A study of conceptual metaphors denoting fear in some english and vietnamese contemporary short stories from cognitive perspective

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES ĐÀO THỊ THÙY LINH A STUDY OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS DENOTING FEAR IN S

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐÀO THỊ THÙY LINH

IN SOME ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY SHORT STORIES FROM COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Nghiên cứu ẩn dụ ý niệm chỉ nỗi sợ hãi trong một số truyện ngắn

Anh –Việt đương đại dưới góc nhìn tri nhận

M.A THESIS (PROGRAM 1)

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

HANOI - 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐÀO THỊ THÙY LINH

A STUDY OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS DENOTING FEAR

IN SOME ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONTEMPORARY SHORT STORIES FROM COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Nghiên cứu ẩn dụ ý niệm chỉ nỗi sợ hãi trong một số truyện ngắn

Anh –Việt đương đại dưới góc nhìn tri nhận

M.A THESIS (PROGRAM 1)

Field: English Linguistics

Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Ph.D

HANOI - 2019

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DECLARATION

I declare that this thesis “A study of conceptual metaphors denoting fear in some English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories from cognitive

perspective” has been composed solely by myself and that it has not been

submitted, in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree This thesis

is submitted after a carefully checking progress in order to fulfill the requirements

of the M.A degree

Hanoi, 2019

Đào Thị Thùy Linh

of research and writing of this thesis

I am greatly indebted to all my lecturers at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, for their endless enthusiasm and undeniable helpful lectures I would be very grateful to the staff of the Faculty of Graduate Studies for their support during my time of studying

I would also like to thank my leaders and colleagues at the place where I work They gave me opportunities and supported me so that I completed the program the best I can

Finally, I gratefully acknowledge my family for allfor providing me constant encouragement, divine presence and supporting me spiritually throughout

Hanoi, 2019 Đào Thị Thùy Linh

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ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to investigate and compare the conceptual metaphors of fear in English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories FEAR is one of the basic emotions of human beings, and it has both similarities and differences among different languages Analysis of features of conceptualization is a critical part of the semantics of emotions This study aims to compare and contrast the use of metaphors of fear in two languages, which are English and Vietnamese The study provides some important findings Firstly, metaphor is common in conceptualizing and expressing emotions in English and Vietnamese short stories Secondly, English and Vietnamese have several common cognitive metaphors of fear Thirdly, the differences of English and Vietnamese metaphors in fear have relations to cultural models Due to the limited research on the conceptual metaphors denoting fear used

by short story writers, the findings add to the body of knowledge related to these areas of conceptual metaphors The study also suggests several implications for

translation, language learning and teaching

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Objectives of the study 1

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Organization of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 Literature review 5

1.2 Theoretical background 10

1.2.1 Cognitive linguistics 11

1.2.2 Metaphor 12

1.2.3 Conceptual metaphor 13

1.3 Summary 20

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 Approach 21

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2.2 Method 21

2.3 Data collection procedure 22

2.3.1 English contemporary short stories 24

2.3.2 Vietnamese contemporary short stories 25

2.4 Data analysis procedure 27

2.5 Summary 33

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 34

3.1 Qualitative analysis 34

3.1.1 Conceptual metaphors of fear in English short stories 34

3.1.2 Conceptual metaphors of fear in Vietnamese short stories 41

3.2 Quantitative analysis 50

3.3 Similarities and differences in the use of conceptual metaphors between English and Vietnamese short stories 52

3.3.1 Similarities 52

3.3.2 Differences 54

3.4 Summary 56

PART III: CONCLUSION 57

1 Recapitulation 57

2 Implications 58

3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 59

3.1 Limitations 59

3.2 Suggestions for further study 60

REFERENCES 61

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PART I: INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the overall structure and concept of the study, including the rationale, objectives, research questions, scope, contribution and organization of the study

1 Rationale of the study

Cognitive linguistics is the approach to the study of language that began to emerge in the 1970s and has been increasingly active since the 1980s Until now, a large amount of research has been carried out in the light of cognitive linguistics over the world in general and in Vietnam in particular, and most of them have focused on semantics with a deeper insight into the use of conceptual metaphors in languages Conceptual metaphors involve two concepts and have the form A is B, where the most abstract concept A such as love, life, economy, and argument is comprehended in terms of the more concrete concept B including war or a container Therefore, the investigation of conceptual metaphors to find out similarities and differences of using this kind of meaning transference among languages in the world brings great benefits to the English teaching, learning, and translating process

Everyday emotions like happiness, sadness, anger and fear and love turn to

be metaphorical The basis of this research is relatively small but important for describing fear Metaphors arise when a familiar, well-understood concept (the source) is used to explain or structure another less-familiar one (the target) There is

an important connection between stories and emotion metaphors

The research entitled “A study of conceptual metaphors denoting fear in some English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories from cognitive perspective” is conducted to contribute to the process of understanding and interpretation of conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese short stories

2 Objectives of the study

The study is intended to fulfill the following objectives:

In order to achieve the above objectives, the following research questions

could be put forward:

- How are the conceptual metaphors of fear conceptualized in English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories?

- What are the similarities and differences of the conceptual metaphors denoting fear in English and Vietnamese short stories?

