Metaphors from perception and culture

Abstract

Applying conceptual metaphor theory, this study aims to discuss how metaphors emerge from the interaction between perceptual experience and cultural environment, comparing English and Chinese. The kind of metaphors under study is rooted in the object image schema, particularly in its dimension in solidity with bipolar values as hard and soft. Specifically, these are primary metaphors grounded in experiential correlations in manipulating physical objects that are hard or soft. It is argued that the similarities and differences between English and Chinese in such metaphorical mappings can be accounted for by four main meaning focuses consisting in four pairs of parametric variables: more or less effort, more or less impact, more or less strength, and more or less flexibility. These parametric variables determine metaphorical mapping pathways from hard and soft as source concepts to some abstract target concepts.