A Comparative Study of the Emotional Metaphors of Chinese-Korean Idioms for Body Parts

Metaphor is a powerful tool for human beings to understand and express abstract concepts. Both Chinese and Korean have idioms for body part metaphors based on people’s long-term cultural experiences. This paper uses documentary and inductive methods to analyze the similarities and differences between Chinese and Korean body part metaphors in terms of metaphor type, high cognitive site, and mapping pattern based on comparing basic semantics.


Introduction
Idioms are short, stereotypical, and idiomatic phrases used in everyday life, with the characteristics of being concise, vivid, and easy to understand [1]. The idioms are common expressions in the language life of China and Korea, and they have deep historical roots, reflecting national psychology and life customs. Therefore, studying Chinese and Korean idioms from the perspective of linguistics and other humanities and social sciences is necessary. The study of the ontology of idiomatic expressions in modern Chinese started early and has been fruitful, but there are few comparative studies of Chinese-Korean idiomatic expressions. After 2005, several dissertations on the study of Chinese and Korean idioms have appeared, such as Huang Xianji (2010) [2], Zhu Daoqing (2012) [3], Li Hailian (2012) [4], Zheng Zairu (2013) [5], etc. Among them, the studies on the idioms of human body parts focus primarily on the "five senses" and "hands and feet." They are mainly based on comparative semantic analysis, while the studies from the perspective of emotional concept metaphor are fewer and still in the preliminary stage. With the outbreak of the epidemic, the number of Koreans coming to China to learn Chinese will continue to increase. As an essential part of the idiom, the idiom of human body parts appears very frequently in both languages, especially when expressing one's emotions. In this context, conducting a comparative study of Chinese-Korean emotional body metaphor idioms is essential. Therefore, this paper will explore the differences and similarities in the cognitive mechanisms and causes of emotional metaphors in Chinese-Korean body part idioms, using a cognitive-linguistic framework of metaphor theory to deepen the conceptualization and understanding of the language and culture of China and Korea.

Definition of the Concept of Body Part Idioms
In Chinese, scholars have many views on the definition of idioms. Ma Guofan (1980), for example, argues that "idioms are fixed phrases whose meaning is abstract in its entirety and whose structure is a unity of flexibility and dialectic" [6]. Lv Jiping (1987) argues that idioms have a relatively fixed structural form, their meaning is integral, and they are often used in spoken language for rhetorical purposes [7]. In Korea, scholars also have many different opinions on idioms. Kim Moon Chang (1974) suggests that "idioms are phrases formed by two or more words, and their structure is stereotyped" [8]. According to Lee Hee Seung (1998), "idioms are fixed phrases that have been used for many years, are widely used, and have an overall meaning after the combination of two or more words" [9]. In this way, Chinese and Korean scholars hold different views on the definition of idioms but generally agree that idioms are phrases with more fixed forms with meanings that go beyond their surface role and are often used in spoken language.
Taking the connotations mentioned above and characteristics of Chinese-Korean idioms as the basic definition, this paper compares the emotional expressions of Chinese-Korean human idioms from a metaphorical perspective, using "idioms are fixed phrases that are strongly spoken and used in everyday life" and taking as the object of study those idioms related to human body parts.

