Ẩn dụ về sống và chết trong một số truyện ngắn của Jack London dưới góc nhìn tri nhận

Võ Đại Quang Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract: The major purpose of this thesis is to analyze metaphorical sayings of Life and Death in some short stories by Jack London from the cognitive

Ẩn dụ về sống và chết trong một số truyện ngắn

của Jack London dưới góc nhìn tri nhận

Hoàng Diệu Thu

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Associate Professor Võ Đại Quang

Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: The major purpose of this thesis is to analyze metaphorical sayings of Life and

Death in some short stories by Jack London from the cognitive perspective, more particularly from the perspective of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory In order to fulfill this study, both theoretical analysis and empirical study are made on the topic The Findings of the study which show the commonly seen conceptual metaphors of Life and Death are summarized and ranked according to their proportions of linguistic manifestations in those short stories In the LIFE system, the main conceptual metaphors are “LIFE IS A JOURNEY”, “LIFE IS A FIGHTING/ LIFE IS A BATTLE”, “LIFE IS FIRE/ HEAT/ WARM”, and “LIFE IS LIGHT/ LIFE IS DAYTIME” Conceptual metaphors of death have a close relationship with the LIFE system, and the ones that are most commonly seen are “DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY”, “DEATH IS COLD”, “DEATH IS NIGHT/ DARKNESS” and “DEATH IS SLEEP / REST” On the analysis of the collected data, it is clearly observed that Life and Death are such encompassing matters that there can be no single conceptual metaphor that will enable us

to comprehend them There is a multiplicity of metaphors for Life and Death, and a number of the most common ones can be seen in the selected short stories by Jack London Interestingly, these metaphors have connections with each other and this link is

presented through the coherence and the consistence that prevail

Keywords: Ẩn dụ; Truyện ngắn; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Tiếng Anh

Content

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the research

I have decided to undertake a study on Life and Death metaphors in some short stories by

Jack London from cognitive perspective

2 Aims and objectives of the study

In brief, the study would seek to answer the following questions:

- What are the common types of metaphors for the Life and Death image in Jack London’s short stories seen from the cognitive perspective?

- What are the markers of coherence and consistence of Life and Death metaphors based on the framework advocated by Lakoff & Johnson?

- What are the possible implications for language teaching and learning?

3 Methods of the study

The major methods which are used for conducting the research are documentary analysis and observation The task for the researcher is not to take such documents at face value, but to find out how they were constructed, and how they are used and interpreted This is why the researcher has to take observation as one of the favored approaches Here, the researcher adopts a role as a member of American society to get a more comprehensive perspective of life and death in everyday language

To conduct the research, first of all, official documents include journals and textbooks are collected After the process of reading and collecting data from Jack London’s short stories, the researcher starts to analyze the image of Life and Death in terms of conceptual metaphor The next step is to synthesize the information analyzed in order to fit into the thesis

4 Signification of the study

Metaphor is one of the most basic phenomena in human language This kind of study has significance not only for investigation into language in use, but also for the research of human mind Besides theoretical significance, this study also sheds light on second language teaching and learning This thesis aims to analyze metaphorical sayings of Life and Death from the cognitive perspective, i.e to view the sayings of Life and Death from the perspective of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory Both theoretical analysis and empirical study are conducted on the topic

Metaphor is one of the most basic phenomena in human language This kind of study has significance not only for investigation into language in use, but also for the research of human mind Besides theoretical significance, this study also sheds light on second language teaching and learning This thesis aims to analyze metaphorical sayings of Life and Death from the cognitive perspective, i.e to view the sayings of Life and Death from the perspective of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory Both theoretical analysis and empirical study are conducted on the topic

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter has provided a brief overview of different metaphor theories with the focus on the theory employed as the basis for this research: the theory of conceptual metaphor introduced in the work “Metaphor We Live By” by Lakoff & Johnson (1980)

From such reviewing, a working definition of metaphor can be obtained for this thesis Moreover, in order to get deeper view of conceptual metaphors, some outstanding studies that are related to the topic of the present paper are presented at the end of the chapter

1 Overview of different theories on metaphor

2 Conceptual metaphor

2.1 What is meant by “conceptual metaphor”?

2.2 How metaphor structures our thoughts

2.3 Mapping as a major function of metaphors

3 Highlighting and Hiding

4 Coherence and Consistence

5 Previous studies related to the theme of this thesis

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter the two main methodological points haven been presented (i) The major principles governing the research (ii) The main methods employed for the research which includes collections instrument, data analysis techniques and data analysis procedure

1 Principles governing the research

1.1 Principles governing the research type

This is a qualitative study which is intended to provide an overview of the conceptual metaphors used in Jack London’s short stories about Life and Death

1.2 Principles for the formulation of research questions

The researcher approaches the first question by looking at the metaphors of Life and Death in the selected short stories in order to gain an understanding of the variety of the metaphors used by Jack London

