A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)

A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)A cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese (Luận án tiến sĩ)

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

SUPERVISOR: Assoc.Prof Dr Phan Văn Hòa

Da Nang, 2018

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Except where bibliography is made in the text, the dissertation contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from another author’s thesis or document It does not comprise any parts by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

This dissertation is also assured that it has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution

Da Nang, January 2018

Hồ Trịnh Quỳnh Thư

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ABSTRACT

The dissertation is carried out in the light of the conceptual metaphor theory fathered by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) It aims at investigating and comparing the expressions of metaphor of romantic love in three linguistic dimensions- space, time and sensory perceptions- of English and Vietnamese modern poetry The study uses the metaphor identification procedures raised by Charteris Black (2004), Pragglejaz Group (2007) and Steen (1999) to minimize the mistakes and increase the believability

of its results of linguistic and conceptual metaphor identification Besides, technological tools, namely SPSS20 and Microsoft Excel 2013, are also applied to the analysis process of 3300 samples (1650 in each language) collected from 547 love poems The finding is that love is conceptualized in terms of 21 conceptual metaphors

in English and Vietnamese Especially, one more source domain that is used for love

in Vietnamese but not uncovered in our English data is sight It is one of the differences found between English and Vietnamese conceptualization of love via the language of space, time and sensory perceptions Interestingly, 7 of 22 these source domains are considered partly or wholly new, including climate, drug, life, music, sight, source of energy, and time Besides, the expressions of metaphor of love are also determined both conventional and novel The novelty is manifested via four techniques- extending, elaboration, questioning, and combination, which once again proves the creativity and imaginativeness in poetic language In addition, the study also finds it that not only the conceptual metaphors but the spatial, temporal and sensory terms used to express love are similar between English and Vietnamese The similarities may result from the universality of conceptual metaphor and the objectiveness of natural world However, language is a cultural factor and directly under the effects of culture Metaphor is the reflection of individual thoughts and experiences As a result, the ways to express love identified in our study are different between these two languages

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

ABBREVIATIONS AND TYPOGRAPHICAL CONVENTIONS viii

LIST OF THE TABLES ix

LIST OF THE FIGURES xi

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 4

1.2.1 Aims of the study 4

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 4

1.3 Research questions 4

1.4 Focus and scope of the study 5

1.4.1 Focus of the study 5

1.4.2 Scope of the study 6

1.5 Justification for the study 7

1.5.1 Theoretical significance of the study 7

1.5.2 Practical significance of the study 8

1.6 Organization of the study 9

1.7 Summary 11

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 13

2.1 Theoretical background 13

2.1.1 The conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) 14

2.1.1.1 The systematicity of conceptual metaphors 14

2.1.1.2 Partialness of conceptual metaphors 15

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2.1.1.3 Metaphorical coherence and understanding 16

2.1.1.4 Cognitive mechanism of conceptual metaphors 18

2.1.1.5 Types of conceptual metaphors 19

2.1.1.6 Limitations of the CMT 20

2.1.2 Recent development in conceptual metaphor 21

2.1.2.1 Categorization view of metaphor 22

2.1.2.2 Blending theory of metaphor 22

2.1.2.3 Neural theory of metaphor 24

2.1.2.4 The view based on the main meaning focus 25

2.1.3 Expression of metaphor 26

2.1.4 Metaphor and culture 26

2.1.5 Metaphor in literature and in poetry 27

2.1.6 Concepts of space, time and sensory perceptions 31

2.1.6.1 Space 31

2.1.6.2 Time 32

2.1.6.3 Sensory perception 32

2.1.7 Love as an emotion 33

2.1.8 Conceptual metaphors of love 34

2.2 Previous studies of metaphors of love 37

2.3 Summary 42

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 44

3.1 Research design 44

3.1.1 Inductive approach 44

3.1.2 Qualitative and quantitative methods 45

3.1.3 Descriptive and contrastive methods 46

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3.1.3.1 Descriptive method 46

3.1.3.2 Contrastive method 47

3.2 Data collection 47

3.2.1 Sources of data 48

3.2.2 Identification of linguistic metaphors 49

3.2.2.1 Charteris-Black’s method 50

3.2.2.2 MIP and MIPVU 51

3.2.3 Identification of conceptual metaphors 54

3.2.4 Identification of novel metaphors of love 55

3.3 Data analysis 56

3.3.1 Statistical analysis tool 56

3.3.2 Data analysis procedure 60

3.4 Summary 62

CHAPTER 4 EXPRESSIONS OF METAPHOR OF LOVE IN ENGLISH POETRY 63

4.1 General description 63

4.2 English spatial language used to express love 65

4.2.1 English terms of location used to express love 65

4.2.2 English terms of configuration used to express love 69

4.2.3 English terms of movement used to express love 72

4.3 English temporal language used to express love 76

4.3.1 English chronological terms used to express love 76

4.3.2 English kairotic terms used to express love 79

4.4 English sensory language used to express love 84

4.4.1 English terms of visual perception used to express love 84

4.4.2 English terms of tactile perception used to express love 87

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4.4.3 English terms of gustatory perception used to express love 91