4 Scope of the study

This research investigates the way of conceptualizing metaphors denoting fear in some English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories Seventeen short stories in both languages, five in English and twelve in Vietnamese, are chosen as follows:

English short stories

 Allan and the Sundered Veil (2000)

 Eclipse (2007)

 The doll (2011)

 The sloan men (2013)

 The open window (2013)

Vietnamese short stories

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 Ngồi khóc trên cây (2013)

 Những kẻ đợi chết (2013)

 Núi mây và bồ câu xám (2014)

 Cơm vắt Điện Biên (2014)

 Bảy bước tới mùa hè (2015)

 Xuyên đêm (2015)

5 Significance of the study

This study attempts to provide learners with a potential source of conceptual metaphors denoting fear in English and Vietnamese stories Moreover, it helps learners understand the differences between English and Vietnamese cultures and know how to apply the knowledge of conceptual metaphors in stories not only in studying but also in real life

The study aims to make important contributions First, it investigates the conceptual metaphors of fear in English and Vietnamese based on the theory of cognitive metaphor Second, it discovers and explains the similarities and the dissimilarities in conceptual metaphors of fear in English and Vietnamese Third, it suggests several implications for translation, communication, and language teaching

6 Organization of the study

This study will cover the following 3 parts with 3 chapters:

Part I - “Introduction” This part will present the rationale, the objectives and

research questions of the study It is also devoted to the scope, the significance and the organization of the study

Part II – “Development” This part will comprise three chapters

Chapter 1 – “Literature review and Theoretical background” This chapter will

present previous studies related to the paper and provide the fundamental knowledge of metaphors in general and conceptual metaphors in particular Theoretical matters related to the study such as the theories of cognitive linguistics, metaphor, definition, classification, features of conceptual metaphors and fear

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metaphor

Chapter 2 – “Research methodology” This chapter will discuss the research

approach, research method, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure

Chapter 3 – “Findings and Discussions” This chapter will focus on analyzing and

discussing conceptual metaphors denoting fear in some English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories Then, this chapter will also compare the similarities and differences in conceptual metaphors used in two languages

Part III – “Conclusion” This chapter will summarize the study‟s results and

present the suggested implications for learning, teaching and translating conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese as well as limitations and suggestions for further study

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PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter reviews the existing literature to describe how previous researches contribute to the topic Then, it provides theoretical background and framework that the study is based on

1.1 Literature review

Cognitive metaphor, or conceptual metaphor, as well as a detailed examination of the underlying processes, was first extensively explored by Lakoff and Johnson in the book “Metaphor We Live By” in 1980 Since then, a considerable number of studies has been carried out in the light of cognitive linguistics in the world and Vietnam as well Emotion metaphors figure prominently

as one of the best-researched domains with famous work by many linguists such as Barcelona (1986), Lakoff (1987), Kövecses (1990), Niemeier (2000), etc

Esenova (2011) examines the conceptual metaphors of anger, fear, and sadness embedded in the conceptual system of English speakers and explores the role of various bodily and cultural factors in the creation of those metaphors The study employs an interdisciplinary approach which means that the outcome of the study is assessed about the findings from other related fields The metaphors are chosen to map the source domains of CONTAINER, ANIMAL, SUPERNATURAL BEING, HIDDEN ENEMY, TORMENTOR, SMELL, TASTE, PLANT, MIXED SUBSTANCE, and PURE SUBSTANCE onto the target domains of anger, fear and sadness Moreover, it provides knowledge about the importance of the following basic experiences in the conceptualization of emotions: human interaction with animal species such as horses, snakes, birds, etc., and the cultural views resulting from it; folk beliefs about the supernatural, agricultural experience of growing plants and the practice of mixing different substances Particularly, the findings show that fear may be instigated by a great variety of physical, mental, and social

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dangers The study demonstrates further that each cause gives rise to a specific type

of fear The existence of the majority of those fears is confirmed by scientific evidence from other fields of knowledge

Mashak et al (2012) conduct a comparative study on basic emotion conceptual metaphors in English and Persian texts In the study, conceptual metaphors are investigated for happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and love To conduct this study, about 782 metaphorical expressions describing emotions are collected from different sources, from both written and spoken discourses in English and Persian The study concludes that although there are some cultural differences in conceptualizing these five basic emotions in English and Persian due to the emphasis laid on some aspects of metaphor and entailments (partially the same pattern), the two languages share most of the general conceptual metaphors in describing these five emotions That is, most Persian metaphorical expressions of emotions can be rendered into English and vice versa and serve the same metaphorical meaning and effects Also, the result of the Chi-square test applied to the three cases in this study, including totally the same, partially the same and totally different revealed that the two languages are highly similar in the issue of emotion conceptualization As far as emotion conceptualization is concerned, Persian and English have many features in common, and it could be claimed that both languages are 51% totally the same, 47% partially the same and 2% are totally different in conceptualizing these five emotions

Similarly, Esmaeili et al (2015) attempt to find the meeting grounds between the embodied cognitive processes involved in conceptualization of emotions - such

as anger, shame, and fear, and the language used for expressing the subjective experience of emotions Tim O'Brien's Vietnam War memoir in 1990, The Things They Carried, has been selected as the focus of the present study to highlight the way conceptual metaphors underlie the experience of emotions such as shame, anger, and fear The Things They Carried is made up of many vignette-like narratives embedded within other narratives that seem to portray O'Brien's

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memories of the Vietnam War The study shows that the conceptual metaphor BODY AS CONTAINER holds ground in conceptualizations of emotions like shame and anger The study suggests that ontological and epistemic correspondences involved in the mapping between the shame domain and the solid content are proved to be much similar to those offered by Kövecses for anger Conceptualization of fear, on the other hand, involved force dynamic patterns like the conceptualization of anger There is still much to be done to approach the issue

of emotion-cognition interaction There are certain basic image schemas or primary metaphors which govern the language we may encounter in a person's record of emotional experiences such as those in a war memoir

