Exploring Metaphorical Representations of Home and Social Relationships in English and Vietnamese: A Cultural Perspective
Keywords:
conceptual metaphor theory, cultural cognition, home, metaphor, social relationshipsAbstract
The current study explores the metaphorical conceptualization of home and social relationships in the English and Vietnamese languages building on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as a conceptual background. Using a mixed-methods approach, this research has a mixture of qualitative interpretation of metaphorical language of corpora and dictionaries, and quantitative data of a survey based on 70 research participants (both native and bilingual). The results indicate culturally specific metaphoric patterns: Vietnamese metaphors tend to be architecture and nature-based (e.g., A FAMILY IS A HOUSE), and hence reflect the values of collectivism that require set predetermined hierarchy, security, and interdependence; contrastingly, English metaphors are journey, and emotional-based (e.g., LOVE IS A JOURNEY), and thus lead to individualism and development. Such metaphors are not only shaping means of expression in linguistics, they indicate more to the sociocultural cognition. The research has a certain value to cross-cultural cognitive linguistics as it can contribute insight regarding the mediation of cultural conceptions of belonging, identity, and interpersonal relationships through metaphor.
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