晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）
agricultural products are usual in Chinese love poems. The bloom and the decline of the agricultural products usually are used to be the reflection of highs and lows in the love relationship. This is a special metaphor of love in Chinese.
In ancient times, Chinese ancestors began to raise silkworms and produce silk, and China took the leading position in silkworm raising and silk production. People grew mulberry trees to raise silkworms to produce silk, also the development of the Silk Road led to an economic boom in China, and every household was familiar with silkworm and mulberry leaf. Therefore, love is frequently conceptualized as“丝”(silk), “蚕”(silkworm), and “桑叶”(mulberry leaf) in many poems. The silkworms in Spring will not stop producing silk until they die. So poets often employ this fact to express one’s love for the beloved, just like the silkworm, people in love will not stop missing until they die.
The silk itself has some features shared by love concept. The silk takes the shape long threads for binding things together, with the implication of the binding strength of love; and silk can also be woven into net, reflecting love as something tangled. All these features can be projected into the domain of love. Also in Chinese character, the word \丝) has the same pronunciation with the word \思). Missing each other constitutes a major part in the concept of love, so silk becomes an important target domain in expressing the romantic love and missing, and poets often employ “丝” to indicate the \poems. such as:春情多艳逸，春意倍相思。愁心极杨柳，一种乱如丝。天与多情丝一把，谁厮惹，千条万缕萦心下。
4.3.2 Love is a predestined relationship
(1) 一个是阆苑仙葩，一个是美玉无瑕，若说没奇缘，今生偏又遇着他；若说有奇缘，如何心事终虚话。
(2) 如何让你遇见我，在我最美丽的时刻。为此，我已在佛前求了五百年，求它让我们结一段尘缘。
Conceptual metaphor \is a predestined relationship\is rooted in Buddhism originated in India. After Buddhism came to China, according to Buddhist philosophy, \the Buddhist is faith in cause and effect. In other words, everything in the universe has its causes, and causes create results. Under the influence of this ideology, people think
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晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）
marriage is doomed. It is the continual affinity of their previous life. In this way, it is understood that each other's fate is accidental. They know each other, then fell in love, and got married at last. However, this unique origin do not exist in English-speaking countries, so there is no such conceptual metaphors in English love poetry.
Metaphors in the poetry make the poems much more beautiful and help the poets to express the abstract ideas by presenting a logical comparison. The research of the classification of love metaphors in English and Chinese poems and the exploration of respective underlying cultural influence have supported and reinforced the contemporary cognitive theory of metaphor. 4.3.3 Love is music
(1) 今日也鱼水和谐,燕莺成对,琴瑟相调。
(2) 弋言加之，与子宜之。宜言饮酒，与子偕老。琴瑟在御，莫不静好。 Since ancient times, an advocate of music, piano and Joseph appears in the ancient Chinese musical instrument, which are usually played out beautifully together in harmony. The music is used to describe the feelings of harmony between the couple. In this metaphor, the appropriate match of music instruments can also refer to a nice match of the couple, which is a higher evaluation for the marriage in China.
4.4 Reasons of similarities and differences
There are some principles conceptual metaphors shared in English and Chinese. Emergence of these conceptual metaphors is due to a common body and life experience. The bodies and brains of human being are similar in nature, so our cognitive structures are also similar. Owing to the common physiological structure, some basic bodily experiences are common among all human beings. Towards the feeling of love, the physiological response is universal. Since human beings have similar reactions towards love, so it is natural for English and Chinese poets to have similarities in their recognition of the world by means of love metaphors.
Conceptual metaphors such as journey, plants, disease, love, shining objects are derived from common human body experience. The journey, disease, and a shining object, are the reflection of common life experiences. Metaphor theory to human organism is based on their social and physical environment. Generally it is believed that our system is a
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晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）
mapping process from abstract concept to a concrete metaphor domain. Metaphorical mapping is not random but is rooted in the basic human experience. Cognitive and linguistic commonalities exist as some basic physical and life experiences are common to all of them. Language is a common experience in different areas. It is part of a rational thought and its performance. Cognitive systems constitute psychological basis of language performance. The reason of the same source domain in English and Chinese love poetry metaphor is the similarity of body structure and body experience. These are common human experiences and materials. Because human cognitive activity are rooted in the everyday experience of physical and material experiences. They are the same for different ethnic people and objects , so the concept of the universality of mankind exits. Common metaphor source domain in Chinese and English love poetry is the result of the fact that Chinese and British peoples have experienced the same physical and material experience.
