aspects of the concept and foreground the concepts involved in the immediate metaphorical operationalization or “a metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on other aspects of the concept that are inconsistent with that metaphor” (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 10).

The conceptual system underlying a language contains thousands of conceptual metaphors, i.e. conventional mappings from a clearly structured domain to another less clearly structured domain. This common tendency is quite universal in different languages. Consider the following examples:

MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN

The number of books printed each year keeps going up.

His draft number is high.

My income rose last year.

The amount of artistic activity in this state has gone down in the past year.

His income fell last year.

He is underage.

(From Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 15-16)

多为“高/上”；少为“下/低”

每年印书量持续上升。

去年我的收入提高了。

成功的百分比很高。

政府竭尽一切努力降低物价。

生产成本下降近三分之一。

这个学生考及格了，但分数低。

The cognitive theory postulates that this conceptual metaphor arises from the common experiences of pouring more fluid into a container and seeing the level go up, or adding more things to a pile and seeing the pile get high. These are thoroughly pervasive experiences which we encounter every day. Furthermore, they have structural properties, i.e. a set of correspondences between the domain of quantity and the domain of verticality, where MORE or 多 corresponds to UP or高/上, and LESS or 少corresponds to DOWN or 下/低. These correspondences in real life experiences provide the basis for the correspondences in the metaphorical operationalization. In other words, cognition is embodied; all the conventional metaphors are grounded in experience. As Lakoff & Johnson conclude “In actuality we feel that no metaphor can ever be comprehended or even adequately represented independently of its experiential basis” (1980: 19).

As to the properties of conceptual metaphor, Lakoff & Johnson (1980) think there are three basic kinds which intrigue other metaphorical operationalization:

Structural Metaphor: where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another.

Orientational Metaphor: one that does not structure one concept in terms of another but instead organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another.

Ontological Metaphor: ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., as entities and substances.

As for the relations among them, Orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor can be elaborated into structural metaphor, which allows us to use one highly structured and clearly delineated concept to partially structure another. For instance, to say that THE MIND IS AN ENTITY does not tell us very much about the function of the mind. But the structural metaphor THE MIND IS A MACHINE presents us a more clearly delineated conception of the mind as having an on-off state, a level of efficiency, a source of energy, etc.

The universality of metaphorical use is also reflected in the different degrees of conventionality. Lakoff & Johnson (1980) distinguish two major groups of metaphor: conventional metaphors and new metaphors, and argue that compared with the latter, the former has a greater cognitive value. Conventional metaphors refer to those that, since their first occurrences, have become recognized and adopted by a significant part of a language community and are now so much a part of everyday language; even some of them become lexicalized and found their way into dictionaries. As a result, few people now would consider them metaphorical. Some scholars may intend to label them as “dead”. However, “they are ‘alive’ in the most fundamental sense: they are metaphors we live by” (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 55). This universality can be picked up everywhere in both Chinese and English:

She is really low this week.

That news boosted my spirits.

(Underlying conceptual metaphor is HAPPY IS UP / SAD IS DOWN)

My uncle’s health is declining.

The old granny is now at the peak of health.

(Underlying conceptual metaphor is HEALTH IS UP / SICKNESS IS DOWN)

我要将此事上报中央。

他们是在乡下那会儿认识的。

（Underlying conceptual metaphor is 地位高为“上”/ 地位低为“下”）

听说要涨工资了。

超市的牛奶大降价。

(Underlying conceptual metaphor is多为“高/上”；少为“下/低”)

New metaphors refer to those that every competent speaker of a language can create. New metaphors keep their interpretive nature and would strike most of the audience as metaphorical, especially in literary works, such as:

The wind thinks outrageous thoughts aloud.

My love is a red, red rose.

酒入愁肠，化作相思泪。

一只乳黄色的蝴蝶的飞舞，象灵感，更象诗的萌动。

In cognitive study on conceptual metaphor, the distinction between conventional metaphor and new metaphor seems unimportant because there is no clear-cut between them. All conventional metaphors began as new metaphors which then gradually lost their earlier freshness through repeated use. Meanwhile, conventional metaphor can also be activated as a new metaphor into another environment. It is the dynamic nature of metaphorical operationalization which will be discussed in chapter 5.

Conceptual metaphor, to a large extent, relies on people’s metaphorical thinking toward the outside world. And a great deal of linguistic evidence suggests that much metaphorical thinking arises from our embodied experiences in the world (Lakoff 1987). These various recurring bodily experiences give rise to the development of an experiential gestalt. However, different cultural peculiarities also exert great impact on the metaphorical thinking, further on the linguistic instantiation of conceptual metaphor. Lakoff & Johnson point out: “The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts in the culture” (1980: 22).

The influence that culture exerts on metaphorical concept can be viewed from two perspectives. On the one hand, the ways of metaphorization may be guided or even governed by cultural factors. That is to say, metaphors are usually created on the basis of mythological, ideological, literary or simply the folkloric tradition of a culture, though various aspects of culture interact and function together in breeding metaphorical use. On the other hand, the influence of cultural factors upon metaphor can also be observed from the fact that language can affect our way of perceiving the world, thus constructing reality through some metaphorical concepts (严世清 Doctorial Dissertation 1999: 81).

For instance, when we want to make some comment about someone’s “theory” in English, we may say “Your theory doesn’t hold water.” But in Chinese we would say “你的理论站不住脚”. Obviously, their differences derive from their different conceptual metaphors in different cultures. Here, English example conforms to the metaphorical concept THEORIES ARE CONTAINERS, yet Chinese may have a different conceptual metaphor as “理论为人”. Another example can reinforce this different conceptual metaphor:

What he knows is only to delve into books.

他只懂得啃书。

Etymologically speaking, “delve” means “dig”(on a piece of land). Chinese expression follows the conceptual metaphor “书是食物”, whereas English can shift it to the metaphorical concept “BOOK IS A PIECE OF LAND”. These partial non-correspondences of the metaphorical concepts between different cultures lurk beyond the universal properties of human metaphorical tendencies to conceptualize the world.

Originating from the historical background, some metaphorical concepts are peculiar to the specific culture. And these peculiar metaphorical concepts construct the systematicity and provide the deep concept for many metaphorical expressions. In Chinese, when we talk about politics, we generally view it as a play. Therefore, there is a peculiar metaphorical concept in Chinese.

政治是一台戏

上台，下台 （referring to officials assuming office or leaving office）

唱高调 （referring to someone exaggerating his proposals）

出台一项新政策

于是锣鼓响起来，马科长和王科员粉墨登场，唱了一出“小放牛”。

（巴金 《雪》）

在政府未还都之前，也曾密锣紧鼓地酝酿过一番改组的声浪…

（郭沫若 《天地玄黄》）

那宝玉慢条斯理的说道：“所以俗话说的好，官场如戏场。刚刚锣鼓喧天，出来个戴纱帽的，一会儿披枷戴锁成了囚犯。…

（《红楼梦》第八十六回）

Although English has these kinds of expressions, yet their connotations or metaphorical implications are usually different. Take Jacques’ well-known soliloquy as an example:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

He acts being seven ages.

(Shakespeare, W.: As You Like It)

However, what Shakespeare means metaphorically here centers on the significance of life, not on the officialdom. Many other metaphorical expressions using the word stage, such as “come upon the stage” (referring to step into the society), embody the conceptual metaphor of English, which is different from that of Chinese.

Distinctiveness between Chinese and English is also related to the Orientational Metaphor in operationalization. Most of orientational metaphors have to do with spatial orientation: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 14). Yet if we take a close look at orientational metaphors, we will find a great potion of them is instantiated by prepositions, as this paper has mentioned above. Furthermore, prepositions indicating location can be extended metaphorically to time, and further to other fields. So it is not surprising to see Clark’s comment that “prepositions of time are on the whole identical to spatial expressions” (Jackendoff 1983: 189). As for the metaphorical use, prepositions can be delineated as “spatial concept → time concept → other concepts”. Take “at” for example:

at four o’clock (time)

at his ease (state)

at a certain price (value)

He plays well at basketball. (scope)

Do this at your convenience. (combination of time and state)

These examples show the extendedness of the metaphorical use of the word “at”. But Chinese does not have the flexible use of prepositions to metaphorize other areas. If we intend to convey the similar meaning, we have to demetaphorize the expressions into the explicit meanings. For example:

The roses are in flower.

