Being assiduous: Do we have BITTERNESS or PAIN? the synaesthetic and conceptual metaphors of BITTERNESS and PAIN in Chinese and english

Jiajuan Xiong, Chu-ren Huang

Research output: Chapter in book / Conference proceedingConference article published in proceeding or bookAcademic researchpeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper examines both synaesthetic and conceptual metaphors of BITTERNESS and PAIN in Chinese and English. In terms of synaesthetic metaphor, BITTERNESS is more versatile than PAIN, as the former can be transferred to more sensory domains than the latter. Regardless of the sensory domains, the synaesthetic metaphor basically inherits the negative polarity in both Chinese and English. Regarding conceptual metaphor, both BITTERNESS and PAIN exhibit noticeable cross-linguistic differences. Specifically, EFFORT IS BITTERNESS and INTENSITY IS PAIN are attested in Chinese, while EFFORT IS PAIN and INTENSITY IS BITTERNESS are in operation in English. Whenever EFFORT is targeted, the expression at issue obliterates the negative sense of BITTER and PAIN, probably because the concept of “effort” is cross-culturally positive.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationChinese Lexical Semantics - 16th Workshop, CLSW 2015, Revised Selected Papers
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages15-23
Number of pages9
ISBN (Print)9783319271934
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2015
Event16th Workshop on Chinese Lexical Semantics Workshop, CLSW 2015 - Beijing, China
Duration: 9 May 201511 May 2015

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9332
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference16th Workshop on Chinese Lexical Semantics Workshop, CLSW 2015
Country/TerritoryChina
CityBeijing
Period9/05/1511/05/15

Keywords

  • BITTERNESS
  • Chinese
  • English
  • Metaphor
  • PAIN
  • Synaesthesia

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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