The researcher approaches the conclusion on the first research question from the point of view of the mapping for conceptual metaphor which was held by Lakoff and Kövecses (2003: 84) that all

of the image-schematic structure of the source that is consistent with the target is mapped onto the target

Finally, the purpose of this study is never to find every single metaphor of Life and death – or something that can be counted separately – within these selected short stories, but instead to gain

a general understanding of the use of these metaphor in literature and then to find out the possible implication for English language teaching and learning

2 Methods employed for the research

2.1 Data collections instruments

Reading and reviewing documents are the major ways to collect materials for the research

2.2 Data analysis techniques

Firstly, the researcher starts to analyze the image of Life and Death in terms of conceptual metaphor After that, the information is synthesized The stage of analyzing and synthesizing are

all conducted manually

2.3 Data analysis procedure

The study begins with a presentation of the theoretical background, namely the theory of conceptual metaphor as formulated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Lakoff and Turner (1989), and for the purpose of the study, the researcher collects data through reading short stories by Jack London While reading these references, an action of selecting relevant information is taken simultaneously After the data is collected, the researcher starts analyzing and classifying the data into the suitable categories of the thesis purpose After that, the researcher synthesizes all the metaphors to come the conclusion on the first research question by drawing image-schematic structures of the sources which are mapped onto the target domain from the point of view by Lakoff and Kövecses To find the connection between Life and Death in terms of cognitive perspective, the researcher try to interpret the possibility of forming a single image or just being subcategories of a major metaphor of the mapping which are found in the first research question based on Lakoff’s view

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND FINDINGS

This chapter has showed that Life and Death metaphors are very popular with variety of expressions Among these expression, four major conceptual metaphors for life and four conceptual for death which are notable in Jack London’s works are LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LIFE

IS A FIGHTING/ BATTLE, LIFE IS LIGHT/ DAYTIME, LIFE IS LIGHT, DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY, DEATH IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, and DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP

For having mapped onto the same target structure and having the same grounding in everyday experience or common knowledge, the metaphors DEATH IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, and DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP are coherent with each other For Life metaphor, LIFE IS IS LIGHT is coherent with the metaphor LIFE IS FIRE

Because the Life and Death guides us in making sense of a common image – THE JOURNEY, two conceptual metaphors LIFE IS A JOURNEY and DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY are consistent

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

In this last chapter, the findings of the study will be summarized first and followed by some suggestions for teaching English This chapter also discusses the limitations of the study as well as some recommendations for further research

1 Concluding remarks on objective 1 – The common type of metaphor for Life and Death image in Jack London’s short stories

It can be seen that there are four conceptual metaphors for Life known as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LIFE IS A FIGHTING/ BATTLE, LIFE IS LIGHT/ DAYTIME, LIFE IS LIGHT Among the four conceptual metaphor for Life, the mapping LIFE IS A JOURNEY and LIFE IS A FIGHTING/ BATTLE seem to be the most popular ones with the density of sentences which are related to these metaphors in the short stories taken into consideration

The image of Death also evokes four senses of metaphor namely DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY, DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP, DEATH IS COLD, and DEATH IS DARKNESS

2 Concluding remarks on objective 2 – The markers of coherence and consistence between the Life and Death metaphors

For having mapped onto the same target structure and having the same grounding in everyday experience or common knowledge, the metaphors DEATH IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, and DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP are coherent with each other For Life metaphor, LIFE IS IS LIGHT is coherent with the metaphor LIFE IS FIRE

3 Concluding remarks on objective 3 - The possible implications for English language teaching and learning

First of all, the identification and charting of universal metaphors has the potential to shed light onto some fundamental aspect of our cognitive functions and our human existence at large Thus, metaphor studies should be an area of inquiry for researchers in a variety of areas, including linguistics, anthropology, history and the cognitive sciences

In teaching literature, regarding the importance of literature and metaphor in creating language, the teacher should notice of the guidance for students to realize how to explore conceptual metaphors to understand those concepts, how they are mapped and what meaning they carry on

4 Limitations and Suggestions for further studies

Although the study has done, it is unavoidable that there are some limitations of the research due to the limited scope, the time constraint and other objective factors

There are still more conceptual metaphors for love, happiness, sadness and fear that

should be investigated in further researches Moreover a cross-cultural study of conceptual

metaphors should be investigated more

References

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2 Goatly, A (2011) The language of metaphors, Routledge, London, pp 109

3 Hurtado, (2011) A cognitive approach to life and death in the poetry of Seamus Heaney

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WEBSITES AS SOURCE FOR THE DATA OBTAINED IN THE THESIS

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor

2 http://www.jacklondons.net/northstories.html

3 http://www.jacklondons.net/writings/ShortStories/index.html