→ 玫瑰正在盛开。

The joke is in poor taste.

→ 这个笑话低级趣味。

He has been in a bad humor these days.

→ 这些天来他一直情绪不好。

Jim is often in liquor.

→ 吉姆经常喝醉酒。

In these examples, Chinese expressions break the metaphorical use of the English word “in” by utilizing explicit descriptions.

Lakoff & Johnson present us with abundant samples to show the metaphoricalization of our conceptual system, which plays a “central role in defining our everyday realities” (1980: 3). In order to illustrate what they mean, they examine the metaphorical concept LOVE IS A JOURNEY and its various instantiations:

Look how far we’ve come.

We’ll just have to go our separate ways.

We can’t turn back now.

I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere.

We’ve gotten off the track.

(From Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 44-45)

These examples, if they act as the particular expressions in demonstrating the relationships of love, well illustrate the fact that the “LOVE IS A JOURNEY” metaphor defines the way English people understand human love. However, in Chinese culture love is viewed as companionship, forming the metaphorical concept LOVE IS COMPANIONSHIP which can be exemplified as follows:

在天愿作比翼鸟，在地愿为连理枝

并蒂莲 鸳鸯 两情融洽 白头偕老

少年夫妻老来伴

All of them focus on the companionship aspect of love or marriage, manifesting the cultural load in the metaphorization.

From the above analysis, we may conclude that the metaphorical concepts in different cultures are usually the ones that have been incorporated into a language system, producing the discrepancies in operationalization. As for the metaphorical operationalization, the involved cultural load very often supersedes physical factuality, enabling people to neglect the non-factuality of the imaginative world. In Chinese, “杜鹃啼血”, “狐狸风骚”, “喜鹊报喜”, and “黄泉路”etc are often assumed by common people as the real rather than as the metaphorical expressions in daily language.

To Lakoff and Johson (1980), conceptual metaphors should be universal and systematic, instantiated by various linguistic forms. Furthermore, universality of metaphorical concepts should be supplemented by the impact of cultural load. Altogether, metaphorical concepts act as a powerful tool in shaping the cognitive world that we experience, demonstrating that metaphors are not something that occur only in poetry, art, and flowery language, but are an indispensable part of everyday language and concepts. Meanwhile, the cultural mode itself can hardly be free of metaphorical options. Take the cultural load for LIFE in America as an example. It is viewed as LIFE IS PLAYING A GAME. Take the Chinese theory of yin(阴) and yang(阳 ) as another example (the two Chinese words literally mean “the moon/feminine/negative” and “the sun/masculine/positive” respectively). The system of yin and yang, recognized as the Two Fundamental Forces, constitutes one of the basic models for the Chinese culture. Yet this system itself is a giant metaphor and presents to the Chinese mind a metaphorical way of conceptualizing and categorizing the world. As Lakoff points out, “Metaphorical mappings vary in universality; some seem to be universal, others are widespread, and some seem to be cultural specific” (Ortony, 1993: 245).

The above analysis on both syntactic and conceptual levels demonstrates the characteristics of metaphor operationalization with similarities and dissimilarities in Chinese and English. However, metaphor does not operate by itself, but by the interaction of various levels, internal and external. This wholeness of the operationalization is necessarily involved into the process of metaphorical understanding rather than the products and the dynamics of metaphorical shift. This chapter will take a close observation on the process of metaphorical understanding and its dynamic nature from the theoretical angle.