The Cognitive Metaphorical Basis of Emotional Expression
Cognitive linguistics argues that idiomatic meanings arise from human cognitive structures with systematic conceptual justifications. The mapping of conceptual structuresmetaphors, metonymy-forms the cognitive basis of the idiomatic mechanism. The conceptual metaphor theory was proposed by Lakoff and Johnson [10]. The theory argues that metaphor is not just a linguistic phenomenon but a way of human thinking, the essence of which is to use a familiar, tangible, concrete thing or experience to understand an intangible or hard-to-define thing or experience, a way of cognition in which different concepts are related to each other.
Lakoff and Johnson categorize conceptual metaphors from a cognitive perspective into three categories: structural metaphors, orientation metaphors, and ontological metaphors.
Structural metaphors refer to the construction of one concept in terms of another, using words that talk about aspects of one concept to talk about another, e.g., "time is money," where the concept of time is organized and understood through the concept of money. Words used to talk about "money" can be used for "time," such as "spend time," "waste time," "save time," etc. The concept of time is organized and understood through the concept of money.
Most orientation metaphors relate to spatial orientation, for example, up and down, front and back, depth, etc. These spatial orientations come from our bodies and their role in the physical environment. For example, "Happy is up." It is the conceptualization of "happy" as an orientation "up" that leads to the expression "I am feeling up today." Ontological metaphor is projecting something concrete onto something abstract, i.e., using an "object" or "substance" to express an abstract concept. Anthropomorphism is the most apparent form of ontological metaphor. For example, "Inflation is draining our profits." Inflation, when anthropomorphized, becomes the "enemy" that will consume us. The "container metaphor" is an essential concept in ontological metaphors and can conceptualize many human situations. Any physical space with boundaries can be understood as a container with an inside and an outside.
The study of emotional language from the perspective of cognitive metaphor also began with Lakoff and Johnson. They pointed out that emotional metaphor is a cognitive phenomenon, a product of the interaction between semantic domains [10]. Kovecses further builds on this view by stating that emotional metaphors are influenced and conditioned by human physiological structures and internal psychological and cultural factors. Conceptual metaphors are the most dominant way of conceptualizing emotions [11]. Previous research findings show that comparative studies on the emotional language between China and Korea have focused on Chinese-English and Korean-English comparisons, with fewer studies on the similarities and differences between Chinese-Korean emotional language and even fewer studies using the idioms of body parts as an entry point. The comparative study of Chinese and Korean emotional metaphors is a comparative study of different national languages within the same cultural circle, which is more relevant and comparable in terms of language, culture, and national psychology than Chinese-English or Korean-English and has a more significant research value. This paper takes the metaphorical expressions of the four basic human emotions, "joy, anger, sadness, and fear," as the object of study. Combining Lakoff's conceptual metaphor theory and Kovecses' emotion metaphor theory, it classifies the emotion metaphors appearing in Chinese and Korean body parts idioms, analyzes their similarities and differences and the reasons for them, and explores the cognitive commonalities and ethnicity behind them.

A Comparative Analysis of the Emotional Expressions of Chinese-Korean Body Parts Idioms
In Chinese and Korean, some idioms use body parts to express emotions, most of which are spoken daily. There are many similarities and differences between Chinese and Korean regarding the type of metaphor, the high cognitive area, and the mode of metaphorical projection.

Joy
When people's needs are met, they feel "joy." The expression "joy" is found in both Chinese and Korean idioms for body parts; see Table 1.

Similarities
Both Chinese and Korean have the orientation metaphor of "happy is up," such as "嘴角上扬" "입꼬리가 올라가다" (the corners of the mouth rise). This is because human perceptions of space and orientation were formed earlier, and the conceptualization of abstract things in terms of space and orientation was also formed earlier in language. In human perception, the head is at the top and dominates everything about the body. Therefore, the orientation "up" symbolizes a more dominant, buoyant object. From an emotional point of view, joy is also positive and can be naturally associated with the "up" orientation. Regarding physical experience, when joy is experienced, the face is naturally stretched out. The eyes, eyebrows, and corners of the mouth are raised, so the words expressing joy have an "up" orientation. When expressing joy, Chinese and Korean often abstract the "heart, chest, and bosom" as an "emotional container," with the concrete emotions being the contents of the container. When this emotion (the load) exceeds the capacity of the container, the container (heart, chest, and bosom) becomes inflated, expressing the satisfaction the joy feels. In Chinese, the emotional container of pleasure, "heart," is often conceptualized as a flower, as in "心花怒放" and "乐开了花" (heart in bloom). This expression conceptualizes joy as "(the) blossoming heart."