4.4.4 English terms of olfactory perception used to express love 93

4.4.5 English terms of auditory perception used to express love 94

4.5 Novelty of love metaphors in English poetry 97

4.5.1 Novelty of conceptual metaphors of love in English poetry 97

4.5.2 Novel use of love metaphors in English poetry 99

4.6 Summary 102

CHAPTER 5 EXPRESSIONS OF METAPHOR OF LOVE IN VIETNAMESE POETRY 103

5.1 General description 103

5.2 Vietnamese spatial language used to express love 105

5.2.1 Vietnamese terms of location used to express love 105

5.2.2 Vietnamese terms of configuration used to express love 108

5.2.3 Vietnamese terms of movement used to express love 112

5.3 Vietnamese temporal language used to express love 116

5.3.1 Vietnamese chronological terms used to express love 117

5.3.2 Vietnamese kairotic terms used to express love 120

5.4 Vietnamese sensory language used to express love 123

5.4.1 Vietnamese terms of visual perception used to express love 124

5.4.2 Vietnamese terms of tactile perception used to express love 126

5.4.3 Vietnamese terms of gustatory perception used to express love 129

5.4.4 Vietnamese terms of olfactory perception used to express love 130

5.4.5 Vietnamese terms of auditory perception used to express love 131

5.5 Novelty of love metaphors in Vietnamese poetry 132

5.5.1 Novelty of conceptual metaphors of love in Vietnamese poetry 132

5.5.2 Novel use of love metaphors in Vietnamese poetry 135

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5.6 Summary 138

CHAPTER 6 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE EXPRESSIONS OF METAPHOR OF LOVE 140

6.1 Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese conceptual metaphors of love 140

6.2 Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love 142

6.2.1 Similarities 142

6.2.2 Differences 147

6.3 Summary 152

CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 154

7.1 Conclusions 154

7.2 Implications 156

7.3 Limitation and suggestions for further research 158

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 159

REFERENCES 161

LIST OF THE POEMS 176

DECISION ON THE ADOPTION OF THE DOCTORAL RESEARCH TOPIC 212

APPENDIX 213

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ABBREVIATIONS AND TYPOGRAPHICAL

CONVENTIONS

CD : Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

CMT : conceptual metaphor theory

LD : Longman Dictionary of comtemporary English online

MD : Macmillan Dictionary

MIP : metaphorical identification procedure

MIPVU : MIP extended by the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam MWD : Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary

VD : Vietnamese Dictionary (Từ điển tiếng Việt)

lower case : linguistic metaphor, e.g the season of love

upper case : conceptual metaphor, e.g LOVE IS A JOURNEY

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LIST OF THE TABLES

Table 3 1 The missions of qualitative and quantitative methods in the study 45

Table 4 1 Top five source domains underlying English locative terms used for love 68 Table 4 2 Analysis of the images of moon, sun, stars, earth, sky and sea in the metaphor LOVE IS LIFE 70

Table 4 3 Top seven source domains underlying English configurative terms used for love 72

Table 4 4 Top three source domains underlying English moving terms used to express love 74

Table 4 5 Top five source domains under English spatial language used to express love 76

Table 4 6 LOVE-AS-TIME mapping 80

Table 4 7 Top three source domains underlying English kairotic terms used to express love 83

Table 4 8 Analysis of the visual terms of beautiful, dark, rounded, light beam and shine metaphorically used to describe love 85

Table 4 9 Analysis of the terms of temperature metaphorically used for love 89

Table 4 10 Analysis of the terms of pain perception metaphorically used to express love 90

Table 4 11 Analysis of musical terms metaphorically used to express love 95

Table 5 1 Analysis of the images of chùm, khóm, lá, cành, nụ and hoa in the metaphor LOVE IS A PLANT 110

Table 5 2 Analysis of the moving terms - lia and nhặt lên used for love 113

Table 5 3 Table 5.3 LOVE-AS-TIME OF A YEAR mapping 119

Table 5 4 LOVE-AS-FLOWER mapping 122

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LIST OF THE FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Map of the thesis 12

Figure 2 1 The systematicity in the conceptualization of love in terms of a journey 15

Figure 2 2 The coherence of a complex metaphor of love structured by two single metaphors- LOVE IS A JOURNEY and LOVE IS A UNITY 16