A theory of metaphor process, i.e. how we produce and comprehend metaphors, is quite different from a theory of what meanings we consciously infer once metaphors have been understood. Traditionally, metaphors are viewed as being deviant, ornamental expressions and more difficult to be understood than literal expressions, because speakers can, at times, consciously identify some utterances as literal and others as figurative. In other words, we employ our distinct cognitive mechanism to interpret a metaphor such as “My love is a red, red rose.”, because we can identify the verbal expression as metaphorical, making an unwarranted inference about a process of understanding from an examination of a product of understanding. But in our common metaphorical thinking, literal and figurative interpretations operate intrinsically in the similar way, processing the concepts from one domain to another.

As for the process of metaphorical understanding, it can be classified into moments corresponding to linguistic comprehension, recognition, interpretation, and appreciation. Here these moment-by-moment procedures relate the process of conceptual metaphor understanding to the process of linguistic identification. That is to say, language can ultimately reflect the human cognitive process. This is also why so many researchers, by means of analyzing lingui-metaphor operationalization in our daily life, intend to uncover the mysteries of human mind.

Comprehension means the immediate, moment-by-moment process of creating meanings for utterances. This moment-by-moment process is mainly unconscious and involves the analysis of various linguistic elements, such as phonology, lexical information, and syntactic features. Along with this process, audience would activate the real-world knowledge and cultural background to figure out what a metaphor means or what a speaker intends to metaphorize. This process follows certain steps, but operates very quickly even within the span of a few hundred milliseconds. This process also well illustrates why many people view conventional metaphors not as the real metaphors or merely as “dead” metaphors. On the contrary, it is the cognitive approach that applies the processes of metaphorical thinking to the commonly used conventional metaphors and hails their cognitive value in human activities.

Recognition refers to the conscious identification of the products of comprehension as types. That is to say, when we want to understand an utterance, we would consciously assume it with a metaphorical connotation. Such a recognition by which we know some utterance is metaphorical, as opposed to literal, is a requirement for understanding the metaphorical use. But it is by no means clear that recognition is an obligatory step in people’s interpretation of what utterances metaphorize. Still, this kind of recognition is quite unconscious in people’s mind. For instance, audiences probably do not have any awareness in recognizing the different utterances in human speech as irony, idiom, and literal sense etc.. On the contrary, they emphasize primarily the understanding of what the speech intends to convey by the production of metaphor. That is to say, the process of metaphorical understanding underlies the observation on the product of metaphor.

Interpretation means the analysis of the early products of comprehension as tokens. Interpretation process requires the conscious reflection about what an expression metaphorizes in the understanding.

Finally, appreciation refers to some aesthetic judgment given to a product either as a type or token. This process is also not an obligatory step of understanding of metaphorical meaning.

The above four steps are closely connected to the metaphorical understanding in the cognitive process because the identification of the process of metaphorical understanding presupposes the cognitive value, linking linguistic components on different levels to the universal human conception. This time-course of metaphor understanding also incorporates the pervasiveness of metaphor in our common language.

The nature of metaphor is necessarily established by the dynamics of metaphorical construction. The dynamics of metaphorical nature marks some break from the traditional rhetoric, which tends to regard metaphor as something static and extrinsic and therefore ornamental to language. But if metaphor were static, there would be no point of talking about the metaphorizing process.

The first observation concerns with the metaphorical thinking in human cognitive apparatus. In this sense, the formation of metaphorical concepts requires the ubiquity and the systematicity of metaphorical operationalization (Lakoff & Johnson 1980), such as ARGUMENT IS WAR, TIME IS MONEY and IDEAS ARE FOOD etc. which necessarily fashion conceptual networks in allowing various metaphorical constructions. In the network, dynamic nature presupposes the metaphorical mapping from the source domain to the target domain. Take Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage” for example, the underlying metaphorical concept is “LIFE IS A PLAY”, with LIFE being the target domain, and PLAY the source domain. The rich internal structure of PLAY schematizes the concept with components like actors, make-up, costume, a stage, scenery, setting and lightening, audiences, scripts, parts, roles, cues, prompts, directors, casting, playwrights, and so on. With the dynamic nature of metaphorical process, a whole set of correspondences is activated: the world corresponds to a stage; all the men and women living in the world correspond to players; their birth corresponds to their entrances onto the stage and their death corresponds to their exits. During the life span of one man, he may fulfill many functions, which correspond to an actor playing many parts on the stage.