Sirvyde (2006) focuses on how cultural patterns of thought and world views shape the conceptual metaphors of fear in English and Lithuanian The study uses data from the British National Corpus and the Lithuanian online corpus, with an amount of about 100 million word collections of written and spoken languages from

a wide variety of sources The study comes up with important findings Both language communities associate fear with their own physical experience and things from their environment The research has shown that metaphorical expressions are more than registers of physical experience, they have conceptual structure English and Lithuanian share most of the conceptual metaphors of fear Many examples of cross-cultural differences suggest that, though metaphorical patterning of the concept of fear is universal, it holds different folk beliefs about attributes of the source domains Many metaphorical expressions derive historically from the cultural experience of a language community They function within the speaker‟s and the listener‟s background knowledge of the environment Hence, Lithuanian makes the attributes of source domains related to nature more salient than English does

Most recently, Afrashi and Ghouchani (2018) compare and contrast conceptual metaphors between English and Persian texts However, they concentrate on conceptual metaphors of fear Metaphorical expressions are taken from more than 500 books and articles These texts are written in a wide variety of

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ranges, including fictions, non-fictions, plays, scenarios, newspapers, and so on Using a corpus-based approach, the study finds important conclusions The study identifies 600 conceptual metaphors of fear in the form of 51 names of mapping The source domains such as substance, force, and movement are the most frequent source domains of the corpus by which fear domain is expressed

In Vietnam, there are some noticeable cognitive linguists, such as Lý Toàn Thắng (2005), Trần Văn Cơ (2007), Nguyễn Đức Tồn (2008), and Nguyễn Lai

(2009) With the publication “Cognitive linguistics – From general theory to practice in Vietnamese” (Ngôn ngữ học tri nhận - Từ lý thuyết đại cương đến thực tiễn tiếng Việt), Lý Toàn Thắng (2005) describes some typical works of cognitive

linguistics and examines the model of special cognition in Vietnamese Trần Văn

Cơ (2007), with “Cognitive linguistics: Notes and thinking” (Ngôn ngữ học tri nhận: Ghi chép và suy nghĩ), provides an overview and development of metaphor

and conceptual metaphor in Vietnam and in the world The conceptual metaphors in idioms and poetry are also investigated by Nguyễn Đức Tồn (2008) and Nguyễn Lai (2009) respectively

Bùi Khánh Ly (2012) carries out the study on cognitive metaphors of negative emotions in English and Vietnamese In the study, she investigates cognitive metaphors of three negative emotions anger, sadness and fear in English and Vietnamese based on the theory of cognitive semantics The study collects 960 metaphorical expressions of anger, sadness, and fear from different short stories and novels in English and Vietnamese in paper books, ebooks, and online stories The study realizes some similarities and differences in using conceptual metaphors of negative emotions between English and Vietnamese In terms of similarities, some common bodily reactions that are experienced by people universally provide an experiential grounding for near-universal metaphors This accounts for the existence

of some common metaphors in both English and Vietnamese Though the primitive understanding of human bodies and emotions are similar, English and Vietnamese cultures differ along their way of development and distinct features are formed in

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the two cultures A difference between English and Vietnamese negative emotion metaphors is that Vietnamese tends to utilize more body parts than English in conceptualization It is due to the influence of traditional medicine which views body organs as the center of humans where emotions are generated and located Besides that, container metaphors in Vietnamese are closely related to the body part

“lòng” (the stomach/bowels area) It results in a large number of “lòng” container metaphorical expressions in Vietnamese In contrast, English metaphor deals mostly with body container What is more, and as a result of the influence of modern medicine, there exist some body parts specific to English such as nostrils, vessels and veins and some specific to Vietnamese only such as liver, gall As an influence

of Buddhism, the soul with the metaphor LOSS OF SOUL is used to describe fear

in Vietnamese Besides, some metaphors of negative emotions popular in English cannot be found in Vietnamese data They include the conceptualization of anger and sadness as AN OPPONENT and fear as AN ILLNESS and INSANITY

On the other hand, some Vietnamese authors focus on cognitive metaphors

of positive emotions in English and Vietnamese, such as happiness and love

Nguyễn Văn Trào (2016) conducts a cross-cultural analysis of metaphorical conceptualization of happiness in English and Vietnamese The study is based on conceptual metonymies and conceptual metaphors to describe and analyze the idioms that express happiness in English and Vietnamese The study finds that English and Vietnamese broadly match in the use of major conceptual metaphors of happiness, including HAPPY IS UP, HAPPINESS IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER, A HAPPY PERSON IS AN ANIMAL THAT LIVES WELL, and HAPPINESS IS INSANITY Besides, the two languages share a common feature in describing happiness by referring to some common behavioral reactions to it, such

as jumping, dancing, smiling, and response in the face However, English and Vietnamese do not share some other conceptual metaphors, such as HAPPY IS WIDE, HAPPINESS IS COOLNESS from Vietnamese and HAPPINESS IS LIGHT, HAPPINESS IS OFF THE GROUND from English Some differences are

Despite all the existing books and researches on conceptual metaphors in the world in general and Vietnamese in particular, there has been no specific study on conceptual metaphors denoting fear in English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories Previous studies differ in the materials used in each study, ranging from idioms, poems, novels, and other spoken languages Studies on conceptual metaphors of fear are present in other countries and languages, such as Esenova (2011), Mashak et al (2012), Esmaeili et al (2015), Sirvyde (2006), and Afrashi and Ghouchani (2018), but the focus is not on short stories Additionally, previous studies tend to focus on conceptual metaphors denoting happiness and love in Vietnam, which leaves a gap in the existing literature for conceptual metaphors of fear in Vietnam