Figure 2 3 The coherence of the conceptualization of love in terms of time that is understood metaphorically in terms of an entity 17

Figure 2 4 Conceptual mapping 18

Figure 2 5 Conceptual blending of “surgeon as butcher” 23

Figure 2 6 Neural theory applied to the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor 25

Figure 3 1 Sample of detecting mistakes in the data inputs 57

Figure 3 2 Sample of the data statistics under linguistic fields 57

Figure 3 3 Sample of the data statistics under source domains 58

Figure 3 4.Sample of drawing charts on Excel 59

Figure 3 5 Sample of the comparisons of using metaphorical expressions of love between English and Vietnamese 59

Figure 4 1 Quantification of English expressions of metaphor of love under spatial, temporal and sensory languages 63

Figure 4 2 Source domains underlying English expressions of love metaphor 64

Figure 4 3 Quantification of English spatial terms used to express love under the aspects of location, configuration and movement 75

Figure 4 4 Source domains underlying English spatial language used for love 75

Figure 4 5 Cycle of a day 77

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Figure 4 6 The lifetime of living-beings 81 Figure 4 7 The growth phases of living-beings 82 Figure 4 8 Quantification of English terms of sensory perceptions used to express

love 96 Figure 4 9 Source domains underlying English terms of sensory perceptions used to

express love 96 Figure 5 1 Quantification of Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love under

spatial, temporal and sensory languages 103 Figure 5 2 Source domains underlying Vietnamese expressions of love metaphor 104 Figure 5 3 Quantification of Vietnamese spatial terms used to express love under the

aspects of location, configuration and movement 115 Figure 5 4 Source domains underlying Vietnamese spatial language used for love116 Figure 5 5 Source domains underlying Vietnamese temporal terms used to express

love 117 Figure 5 6 Cycle of seasons 118 Figure 5 7 The lifetime of a flower 121 Figure 5 8 Source domains underlying Vietnamese terms of sensory perceptions

used for love 124 Figure 6 1 Source domains used to express love in English and Vietnamese 140

without you” (Bryan, My red heart is blue), for example; or even they are unviable

as the words described by Gordon “I cannot live/ Without you” (I look at you and think: I cannot live), similar to what is expressed in Vietnamese “Làm sao sống được

mà không yêu…?” (Xuân Diệu, Bài thơ tuổi nhỏ) Nevertheless, to understand ‘what

love is’ is certainly not easy This question has long been addressed but the answer may be pretty abstract It may be the reason for which Xuân Diệu – a Vietnamese romantic poet – uttered “Làm sao cắt nghĩa được tình yêu!” (How to explain love!)

Several researchers (e.g Gray, 1993; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, and O'Connor, 2001) support that love is one of the basic human emotions It is a natural phenomenon that can be found in all cultures around the world However, much of semantics is culturally and experientially based (Casad, 1995; Steenbergen, 2006) It is especially right in description of abstract concepts like love, which has been demonstrated to be one of the concepts richest in imagery by cognitive linguists (e.g Lakoff & Johnson, 1980a,b; Kovecses, 1986, 1988, 2000; Tessari, 2001) The love expressions are thus diversified, dependent on individual experiences and under cultural influences

In the period of integration nowadays, the need of cross-cultural communication and interpretation becomes necessary Meanwhile, semantic field plays an important role in understanding a speech However in Langacker’s view, semantics does not just reflect objective reality but rather represent subjective perceptions of the world (see Casad, 2012) An expression does not only show its inflexibly literal meaning of its components but is also understood in a specific context based on our bodily experiences The words expressing love are not the exception Let us look at the following description

“invade one’s blood” and “seize one’s heart”, love is interpreted as a war in which the lover has been defeated and controlled by his beloved Accordingly, it is evident that love becomes easier to approach and flexible to understand thanks to metaphor Let us consider another example,

(1.2) …we'll fly away together,/ Fly far away into our own secret place,/ Where you and I can share this fire./ This fire in our hearts that will burn forever (Laset, Fire of love)

There is no word meaning love in the extract, but one can perceive here a sweet

love in which the lovers desire to “fly away together to a secret place” where they can share their love together forever The expression metaphorically draws a love journey with the couple’s travelling (to fly) and their common destination (secrete

place) Also in the poem, the image of fire is used to talk about the hope of a lasting

duration of love via the expression “burn forever” In this case, it can be seen that an expected durable love is presented smoothly in terms of a fire In Vietnamese, love is also depicted through metaphorical images

(1.3) cả vũ trụ say bừng men lửa/ từ em/ ôm trùm anh/ rạo rực/ nỗi yêu rền

(the whole universe is intoxicated by the fire from you which covers me, makes me

excited about a successive love) (Bùi Minh Quốc, Em đến)