Differences
The body parts used to express joy differ between Chinese and Korean. In Chinese. "eyebrow" is an integral part of the body to express joy, such as "喜上眉梢"(one's delight appears around the eyebrows), and "眉开眼笑" (eyebrows raise and smile). In Korean, however, "eyebrow" is not an important part of the face for expressing joy, so it is rarely used as a source domain to conceptualize the target domain of "joy." The metaphorical mapping of the "eyebrow" is unique to Han culture. Unlike Chinese, Korean often uses the "belly button," like "laugh the belly button off," as the source domain to map to the "laughing" target domain, whereas Chinese focus on the entire abdomen. In addition, Korean also exaggerates when describing a person's joy as a "tearing" of the corners of the mouth, such as "입이 귀까지 찢어지다" (mouth is torn below the ear), while Chinese is "笑掉大牙" (laugh one's teeth off). Although both are highly exaggerated, the areas of exaggeration are different. In Korean, the word "shrug" is often used to express joy because traditional Korean dance involves much shrugging or shaking of the shoulders. People often "sing and dance" when happy, so Koreans often use the musical sphere to express joy.  Anger is a relatively strong emotion; this universal physiological response is often highly perceptible. As a result, anger-related idioms in Chinese and Korean tend to show their intrinsic consistency. They are dominated by the human body metaphor, which is manifested in the exact metaphorical location and metaphorical manner, as shown in Table 2.

Anger
Regarding metaphor types, it is common to describe anger with visual "face change" in Chinese and Korean. When angry, the blood vessels dilate, and the blood in the skin increases, which makes the face red. This same physiological change leads to the commonality of metaphors in Chinese and Korean idioms about the change of face when angry, "red" accounts for the vast majority. For example, "red in the face and thick in the neck" is used to describe the redness of the face when angry, while other colours are less used to describe anger.
There is a metaphor for "anger is fire" in Chinese and Korean. People will not directly describe the process of turning red but indirectly describe the change of complexion with "fire" and "qi," externalizing emotions into visible and sensible entities, such as "大动肝火" "간이 뒤집히다" (the liver is full of fire), "气炸肺" "부아통(부아가)이 터지다" (lungs explode with anger). Among these expressions, people regard "anger" as "matter" (fire, qi, etc.) and put it in various organ containers, which is a standard cognitive model of emotional concept metaphor.

Sadness
Chinese and Korean have many body part idioms to express sadness, as follows:

Similarities
The expressions of sadness in both Chinese and Korean are "downward." When people feel sad, their muscles contract slowly, and their limbs become weak, usually drooping. This concrete representation is projected onto the abstract sadness emotion, which produces the directional metaphor of "sadness is down," such as "脸色沉了下来" (face sinks) and "心往下沉" "가슴이 무겁다" (heart sinks).
In addition, when expressing sadness, the highly cognitive body organ in Chinese and Korean is the "intestine." People use "intestines are broken into pieces" to describe extreme sadness, which is a conceptual expression extending from physical space to psychological space and compares the pain of "intestines broken" to psychological "sadness."

Differences
Both "sour" and "bitterness" are irritating and unpleasant tastes, and when people are sad, their body temperature drops. This expression, which combines human and sensory metaphors, can better describe the degree of sadness. Therefore, in Chinese, people often map external sensory categories, such as sour taste, bitter taste, and cold feeling, to sad emotional categories, such as "心酸" "心里苦" "心寒" (have a sour, bitter, or cold heart with sadness).

Fear
Fear is one of the basic emotions of human beings, which refers to "unpleasant emotions caused by facing danger" [12]. The idioms expressing fear in Chinese and Korean are shown in the following table:

Similarities
Both Chinese and Korean associate "fear" with "cold," such as "面色苍白" (pale face) and "등짝이 서늘하다" (a chill in the back spine). This is because when people are afraid, the blood circulation is not smooth, their face will turn pale, and their body temperature drops, which is the most directly perceived external physiological phenomenon.