The second observation worthy of note is the dynamic nature of metaphorical process in intriguing the semantic change or the semantic enlargement of the expression through the chronological advancement. That is to say, metaphorical use of an expression does not occur suddenly but undergoes a long period of metaphorical shift. For instance, many prepositions originally depicting spatial concepts develop into metaphorizing time concepts and further into other various conceptual fields. The metaphorization of preposition such as “in” or “at” from spatial concepts to other fields reflects the dynamics of metaphorical nature. It also relates to the process of the evolution of language in its primitive stage as well as that of children’s acquisition or development of linguistic competence.

The important role played by the dynamic nature in making metaphorization is found adequate to express human experiences or feelings. A case in point can be found in the field of science and technology, where scientists often feel compelled to coin terms to explain their theories or designate their inventions, whereas the metaphorization in dynamic state can facilitate and even promote human conceptualization. Kuhn believes that the metaphors can perform the function of promoting human knowledge (From Ortony 1993: 533-542). This idea is also reinforced by Boyd’s comments on metaphorization for scientific convenience as “one of the devices available to scientific community to accomplish the task of accommodation of language to the causal structure of the world” (ibid.: 483).

The understanding of metaphors requires the overall interpretation on various levels in the dynamic process. It is by this nature that metaphors are commonly used as an important means to view the world. Traditionally, the uses of metaphors are regarded as the rhetorical devices, centering on the analysis of their forms and functions. In modern times, the researches of metaphor are extended into human cognitive properties, focusing on their cognitive value through constructing concepts. However, either of these two directions should not be discarded, but should be integrated to unravel the working nature of metaphors by highlighting the process and dynamics of metaphorical operationalization.

The cognitive approach to metaphor is an integral part of cognitive linguistic research in general. This approach claims that metaphor is a pervasive phenomenon in ordinary language, that it is a conceptual configuration expressed by the linguistic object, that it is a mapping of the schematic structure of the source domain onto that of the target domain, and that it is systematic in organizing our conceptualization. On the one hand, conceptual metaphors are grounded in our bodily and physical experience, so they are quite universal in understanding the world. On the other hand, once established, metaphor will impose its structure on language system and will be made real in various ways. Based on these assumptions, this study endeavors to analyze the metaphor operationalization on the categorical level, the syntactic level and the level of metaphorical concept from their instantiations in Chinese and English.

Chapter 1 presents the general survey of metaphor research in Chinese and English, pointing out the demerits of the traditional rhetorical orientation about the nature of metaphor. The modern approach switches the attention to the cognitive value, emphasizing its activation in understanding the outer world and the general points about it are reviewed in this chapter. As for the Chinese research on this subject, this chapter also vacates a section to outline the traditional stylistic way and the new approach.

Chapter 2, chapter3 and chapter 4 center on the operationalization of metaphor from the categorical level, the syntactic level and the conceptual level. Along with the analysis, the contrastiveness on the various strata in Chinese and English is also carried out in order to unravel the working mechanism, the universality and the nationality of metaphorical concepts in different cultures

Chapter 5 switches to the theoretical discussion on the process of metaphorical understanding and the dynamic nature of metaphorical operationalization, pointing out the moment-by-moment process facilitating people’s unconscious interpretations of the language fraught with metaphors, and the dynamic nature activating the mapping from the source domain to the target domain in metaphorization.

With regard to the nature of metaphor, this study underpins the claim that metaphor is one of the main mechanisms, which enable us to understand abstract concepts and to carry out abstract reasoning. With regard to the structure of metaphor, this study demonstrates that the various linguistic components instantiate the metaphorical concepts and the mappings across domains. With respect to the integration of metaphorical operationalization, this study believes the interaction of the internal and external factors.

Finally, it must be pointed out that in terms of both breath and depth of this topic, this study cannot exhaust all the investigations, but carry out a small step in a long journey to cross-linguistic and cross-cultural direction of research.

[1] Black, Max 1962. Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy.