英汉纵向空间维度词认知隐喻的对比——以“高／低，high／low”为例

摘要

This paper firstly gives a brief introduction on the spatial metaphor and its characteristics; then through plenty of examples, it makes a comparison between Chinese and English vertical spatial words ＂high/low＂ from the angle of cognitive lingnistics. It finds that there are some common traits in both languages due to the same experience of the physical world, and the metaphorical mappings of ＂high/low＂ mainly cover the domain of quantity, social status and degree, evaluation, emotions, sensory organs, time and other spatial relations. However, because of the different cultures, customs, historical experiences and cognitive mode of the two nations, there are also differences when many abstract concepts are constructed through spatial metaphor.%从认知角度对英汉纵向空间维度词“高／低，high／low”的隐喻特征进行对比分析，可以发现，由于英汉两民族对物理空间共同的感知体验，在对“高／低”空间特征的认识上表现出相同的一面：空间维度的意象图式大致相同，都存在由空间域向“数量及类数量域”、“社会地位及等级域”、“品质与道德的评价域”、“情绪域”、“感官域”、“时间域”及其他维度的投射，并且在这些隐喻域中，双方多数情况下都能找到与之对应的表达方法。然而，由于两个民族在文化、风俗习惯、历史经验和认知方式上不尽相同，因此空间概念在隐喻性地构筑其他概念方面也存在一定的差异。