It can briefly be seen from (1.1) to (1.4) that the kind of love mentioned is romantic love; and the expressions used to describe it can be classified into spatial

language (including slip under, invade, seize, fly (away/ far/ into), share, this, cover), temporal terms (successive or repeated) and terms of sensory perceptions (fire, burn)

The topic of love has so far been considerably explored in philosophy, psychology, anthropology, etc In linguistics, numerous studies of metaphors of love have been carried out in the light of both traditional and cognitive views Many of them are conducted along with the studies on emotion in general Some others examine metaphors of love just in one language in many different periods of time There are also some cross-cultural investigations that aim to discover the conceptual metaphors

of love in a certain language and compare them to the English metaphors found by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a) and Kovecses (2000) However, expressions of space, time and sensory perceptions that are used to detect romantic love are still left open, especially those in English and Vietnamese

In those senses, a cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese is chosen as the topic for our investigation The

expression (which is understood as a word or a group of words - Cambridge dictionary)

is analysed and put into one of three categories- space, time, and sensory perception- with the samples collected from modern poetry in these two languages The study also tries to find out whether there are similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love

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1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims of the study

The study aims to examine and compare expressions of metaphor of love in English and Vietnamese modern poetry under three headings, “space”, “time”, and

“sensory perceptions” These expressions are semantically clarified in their respective poetic contexts to discover the principles or mechanisms of meaning transferring and the ways of adopting the conventional conceptual metaphors in poetry Subsequently, a comparison is made between English and Vietnamese spatial, temporal and sensory terms used to describe love

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

The study is carried out with a desire of investigating, analyzing and comparing the poetic metaphorical expressions of romantic love between English and Vietnamese; therefore, it is necessary to achieve the following objectives:

(i) Providing linguistic evidences collected from modern poetry to illustrate the existence of metaphors of love underlying English and Vietnamese expressions

of space, time and sensory perceptions

(ii) Analysing and clarifying how the terms of space, time and sensory perceptions are used to express love in English and Vietnamese

(iii) Comparing to find out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love in terms of space, time and sensory perceptions; at that time, the factors that have influences on these similarities and differences are also shed light on

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metaphorically used to describe romantic love in English and Vietnamese poetry?

(2) What cognitive mechanism(s) can be constructed for understanding and interpreting romantic love via expressions of space, time and sensory perceptions?

(3) How similar or different are terms of space, time and sensory perceptions expressing romantic love in English and Vietnamese poetry?

(4) Which factor(s) contribute(s) to the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love?

1.4 Focus and scope of the study

1.4.1 Focus of the study

If other sciences study the nature and the operation mechanisms of love, linguistics treats the way how the concept of love is expressed via language Many linguistic studies have been carried out to learn about the way to express the experiences of this feeling They have discussed the love expressions in many

different senses In this thesis, only expressions of metaphor of romantic love are

chosen for our investigation for some following reasons

First, romantic love is a complex of attitudes, a complex sentiment involving erotic, cognitive, emotional and behavioral components which are difficult, if not impossible, to disentangle (Bartels & Zeki, 2004; Sternberg, 1988) Hence, studying romantic love means studying a sentiment with several components, which is an interesting challenge facing researchers who decide to study this kind of love

Second, expressions of metaphor of romantic love are plentiful and diversified It is common knowledge that love captures the attention of many researchers for its complexity, abstraction and being difficult to define literally Kovecses (2000) supposed that for lack of an adequate vocabulary to clearly explicate and discuss the abstract idea of love, our language utilizes metaphors that draw from concrete experience as a means to relate this emotion in understandable terms The concept of love, especially romantic love, is thus perhaps the most highly

1.4.2 Scope of the study

The study focuses on investigating and analysing English and Vietnamese metaphorical expressions of romantic love which are classified into three categories: space, time and sensory perceptions Then, they are compared to draw out the similarities and differences between these two languages Therefore, the issues that are concerned with our study are determined and limited as follows

Firstly, except romantic love, the metaphorical expressions of other love kinds such as familial love, love of friends, religious love, and universal love are not examined The expression “full of love” in the lines “We're a proud family/ [ ]

Happy/ full of love” (Walton, A Mountain Family Full of Love), for example, is not

collected for our investigation because it expresses familial love

Secondly, the expressions of metaphor of romantic love must be arranged into one of three categories: space, time and sensory perceptions, which are defined in 2.1.6 If they cannot meet this criterion, they are not chosen For example, although the terms “intoxication”, “drunk” and “high” in “Intoxication, you're pure intoxication./ To me, you're like a drug./ I get, drunk, high off you.” (Gardiner,

Intoxication) are applied to express romantic love, they are not selected for our

investigation because they do not belong to any of three categories: space, time, or sensory perceptions

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