A COGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF “A LIFETIME IS A YEAR” IN ENGLISH AND CHINESE LITERARY TEXTS

Abstract

The primary function of metaphor is to understand difficult , abstract, complex or less delineated concepts (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) and writers and poets try to use metaphor to express and describe the life concept. This study concerns one conceptual metaphors “lifetime is a year” in English and Chinese literary texts and to explore if the metaphor is used in exactly the same ways using the theoretical framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory as initiated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003). The findings show that the metaphor “a lifetime is a year” is shared both in English and Chinese literary texts

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