Differences
In Chinese, idioms expressing "fear" often form metaphors with "gallbladder," while in Korean, "liver" is often used to express fear, such as "간이 서늘하다" (have a cold liver with fear). In Chinese, the specific body parts of idioms expressing "fear" also involve "head," "nose," and "hips," which are not found in Korean.

A Summary of the Similarities and Differences of Emotional Expressions in Chinese and Korean Body Parts Idioms
First, the emotional expression of Chinese and Korean body part idioms has a common metaphorical basis in terms of metaphorical types.
Regarding orientation metaphor, both Chinese and Korean have conceptual metaphors of "joy is up" and "sadness is down." Regarding sensory metaphors, both Chinese and Koreans use temperature, vision, and taste to modify emotions. Among them "anger is hot," "fear is cold," "fear is black," "sadness is gray," and "anger is red." "sour" and "bitter" are often related to negative sadness, while "sweet" is often mapped to positive joy. At the same time, in terms of container metaphor, Chinese and Koreans regard organs such as the eyes, heart, chest, and abdomen as containers of emotions, and specific emotions are the carriers of containers.
In addition, among Chinese and Korean idioms about human body parts, human body metaphors are the most abundant, while structural metaphors are almost absent.
Secondly, there are similarities and differences in the emotional expression of Chinese and Korean body part idioms in high cognitive parts. The high cognitive part of emotion is often involved in emotional language. There are many idioms in both Chinese and Korean that express emotions with "eyes," such as "眉飞色舞" (with dancing eyebrows and an expressive face) and "눈에 칼을 세우다" (a knife in the eye). At the same time, influenced by traditional Chinese medicine and Confucianism, both countries believe that the internal organs of the human body contain some human emotions, among which the heart is the most important so that the heart can bear all kinds of emotions in both languages, such as "乐开了花" (heart in bloom), "가슴에 불이나다" (anger rises from the heart), "心寒" (have a cold heart with sadness), and "가슴이 벌떡거리다" (chest goes pit-a-pat).
Different languages have different frequencies of using the same part. For example, although they all express feelings of fear, Chinese often uses "gallbladder," such as "吓破胆" (gallbladder is broken because of fear), while Korean often uses "liver," such as "간이 서늘하다" (have a cold liver with fear). In addition, in Chinese emotional expression, "eyebrow" is one of the essential parts that can be used to express various emotions, such as "喜上眉梢" and "眉开眼笑" (eyebrows raise and smile). Still, few emotional expressions related to "eyebrows" in Korean exist.
Finally, there are similarities and differences in the mapping patterns of emotional watchbands in Chinese and Korean idioms about human body parts.
The similarity is that the literal meanings of "source domain" and "target domain" are equivalent. From the above table, we can see many idioms of emotional metaphors in Chinese and Korean with the same source domain and target domain. For example, when expressing anger or shyness in Chinese and Korean, they all describe the "face" as the source domain based on the physiological changes of "blushing." Another example is that when expressing anger, both Chinese and Korean use "lungs" in unison, forming expressions such as "气炸肺" and "간장이 끊어지다" (the liver and the intestines are broken into pieces).
The difference is that the source domain or target domain is different. Different target domains mean that the literal meanings of Chinese and Korean idioms are the same, but their literal meanings contain different metaphorical expressions. For example, although the source domains of Chinese and Korean idioms are both "noses," their target domains are different, with Chinese idioms "气得鼻子都歪了" (so angry that the nose is skew) and Korean idioms "烂醉如泥" (be dead drunk). This metaphor exists in idioms whose target domain is an emotional expression and in human body idioms in other target domains. For example, the target domain of the source domain "下黑手검은 손을 뻗치다" is "injury" in Chinese but "temptation or bad influence" in Korean.
Different origins mean that Chinese and Korean body part idioms have different literal meanings but the same metaphors. For example, the target domain is "very angry", the idiom in Chinese is "气炸肺了" (lungs explode with anger) with the source domain of "lung," and the idiom in Korean is "오장을 뒤집다" (overturn of five internal organs) with the source domain of "internal organs." This is the most common type of metaphorical differences.

