Grammatical Metaphor in Chinese

Abstract

This thesis presents a comprehensive study of Grammatical Metaphor (GM) in Chinese by investigating the identification, the categorization and the deployment of GM in the language, and comparing these aspects of GM in Chinese with those found in English. This study establishes a theoretical framework for identifying GM in Chinese and categorizes GM in Chinese by referring to the detailed metaphorical realizations specified in the framework. This study investigates GM deployment in Chinese by analyzing a corpus formed by 37 texts. It is found that GM deployment in Chinese is determined jointly by the general tendency of GM construction and typological properties of Chinese. In addition, this study shows that the deployment of GM in Chinese is affected by context of culture and language development. The detailed exploration of GM differences in Chinese and English focuses on three aspects: 1) the formal distance between congruent and metaphorical expressions, 2) the subdivision of certain GM categories and 3) the extent of using GM. The differences are explained by linking them to the typological variations between the two languages.