Cover not available

Article published In: Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 5:2 (2018) ► pp.230–260

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Metaphorical motion in Chinese

 | Southwest University
 | Kisii University
Published online: 14 February 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00020.sha
Abstract
This paper focuses on metaphorical motion in the Chinese language by investigating how various abstract concepts are construed in terms of spatial motion. The claim that the primary metaphor, change is motion, is central to metaphorical motion is confirmed, and we further examine sorts of target domains that are structured by spatial motion, the corresponding mappings in metaphors of entity-location pairs and orientational metaphors. Moreover, we explore how systematicity and complexity have structured the whole system. Through systematicity, coherence between different mappings and within one mapping are analyzed, and two concepts of “event” – event in “event-structure concepts” and in “motion event frame” are observed and are shown to be interrelated. By means of complexity, the specific issue of entity-location duality in metaphorical motion is discussed, and experiential bases – including physical, social and cultural basis for metaphorical motion is also considered.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Categories of metaphorical motion expressions and the corresponding mappings
    • 2.1Metaphorical motion in metaphors of entity-location pairs
      • Time
        • a. time is a moving entity
        • b. time is location
      • Emotion
        • a. emotions are moving entities
        • b. emotional states are locations
      • Mental activities
        • a. an idea / a thought / mind / memory is a moving entity
        • b. mental states are locations
      • Sickness
        • a. sickness is a moving entity
        • b. sickness is a location
      • Birth, death and life
        • a. birth/death/life is a moving entity
        • b. death/life is a location
    • 2.2Metaphorical motion in orientational metaphors
      • a. happy is up; sad is down
      • b. more is up; less is down
      • c. high status is up; low status is down
      • d. conscious is up; unconscious is down
  • 3.Systematicity and complexity of metaphorical motion
    • 3.1The issue of systematicity
    • 3.2The issue of complexity
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (42)
References
Alverson, H. (1994). Semantics and experience: universal metaphor of time in English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Sesotho. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary (8th edition). (2014). Harper Collins UK.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, W., J. Barðdal, W. Hollman, V. Sotirova, & C. Taoka. (2002). Revising Talmy’s typological classification of complex events. In H. C. Boas (Ed.), Contrastive Construction Grammar (pp. 201–236). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dancygier, B. & E. Sweetser. (2014). Figurative language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gentner, D., M. Imai. & L. Boroditsky. (2002). As time goes by: evidence for two systems in processing space time metaphors. Language and Cognitive Processes, (17), 537–565. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grady, J. (1997). Foundations of meaning: primary metaphors and primary scenes. Ph.D. dissertation: University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1998). The Conduit Metaphor revisited: A reassessment of metaphors for communication. In J. Koenig (Ed.), Discourse and cognition: Bridging the gap (pp. 205–218). Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. (2003). Motion events in Basque narratives. In S. Strömqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating Events in Narrative: Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 89–111). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Accociates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). Linguistic typologies in our language use: The case of Basque motion events in adult oral narratives. Cognitive linguistics, 15(3), 317–349.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). Leonard Talmy. A windowing to conceptual structure and language. Part 1: Lexicalisation and typology. Annual review of cognitive linguistics, 3(1), 325–347.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, C. (1999). Metaphor vs. conflation in the acquisition of polysemy: The case of SEE. In M. Hiraga, C. Sinha, and S. Wilcox (Eds.), Cultural, typological and psychological issues in cognitive linguistics (pp. 155–169). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Z. (2000). Metaphor and emotion: language, culture, and body in human feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Where metaphors come from. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & M. Johnson. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1990). The invariance hypothesis: Is abstract reason based on image-schemas? Cognitive Linguistics, 1(1), 39–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (pp. 202–251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. & M. Johnson. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied and its challenge to western thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mandal, K. (1968). A comparative study of the concepts of space and time in Indian Thought. Varanas: Chowhamaba Sanskirt Studies, Vol. LXV1.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moore, K. (2000). Spatial experience and temporal metaphors in Wolof: Point of view, conceptual mapping, and linguistic practice. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Space-to-time mappings and temporal concepts. Cognitive Linguistics, (17), 199–244.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Núñez, R. & E. Sweetser. (2006). With the future behind them: convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science, (30), 401–450. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oxford American Dictionary. (1980). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology. (2000). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş. (2002). Metaphors we move by: A crosslinguistic-developmental analysis of metaphorical motion events in English and Turkish. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2003a). Metaphor meets typology: Ways of moving metaphorically in English and Turkish. Cognitive Linguistics, 16 (1), 207–246.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2003b). Metaphorical motion in crosslinguistic perspective: A comparison of English and Turkish. Metaphor and Symbol, 18 (3), 189–228. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2007). Metaphors we move by: Children’s developing understanding of metaphorical motion in typologically distinct languages. Metaphor and Symbol, 22 (2), 147–168. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Panther, K. U. & G. Radden. (2011). Introduction: Reflections on motivation. In K. U. Panter & G. Radden (Eds.), Motivation in Grammar and the lexicon (pp. 1–26). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radden, G. (2003). The metaphor time as space across languages. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, 8(2/3), 226–239.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shinohara, K. (2000). Constraints on motion verbs in the time is motion metaphor. Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 250–259.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2002). Correspondence between the spatial front/back axis and temporal concepts in Japanese. In Shirai et al. (Eds.), Studies in Language Sciences (pp. 281–298). Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1996). Two ways to travel: Verbs of motion in English and Spanish. In M. Shibatani & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Grammatical constructions: Their form and meaning (pp. 195–217). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1997). The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and semantic description: Vol. 3: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 36–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 480–519.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2000). Toward a cognitive semantics: Vol. II: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, E. (1978). On the expression of spatio-temporal relations in Language. In J. Greenberg et al. (Eds.), Universals of human language. Vol. 31, Word structure. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yu, N. (1995). Metaphorical expressions of anger and happiness in English and Chinese. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10 (2), 59–92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). The metaphorical orientation of time in Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics, 44 (10), 1335–1354. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wen, X. & Yang, K. (2016). Systematicity and complexity of IDEA metaphors in Chinese. Metaphor and Symbol, 31(4), 230–249. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Chen, Shujun
2025. Encoding Chinese metaphorical motion: a typological perspective. Linguistics Vanguard DOI logo
Lewandowski, Wojciech & Şeyda Özçalışkan
2025. Do metaphors we move by follow the same patterns across structurally different languages?. Language Sciences 112 ► pp. 101757 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue