Contrastive Analysis on the Conceptual Metaphor of the Temperature Term “Cool” in English and Chinese

Abstract

Temperature is a physical quantity in nature that represents the degree of heat and cold of an object. It is a basic and important human experience of the external environment, and plays a key role in our construction of cognitive schemas. Chinese temperature words are divided into “re”, “wen”, “liang” and “han”, and it is believed that these four basic temperature words can reflect people’s basic understanding of temperature category. The same division of temperature exists in English: “hot, warm, cool, cold”. From the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory, this paper systematically analyzes the metaphorical meaning of the temperature term “cool/liang” in English and Chinese languages. Through research, it was found that the concepts of “cool/liang” are based on the physical experience and extend more abstract concepts both in English and Chinese. The metaphorical meanings of “cool/liang” are affected by factors such as regional and cultural background and presents different characteristics. Through the English-Chinese comparison of “cool/liang”, it is found that Westerners will pay more attention to rationality, while Chinese will pay more attention to sensibility as well as people’s emotional significance.