Reasons for the Similarities and Differences of Emotional Expressions in Chinese and Korean Idioms of Body Parts
Although humans live in different regions, their physiological structures are roughly identical. Therefore, the metaphors about the human body of different nationalities are similar to a great extent, but in the process of cognition, different nationalities will show cultural tendencies and uniqueness. This is also the reason why there are similarities and differences in the emotional expression of Chinese and Korean body idioms.

Physiological Similarity is the Basis of Metaphor Commonality
The physiological changes of emotions are shared worldwide, and all ethnic groups have similarities. Emotional metaphors involving idioms of human body parts are similar to human body experience. There are similar semantic features between Chinese and Korean body metaphor idioms. The fundamental reason is that they have the same cognitive approach. The mapping of human body metaphors in both languages is based on the similarity of the position, structure, shape, and function of human body parts or organs. It follows the cognitive laws of familiarity and strangeness, concreteness and abstraction, tangible and intangible, and directly consciously identifies with the world, thus confirming the philosophy of experience. The metaphorical cognitive model of Chinese and Korean proves the cognitive commonality of the two nations. It can be said that the same physiological structure and reaction determine that the emotional metaphors of Chinese and Korean idioms are more similar than different.

Cultural Uniqueness is the Reason for Metaphor Differentiation
Although the physiological changes of emotion are universal, in the process of cognition, it will show cultural tendentiousness and uniqueness. The essence of the internal differences in emotional metaphors mainly lies in the differences in cultural background. When people with different cultural backgrounds face similar or identical emotions, they will have different understandings and explanations. Idioms are influenced by history, culture, and life experience, and these factors belong to cultural differences in the cognitive sense. For example, "拍马屁" (flattery) in Chinese has no corresponding allusion in Korean, so it is difficult to find a lexical equivalence between them. The conceptual system of each language is different. Although human body metaphor is a ubiquitous way of thinking, people's cognition of the world is also based on national thinking and cultural psychology, which leads to different language expressions expressing the same cognitive structure in different cultures, thus forming the phenomenon that people of different nationalities have similarities and differences in their metaphorical ways and expressions of body nouns.

Conclusion
From the perspective of metaphor, based on Lakoff's conceptual metaphor theory and Kovecses' emotional metaphor theory, this paper makes a comparative study of the parts of Chinese and Korean body part idioms related to the four emotions of "joy, anger, sadness, and fear" and finds that there are similarities and significant differences between Chinese and Korean body part idioms, which are embodied in metaphor types, high cognitive parts, and mapping patterns. These similarities and differences are due to the similarities and differences in body structure, thinking mode, and cognitive mechanisms between the two nations. Due to the limited level of the author, there are still some shortcomings in this paper. For example, it isn't easy to make a more concrete and in-depth comparison of the cognitive thinking differences reflected in Chinese and Korean idioms about human body parts. It is seldom combined with language contact theory to analyze the corpus. It is hoped that more relevant research results will be published in this field in the future, providing rich reference materials for language and cultural exchanges between China and South Korea and providing more reference and help for language teachers and learners in both countries.

Acknowledgments
Throughout the writing of this dissertation, I have received a great deal of support and assistance.
I would first like to thank Professor Zhang Yanhua, whose expertise was invaluable in inspiring my interest in linguistics and formulating research questions.
In addition, I would like to thank my parents for their wise counsel and sympathetic ears. You are always there for me.
Finally, I could not have completed this dissertation without the support of my friend Shi Tingyu, who provided stimulating discussions and happy distractions to rest my mind outside of my research.