1.2 Theoretical background

This section provides a theoretical background related to the study The main aim is to give a clear and deep understanding of cognitive linguistics, metaphor, conceptual metaphor, classification and features of conceptual metaphor It then presents fear and common fear metaphors which will be useful for the subsequent analysis of the conceptual metaphors of fear

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1.2.1 Cognitive linguistics

Cognitive linguistics is a modern school of linguistic thought and practice, which describes how language interacts with cognition, forms our thoughts, and the the parallel between the development of language and the change in the common mindset across time (Robinson and Ellis, 2008) Because cognitive linguistics sees language as rooted in man‟s overall cognitive abilities, cognitive linguistics topics are of particular interest: the structural characteristics of natural language categorization (such as systematic polysemy, cognitive models, mental imagery, and metaphor); the functional principles of linguistic organization (such as iconicity and naturalness); the conceptual interface between syntax and semantics; the experiential and pragmatic background of language-in-use; and the relationship between language and thought (Geeraerts and Cuyckens, 2007).Preeminent figures

in cognitive linguistics include Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Langacker (1987), Fauconnier (1997), Talmy (2000), Kövecses (2002), Lý Toàn Thắng (2005), Evans (2007), Trần Văn Cơ (2007), etc

Two basic commitments characterize the cognitive linguistics enterprise (Lakoff, 1991) The first key commitment is the Generalization Commitment which characterizes the general principles essential for all aspects of human language This commitment seeks generalization of principles of language, so the previous ways of studying the language, like semantics (word and sentence meaning), phonology (sound), morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure) will not be suitable, because there is little room for generalization The second key commitment

of cognitive linguistics is Cognitive Commitment It provides a characterization of general principles of used language that are consistent with what is known about the human cognition from other disciplines Hence, general cognitive principles should

be reflected by language and linguistic organization rather than specific cognitive principles (Evans, 2012)

So there are many definitions of cognitive linguistics, it depends on what aspects of linguistics that researchers want to study on the cognitive perspective

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The different feature from other approaches is that language is hypothesized to reflect certain principle properties and design features of the human mind In other words, it is the studying of relationship of human language and the mind, socio-physical experience

Cognitive linguistics is divided into two subfields which are cognitive grammar and cognitive semantics Cognitive grammar emphasizes the study of the cognitive principles that give rise to linguistic organization According to Langacker (1987), cognitive grammar hypothesizes that instead of being different systems themselves, grammar, semantics and lexicon exist on a continuum Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning Cognitive semantics shows that language is a part of a more general human cognitive ability and can therefore explain the world only as people perceive it (Croft and Cruse, 2004) Besides that, conceptual metaphor theory, which is a fundamental subdiscipline in the fields of cognitive grammar and cognitive semantics, aims to provide an explanatory basis for conceptual systems and language in general brain and mind studies So, conceptual metaphor can be studied from both grammatical and semantic perspectives

1.2.2 Metaphor

Metaphor is defined by Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, as “a word

or phrase used to describe somebody or something else, in a way that is different from its normal use, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and

to make the description more powerful”, but it is understood as the meaning transference based on the similarity, quality or common features between two or more objects (Hoàng Tất Trường, 1993)

According to Galperin (1981), metaphor is a relation between the dictionary and contextual logical meanings based on the affinity or similarity of certain properties of two corresponding concepts In Metaphors We Live By (1980), Lakoff and Johnson say that metaphors play an important role in defining our everyday realities In cognitive linguistics, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain According to Lakoff

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(1993), “The metaphor is not just a matter of language, but thought and reason” The language is secondary The mapping is primary, and it sanctions the use of source domain language and inference patterns for target domain concepts

Metaphor is at the nexus of mind and language Since the time of Aristotle, many scholars from different fields have difficulties in defining and understanding functions of metaphor in language, thought, and culture Starting from the end of the 20th century, studies about metaphor have been exploded Especially, in the field of cognitive science, numerous linguists, philosophers, and psychologists produced proposals on metaphorical thought and language (Gibbs, 1994) These theories attempt to strongly set up metaphor as a pervasive part not only of ordinary language but also of daily cognition This contrasts with the traditional view that metaphor is an ornamental part of speech Metaphor is used in our writing, and it is also used commonly in our speaking However, from the traditional perspective, metaphor is regarded as the decorative language, whereas literal language is the fundamental language It has been shown that metaphor is present in daily life, language, thoughts, and actions Moreover, our conceptual systems by which people think and act have a basic nature of metaphor From the modern view, metaphor is a way of understanding an aspect of experience

1.2.3 Conceptual metaphor

1.2.3.1 Definition of Conceptual metaphor

Conceptual metaphor is considered to be built strongly in human cognition (Kövecses, 2002) and it usually exists, even unconsciously, in the language users‟ minds Besides, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) considered conceptual metaphor as one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain For instance, “time is money”, time is understood in terms of money, “life is a journey” or “love is a journey”, we understand life or love in terms of journey and the conceptual metaphor, etc

In a conceptual metaphor, the source domain is the conceptual domain from which metaphorical expressions are drawn and the target domain is the quality or

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experience described by or identified with the source domain It could be understood that the specific domain of the direction is considered the source domain and the abstract domain of the emotion is called the target domain (Nordquist,

2019) As Brown (2010) points out, the target domain and source domain illustrate the dynamic that occurs when something is referenced metaphorically - mapping of

one domain on another one

Many studies have devoted to metaphorical mapping An outstanding study was by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) Metaphor can be expressed and understood as the mapping from a source domain to a target domain The term “mapping” is applied by Lakoff to demonstrate interactions between the two domains Each metaphor includes a source domain, a target domain, and a source-to-target mapping

For a better understanding of mapping, some features of mapping should be known Mapping is the systematic set of correspondences existing between the elements of the source and target domains The metaphorical mapping follows the principle that the image schema structure of the source domain is consistently anticipated into the target domain with the inherent target domain structure (Lakoff, 1993)

Through the use of conceptual metaphors the ability to understand and to express in language and the experience of the world unbelievably increases It allows people to go beyond the immediate experience and to extend the language in

an unlimited way

1.2.3.2 Classification of conceptual metaphors

For Lakoff and Johnson (1980), there are three types of metaphor: Structural metaphor, Orientational metaphor and Ontological metaphor

a Structural metaphor

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) consider structural metaphors to be the biggest group among all A structural metaphor is constructed from one conceptual structure to another conceptual structure To put it another way, for structural

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metaphors, one concept is understood and expressed in terms of another structured concept With structural metaphors, we can use the words concerning one concept

to talk about another concept

For example, the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) is realized in language by expressions such as:

- He attacked every weak point in my argument

- I‟ve never won an argument with him

- Your claims are indefensible

In these expressions, they use the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR, the nature, structure, and language of war to understand the argument, such as taking positions to defend; attacking opponents; and eventually winning or losing

b Orientational metaphor

Orientational metaphor is also known as spatialization because almost all of

it originates from the perception of space Spatial orientations are the fundamental concepts, which come from constant interactions with the physical world The spatial orientations are established with the most basic experience of human beings Hence, it is natural to use basic orientation concepts coming from basic experiences

to understand more abstract concepts such as emotions Orientational metaphors give spatial orientation to a concept

E.g.: I'm feeling up That boosted my spirits My spirits rose You're in high spirits Thinking about her always gives me a lift

I'm feeling down I'm depressed He's really low these days I fell into a depression My spirits sank

In these expressions, UP means happiness and DOWN means sadness The concept of happiness is identified with an upward orientation while the concept of sadness is characterized by a downward orientation

c Ontological metaphor

The experiences of physical objects enable people to comprehend the world more than just orientation These experiences can be used and treated as discrete

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entities Following a similar way of human spatial orientations promoting orientational metaphors, experiences with physical objects build a strong base for ontological metaphors Ontological metaphors are created when experiences with physical objects allow perceiving abstract concepts as concrete entities

For example, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) provide a variety of examples in case of INFLATION IS AN ENTITY as follows:

- Inflation is lowering our standard of living

- Inflation is eating up our profits

- Inflation is backing us into the corner

- Inflation has robbed me of my savings

In these expressions, inflation is conceptualized as a person with the human ability to lower, eat, and back something Inflation can do and act like a human being It can interact within a physical way and even cause events in the world

However, according to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), it was artificial to divide metaphors into three types which are orientational, ontological and structural Because all metaphors are structural (by mapping structures to structures), all metaphors are ontological (by constructing target domain entities) and many of them are orientational (by mapping orientational image-schemas)

1.2.3.3 Features of conceptual metaphor

A metaphor has a special relationship with the human experience Metaphor possesses four important characteristics, namely ubiquity, systematicity, asymmetry, and abstraction The ubiquity of metaphor is shown in numerous studies, most notably in Gibbs (1994) and McNeill (1992) These studies show that the existence of metaphor is not a privilege of specific groups, but it is ubiquitous in both writing and speaking The second characteristic, which is systematicity, is the way in which metaphor does not establish an only one point of comparison The features of the source domain and target domain are combined so that metaphor can

be enlarged (Saeed, 2003) The conceptual metaphors are not separated from each other, but they are closely connected As a consequence, metaphors that are based

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on the identical experience or image schema can connect the entire discourse, so that readers can understand thoroughly The third characteristic, asymmetry, shows the directional trend of metaphor The two domains are not symmetric, they transfer from the source domain to the target domain (Saeed, 2003) The last characteristic

of a conceptual metaphor is an abstraction, and it is also related to asymmetry According to Saeed (2003), a typical metaphor employs a more concrete source to express a more abstract target

1.2.3.4 Fear metaphor

Fear is an unpleasant emotion or thought that you have when we are frightened or worried by something dangerous, painful, or bad that is happening or might happen The metaphors for fear highlight certain aspects of a large number of possible causes of fear Interestingly, the relationship between the cause of fear and the way fear itself is conceptualized Fear can be a human being, a container, an illness, a burden, etc In addition, the process of classification conceptual metaphor

of fear is indefinite and endless There are also different ways of analyzing and classifying For instance, based on the cognitive function, a conceptual metaphor can be structural, ontological, or orientational (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) Conceptual metaphors can also be classified according to conventionality, which indicates the prevalence of metaphors in everyday language (Kövecses, 2002) The classification of this study is only one approach among those Therefore, fear is conceptualized as an entity that can threaten our lives and can cause physical and mental suffering Some conceptual metaphors of fear are the following

a Fear is Cold

Fear is cold is a frequently used conceptual metaphor According to Mapping Metaphor (2015), a fearful person may suffer from shortness of breath, increased heart rate, flushing, increased muscle tension, tremor, and sweating Indeed, the reaction of the body to fear and the reaction of the body to coldness are similar

For example, “The thought chilled him.”

“Shivers ran down her spine.”

The emotional experience here is felt to be related to real changes in body

E.g.: Jack was sick with fright

c Fear is a Burden

According to Kövecses (2003), the burden is described as a metaphor as Fear

is a Burden and fear is possible weighted heavily on people When they are fearful, they are more likely to feel under stress and pressure This feeling is similar to the case when people are burdened by something Therefore, the burden is one source domain of fear The example of Fear is a Burden can be as follow, according to Kövecses (2012)

Fear weighed heavily on them as they heard the bombers overhead

He was burdened by the possibility of not seeing his friend anymore

d Fear is a substance in a container

Fear is a substance in a container is also a possible conceptional metaphor of fear The content of the container (in this case, a substance) is mapped onto an emotion (fear) The amount of substance correlates with the intensity of fear The container contains a large amount of substance and this corresponds to high intensity of fear (Afrashi and Ghouchani, 2018)

E.g.: Her head was full of fear

e Fear is a container

According to Afrashi and Ghouchani (2018), the heart and head are often used as containers of emotions So the container is the place in which fear could be stored and carried According to Clark (2006), a possible example of “People in the

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western suburbs of Sydney who now live in genuine fear” is suitable for the

conceptual metaphor Fear is a container

f Fear is food

According to Oster (2012), the ideas of the sentence such as “feed on fear, feed the fear or to be fed fear” is the example of the Fear is Food as a conceptional metaphor Because we often use the verb “feed” for food and fear could be conceptualized as food

E.g.: This is a movement that feeds on fear and resentment

g Fear is an object

Fear is identified as an entity and conceptualized as a physical object That allows us to use “physical” vocabulary to describe this abstract state (Szwedek, 2007)

E.g.: The old hopes have grown pale, the old fears dim

h Fear is a human being

According to Sandström (2006), the human mind uses the specific demonstration to express abstraction People visualize emotions as if they are talking badly about a person, like encircling a person or making that person perform

a movement Fear could be perceived as a human being who can communicate, have thoughts, feelings, and behavior

E.g.: Fear forces him to leave there

i Fear is an animal

An animal could be a source domain for the target domain of fear regarding some verbs describing the animal or the characteristics of the animal Some animals are wild and dangerous such as tigers, snakes or need to be kept under the control (horse, gayal) According to Afrashi and Ghouchani (2018), it is not surprising that fear is metaphorically conceived of as an animal

E.g.: Since the death of her mother, she had always had a fierce fear of

storms

j Fear is a fluid in a container

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Kövecses (1990) identifies the body container as a major source domain for the conventional metaphorical conceptualization of fear in English Based on the general metaphors, the human body is a container for the emotions and the emotions are fluids in a container, Kövecses (1990) proposes FEAR IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER as a conventional conceptualization in English and argues that this metaphor suggests that fear exists as an independent mass entity inside the self

E.g.: Fear was rising in him

The sight filled her with fear

1.3 Summary

In summary, this chapter reviews the contribution of some previous studies

to this topic Despite all the existing books and research on conceptualization in the world in general and Vietnamese in particular, there has been no specific study on conceptual metaphors denoting fear in English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories, which might help teachers, learners, and translators master two languages Then, this chapter provides a theoretical background that helps us to study more about theories related to this thesis It has some main viewpoints of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) about metaphor and conceptual metaphor It is used as one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain To understand a target domain (abstract domain), it needs more than one source domain (specific domains) and those domains have interactions that are called mappings Next, this chapter wants to deal with classifications of conceptual metaphors including structural metaphor, ontological metaphor, and orientational metaphor One more concept that

is mentioned in this chapter is Fear metaphor to have more understanding about conceptual metaphors denoting Fear

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CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the research methodology, including the research approach, research method, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure

2.1 Approach

The research approach provides the direction which researchers would go through to undertake the study The choice of approaches depends upon the questions and objectives of a specific study This study is fundamentally based on

the inductive approach

This study employs the cognitive approach which can be seen in terms of the form of things that people have in mind, their models for perceiving, relating to, and interpreting them (Katan, 1999) Current approaches in cognitive linguistics emphasize the importance of metaphor in language, and they consider it an essential and indispensable phenomenon in both language and thought Metaphor is involved

in the human cognitive process; it is a perceptual and conceptualizing tool, by which men understand the changing world around In short, metaphor allows us to comprehend relatively an abstract concept under a more concrete concept

This study is based on the cognitive approach, specifically the theory of conceptual metaphor So, it is necessary to answer the question of how the conceptual metaphors of fear are conceptualized in English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories Conceptual metaphors are expressed as ways which the target domain (fear) is conceptualized by source domains, which are easier to understand (a container, an animal, etc)

2.2 Method

Researchers often use qualitative and quantitative materials to complement each other Sometimes it is necessary to use a qualitative method to follow up findings from quantitative data and it may help us to understand what the figures mean Sometimes to follow up findings from qualitative data, a quantitative study is conducted A third way is to design a study where qualitative and quantitative data are collected and analyzed at the same time

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This study combines both qualitative method and quantitative method in analyzing conceptual metaphors of fear, in which the qualitative method is used first and followed by the quantitative method The qualitative method is employed first

in this study because it is necessary to identify source domains as well as characteristics of those domains and analyze how conceptual metaphors of fear are used in English and Vietnamese short stories It is carried out by using descriptive and analytical methods Then the quantitative method is conducted to identify the number of conceptual metaphors and show which conceptual metaphors of fear are used commonly in those English and Vietnamese short stories Finally, contrastive and comparative analyses are utilized with the aim to find out the similarities and differences of conceptual metaphors denoting fear in English and Vietnamese short stories The frame of reference here is the conceptual metaphors of fear and the grounds for comparison are English and Vietnamese contemporary short stories Based on theoretical background on conceptual metaphor and previous studies, English is the source language and Vietnamese is considered as the mean to compare and contrast Hence, conceptual metaphors denoting fear in English short stories will be analyzed first and followed by those in Vietnamese ones After analyzing how conceptual metaphors of fear are used in English and Vietnamese short stories, the similarities and differences in the frequency and the use of conceptual metaphors of fear in those short stories should be identified This direction of analysis is also consistent with the inductive approach, which starts with some research questions and analyzing characteristics then getting some findings and reaching conclusions

2.3 Data collection procedure

Due to the scope of the study, only the samples from English and Vietnamese short stories in contemporary period, which is from 1945 to present are chosen However English and Vietnamese short stories from 2000 to present on the internet and in publication printings are selected in order to make it easier in choosing stories The materials are selected based on the following criteria: (1)

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Time from 2000 to present; (2) Choice of writers in contemporary period (3) The length of the short stories, make sure there are not too long stories; (4) The appearance of linguistic metaphors in those short stories, the stories which have few metaphors are also not selected On the basis of metaphorical expressions of fear,

semantic features of words denoting fear in English such as fright, fear, horror, panic, etc and semantic features of words denoting fear in Vietnamese including sợ,

sợ hãi, hãi hùng, kinh sợ, etc are focused Then the collected data is classified into

subcategories based on the mappings employed in metaphorical expressions and theory of cognitive semantics Choosing which English and Vietnamese short stories to conduct the study is a completely important task because it is the beginning stage of the study If inappropriate short stories are chosen, it would lead

to an ineffective analysis Among many English and Vietnamese short stories from

2000 to present, the stories which include the information or the content relating to fear are focused Through words with fear or sentences which are related to fear in each story, some short stories are collected to be analyzed more For example, in the short story “Eclipse”, it has a sentence which has metaphorical expressions denoting fear, “The icy fear pooled in my stomach” Based on the word “icy fear” and

“pooled in”, one or more conceptual metaphors denoting fear could be found here Then, these metaphorical expressions are analyzed one by one to extract the name

of mappings and the related source domain concepts

Seventeen short stories are analyzed, five in English, and twelve in Vietnamese The number of chosen short stories is not the same because the aim here is to focus on analyzing conceptual metaphors, while Vietnamese short stories have fewer metaphors than English ones So the important thing here is that the number of conceptual metaphors, not the number of stories That is the reason why more Vietnamese short stories are chosen to find more conceptual metaphors If five English short stories and five Vietnamese short stories are chosen, there will be more conceptual metaphors in English stories than in Vietnamese ones In order to

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reach a fairly equal number of conceptual metaphors, the number of Vietnamese stories had been increased because only five stories are chosen, the number of conceptual metaphors would be limited If the number of Vietnamese stories had not been increased, the readers would have a fallacy that there are fewer conceptual metaphors in Vietnamese stories than in English ones In fact, if the number of Vietnamese short stories are developed, the more conceptual metaphors could emerge So, the author does not want to make a hasty conclusion that conceptual metaphors in Vietnamese short stories are fewer than in English ones because they exist but in many stories

2.3.1 English contemporary short stories

2.3.1.1 Allan and the Sundered Veil (2000)

“Allan and the Sundered Veil” is a six-part story written in the style of a boy's periodical by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill, included at the back of each issue of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume I and collected at the back of that volume It serves as a prequel to the comic

2.3.1.2 Eclipse (2007)

“Eclipse” is the third story in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer It continues the story of Bella Swan and her vampire love, Edward Cullen The story explores Bella's compromise between her love for Edward and her friendship with shape-shifter Jacob Black, along with her dilemma of leaving her mortality behind

in a terrorized atmosphere, a result of mysterious vampire attacks in Seattle Eclipse received generally positive reviews Critics noted its exploration of more mature themes than those of its predecessors while praising its love triangle and plotting

2.3.1.3 The doll (2011)

“The doll” is written by Daphne du Maurier and it was first published in

2011 This story from the grande dame of suspense caused a bit of a stir when it was discovered several years ago It is the ultimate nightmare of every boyfriend who feels inadequate around dildos and vibrators: a story about a beautiful young

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woman and her leering male sex robot, and this was long before Real Dolls

2.3.1.4 The sloan men (2013)

“The sloan men” is written by David Nickle He is the author of numerous short stories and several novels, including Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism, Rasputin's Bastards, and The Geisters This story is a part of Stoker Award-winner David Nickle‟s collection of short fiction about love in all its horrific proportions The main content of the story is that a young bride and her future mother-in-law have a quiet conversation about the true nature of the men they love and together, learn that the true nature of love may, in fact, be nothing more a terrible trap

2.3.1.5 The open window (2013)

“The open window” is the most popular short story of Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) Saki is well-known for his funny yet often creepy stories It has been said that when we read his stories, “our laughter is only a note or two short of a scream

of fear In “The open window”, a young woman named Vera frightens the visiting

Mr Nuttel with a lie about her uncle, Mr Sappleton, and his two brothers-in-law drowning in a bog When Nuttel sees the men walking toward the house, he assumes they are ghosts who will come in through the open window

2.3.2 Vietnamese contemporary short stories

2.3.2.1 Hoang Đường (2005)

The short story “Hoang Đường” is written by Nguyễn Ngọc Tư She was awarded the Golden Award in 2000 for her short story "Ngọn đèn không tắt" The name Nguyễn Ngọc Tư has become a phenomenon of being young with beautiful and cultural literature style and profound thought The short story “Hoang Đường”

is about a woman who has a warm heart and strong belief in her love She died but she has not known this fact, and she has been waiting for her love to come until the day she actually realizes that she died

2.3.2.2 Cánh đồng bất tận (2005)

“Cánh đồng bất tận” is the name of a short story written by Nguyễn Ngọc Tư

in 2005 Several short stories in the anthology have been adapted into films and

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dramas In 2006, the book won the Vietnam Writers Association Award for outstanding work It is about a unique social stratum in a remote place in Vietnam with unspoken traditions, customs and lifestyles It is found the fierce of rural life through the look of a girl

2.3.2.3 Áo đỏ bắt đèn (2005)

“Áo đỏ bắt đèn” is a another short story of Nguyễn Ngọc Tư It is about a dream of a poor boy In his dream, he saw his father and mother, and he performed

a song in a music contest with his friends

2.3.2.4 Thiên thần nhỏ của tôi (2008)

The short story “Thiên thần nhỏ của tôi” is written by Nguyễn Nhật Ánh, who is specialized in writing for adolescents He is the author of many long stories, short stories, poets, and other types A lot of his works are transferred into films.“Thiên thần nhỏ của tôi” is a sad story about the early days of acquaintances Kha and Hồng Hoa when Kha with his family moved to a new home which used to

be Hồng Hoa‟s home The main character of the story is Kha, a 14-year-old boy who enjoys reading books, raising crickets and Hồng Hoa who is a lovely girl with dimples on the face

2.3.2.5 Áo rách và nắm bụi (2011)

Written by Nguyễn Ngọc Tư, “Áo rách và nắm bụi” shows emotions and feelings of children when an area to the beach is about to be used to construct resorts and a commercial center

2.3.2.6 Lời nguyền của bầy sói (2013)

“Lời nguyền của bầy sói” is written by Hà Thủy Nguyên The story is about

a lonely and tragic life of a person who is caught into a curse to become a wolf at midnight

2.3.2.7 Ngồi khóc trên cây (2013)

Written by Nguyễn Nhật Ánh, the story explores deeply the thoughts and inner concerns of adolescence on a melodramatic tone that resonates with the natural beauty of the mountains, the countryside and the village

2.3.2.8 Những kẻ đợi chết (2013)

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To be one of the stories in the collection of short stories “Bên kia cánh cửa”

by young writer Hà Thủy Nguyên, the story is also about the theme of love and brings readers special emotions difficult to call into words Most stories in the collection are about wandering and indeterminate lives The sadness is permeating through each story and into the reader's heart

2.3.2.9 Núi mây và bồ câu xám (2014)

“Núi mây và bồ câu xám” is a short story of Cao Nguyệt Nguyên written in

2014 The story is about miserable lives of two women They live in an isolated island which is affected by Agent Orange, so they cannot give birth normally

2.3.2.10 Cơm vắt Điện Biên (2014)

“Cơm vắt Điện Biên” of Trần Nguyễn Anh talks about the process and development of the resistance war against France in Điện Biên Phủ and the life of soldiers during that period

2.3.2.11 Bảy bước tới mùa hè (2015)

“Bảy bước tới mùa hè” is the recent work of Nguyễn Nhật Ánh in 2015 This

is a story about a sweet summer with mischievous games and romantic feeling of teenagers It is a literary which wakes up the childhood years of each person Readers will feel like a return to the school full of mischief and the oblique of sentiment

2.4 Data analysis procedure

After collecting data, the analysis of data should be undertaken Each chosen short story is read carefully to identify conceptual metaphors denoting fear The

conceptual metaphors of fear are recorded for each story for further analysis

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The conceptual metaphor of fear is analyzed regarding how target domain,

source domains and the mappings are identified to connect two entities within the

physical, linguistic, or cultural context According to Kövecses (2010), context

could be identified by physical, social, cultural, etc aspects, which may also affect

metaphorical conceptualization For example, metaphorically, the physical context

can form the manner we believe (Boers, 1999) The source domain is determined

based on the characteristics of the source domain as well as the similarities between

the target domain and the source domain The study then discusses the use of

linguistic expressions in the English and Vietnamese short stories which the

mappings can be visualized and explained This analyzing method is illustrated in

the analytical framework as in Figure 1 and the mapping as in Figure 2

Figure 1: Analytical framework

Figure 2: Conceptual metaphors of FEAR

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Next, to identify a conceptual metaphor, the source domains, the target domain, and the mappings must be specified The abstract domain or the target domain here in the study is FEAR The source domains could be things that are concrete and specific An object could be considered the source domain Therefore,

it is necessary to determine the characteristics of an object An object can be defined

as a material thing that can be seen and touched and not alive It also could be a thing to which a specified action is directed According to Booch (1994), some characteristics of an object are identity (a distinct individual), state (various properties) and behavior (do things or have things done to it) So, if in the stories fear is something that can be affected by a verb such as bring, send, hold, touch, etc,

we can conclude that the conceptual metaphor here is Fear is an object

E.g.: He put the fear of God into them

The process of identifying other conceptual metaphors is similar The process is shown in the table below

Table 1: Process of identifying conceptual metaphors of FEAR

- A material thing that can

be seen and touched and not alive or a thing to which a specified action is directed

- Some characteristics of

an object are identity, state and behavior

- He put the fear of God

into them

- Cô gái mang

theo nỗi sợ bên

mình khi quay trở lại ngôi nhà cũ

Fear is

- Low temperature, especially when compared with human body

- Some reactions of human

- He felt cold shivers running

down his spine

- Đi ngang qua

There is the similarity between the reaction of the