Since ancient times, China is a landlocked country, so agriculture, inland farming culture consist of traditional Chinese culture, and there are a lot of Chinese poetry and metaphor concepts is related to agricultural production, such as love is in agricultural production.
In addition to the natural environment and the physical environment, a broad cultural context is another factor that could cause differences of love metaphors in English and Chinese poetry. Broader cultural context is a complex system that includes all aspects of a given Culture, such as religion, social values, and customs and so on. In this paper, we will select two basic and key components, religious and social values, to have a detailed analysis.
In China, since Buddhism was introduced into China, most people believe in Buddhism, which influence almost every aspect of people's lives. One important feature is the Buddhist reincarnation of the human soul transmigration. It is believed that the cause and effect, that is to say, all the results are caused by the pre-existence. So human relationships, such as love and marriage is doomed, in the human pre-existence. With the impact of this belief, in a love relationship, many Chinese people will believe in fate, and not express directly or fight for their happiness.
Unlike China's Buddhist, Christian faith is the most influential in western countries. It
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晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）
has become an important part of people's daily lives to the westerners. The Bible, great work of Christianity, is the most valuable and extensive book in western culture. According to the Bible, man is born sinful, so he must try to train himself for courage to conquer nature, and at last he can get God's salvation. Those trying to get what he wants through the industrious brave struggle are highly appreciated and respected by all, and those who obey the fate usually are despised. The famous saying: \itself is a typical expression of this point of view, Westerners do not tend to obey the fate that love is meant to be. Instead, they like to pursuit their lover, and express their love directly and bravely.
To summarize, the natural and physical environment, broader cultural context are two main factors which can cause cultural variation of love metaphors in English and Chinese. Within the factor of broader cultural context, religion and social values are the two most basic aspects which can shape love metaphors due to their all-around influence on people’s characters, beliefs, thought, behaviors etc.
ⅤConclusion
Metaphors in the poetry make the poems much more beautiful and help the poets to express the abstract ideas by presenting a logical comparison. The research of the classification of love metaphors in English and Chinese poems and the exploration of perspective underlying cultural influence have supported and reinforced the contemporary cognitive theory of metaphor. Just as Lakoff proposes that although there is an extensive range of non-metaphorical concepts, as soon as one gets away from concrete physical experience and starts talking about abstractions or emotions, metaphorical understanding is the norm.
This study supports his claim from the aspect of emotions empirically. This thesis analyzes the love metaphors in English and Chinese poems from the perspective of cognition and culture, and provides sufficient evidence to show that English and Chinese poems share many major metaphors in their conception of love. The similarities strongly support the claim that there exist cognitive universality and linguistic universality, since the conceptualization of the world and the metaphorical mappings are grounded in our bodily
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晋中学院本科生毕业论文（设计）
experiences and physical reactions to the surrounding environment.
At the same time, English and Chinese poems have some specific love metaphors. These differences reflect the cultural relativity of these two nations, abstract concepts including emotions are understood metaphorically in respective cultural background. The differences can be accounted for by different cultural perceptions, and cultural perceptions play a significant role in constituting our perceiving of the employing metaphors.
Aiming at a comparative analysis of love metaphors in English and Chinese poems against cultural background, the paper is a supplement to the existing ideas of love metaphors, and also provides a certain perspective to the study of love metaphors. However, the author only collects the most typical and classical English and Chinese love poems due to limit ability and time, so there may be other love metaphors. It doesn’t touch upon the cultural elements influencing the conceptualization of love metaphors and is not comprehensive, so more aspects need to be included.
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