“眼”的隐喻意义

“眼”的隐喻意义

作者：王静

来源：《语言文字学》2015年第04期

摘 要：作为一种修辞手法，隐喻在日常生活的各个领域被广泛使用，包括英语和汉语。本篇将从五个不同的方面讨论“眼”的隐喻意义。 关键词：隐喻；“眼”；意义 一、Introduction：

Metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon， but also a cognitive phenomenon of our human beings. It is a cognitive activity which humans use the experience in one field to explain and

understand that of another field. In this activity， body is the main part of cognition. The practice， obtained in the process of the interaction between body and the outside world， is the basis for humans to know the objective world. “Eye” occupies the most important position， all thins in the world are observed and recognized by eyes. So， in this paper， we will discuss the metaphor use of “eye”. 二、Body

1. The Original Meaning and Its Direct Cast

“Eye” is the visual organ of men or animals. The original meaning of vision is the feeling

produced when the image of objects touches the retina， but it is commonly regarded as the external objects which is seen by the line of vision. Many meanings of „line of vision” has by extension come to metaphor of “eye”.

Then， the position of eyes is the two holes in the face， so “eye” is usually used to describe the holes， cavities in the body or lifeless， e.g.： “throat（嗓子眼儿）”， “belly button（肚脐眼）”. The characteristic of “eye” can extend to be used as measure word.

Furthermore， the words which describe eyes can cast to the concept field such as description， action and so on. The cast from body field to reference field belongs to a special metaphor process----metonymy. E.g. “势利眼” refers to the person with snobbish attitude. “Eye” is also used to describe the key to a matter and in the action field， so we have these formulations in Chinese “起眼、显眼、现眼、惹眼”.

2. Container Metaphor

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According to the research of epistemology， the important cognitive features of the interaction between man and external environment are mental perception through sensory organs， kin aesthesia and imagery. There first forms a space relationship between man and the outside world. Not only the clothes， cars， houses are container， but also body itself is a container， we have meals， drinks， we have a breath of fresh air， we just have them in and let them out through the container----body.

Putting the information， emotion of the external world into the container is a metaphor process of recognizing the world if we consider eye as container. Now that eye is a container， it certainly has depth with the functions of open and close， so the container metaphor of eye can have many forms of expression， e.g. “a throne in one‟s flesh （眼中钉）”， “eyes blurred by tears （泪眼模糊）” etc.

3. Emotion Metaphor

Emotion is the most common and important experience in life. The cognition and emotion can influence each other. The cognitive science believes that the change of emotion always goes with the abnormal behavior of body； physiological basic can determine the generalization of emotion in a very large sense. But emotion is an abstract and indescribable feeling， in order to describe the abstract feeling in a vivid way； people often use their metaphor meanings.

In Chinese， there are many metaphor meanings that concern with “eye”. “Eye” can express all kinds of emotions such as happiness， anger， grief and joy---- the gamut of human being if paired up with different verbs and adjectives. 4. Color Metaphor

Color is an important cognitive target and category. After master the basic types and features of color， human beings begin to cast it to the cognition and expression of other things. The newly-built color words are not used for describing the true color of eyes， but have a special metaphor meaning. We often use “白眼” to describe the expression of looking down upon others. “白眼狼” refers to those who devoid of gratitude and heartless， “眼红” means the envious psychology， it also means hatred. For example， “The personal enemies would feel great enmity towards each other when they meet （仇人相见分外眼红）” 5. Capacity Metaphor

Men always desire they will have exceptionally good capacity when they are conquering the nature and enemies. The direct image towards the visual organ----eye by human is “have sharp eyes （眼观六路）”， “have eyes sharp enough to perceive an animal‟s autumn hair----be perceptive of the minutest detail （明察秋毫）”. Furthermore， many extraordinary capacities have connections

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with vision， there are many capacity metaphor based on “eye” in Chinese expressions. For

example， “A person with a discerning eye will know this company is swindling customers at the first sight （明眼人一看就知道，这家公司在欺诈消费者）”. 三、 Collusion

“In all languages， most of the manifestation， involving the lifeless things， is the metaphor which borrowed from the body and the feeling and lust of parts of body.” Metaphor is based on the basic experience of human beings‟. Eye is also the basic organ of human beings‟； this paper has just studies some different metaphor meanings of eye. 参考文献：

[1] 赵艳芳：《认知语言学概论》，上海外语教育出版社 2001. [2] 卢卫中：《人体隐喻化得认知特点》，《外语教学》 2003. [3] 束定芳：《隐喻学研究》，上海外语教育出版社，2000.

作者简介：王静（1985-），女，汉族，四川江油人，硕士研究生，西南科技大学外国语学院，主要研究方向：翻译理论与实践。