Abstract：Emotion is a more complex and stable experience on the physical attitude, whose specific forms are happiness, sadness, anger, etc. However, metaphor acts as a bridge between the concrete and abstract things, offering the possibility for understanding emotions. Emotional metaphor is one kind of metaphor, and happiness is one of the most important human emotions. Therefore, people use metaphors of the abstract emotion of happiness on the basis of perception and cognition, making the abstract emotion vividly expressed.

In this study, a variety of emotion metaphors in both English and Chinese are   investigated. Meanwhile, it reclassifies the happiness metaphor and discusses the characteristics and the types of happiness metaphor. After a comprehensive analysis and comparison, following conclusions can be drawn: the concept of emotion metaphors in English and Chinese shows the similarities and differences to a certain degree. Take one for example: English often uses natural phenomena to express emotions, such as happiness is “pleasant weather”, while Chinese conceptualizes happiness as “a happy God”. Several reasons caused such difference, such as different cultural contexts and physical environment. And different culture’s characteristics play an important role in metaphor studies.

Keywords: happiness  emotion metaphor  comparison  culture

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter One Introduction-1

1.1 Significance of This Study-1

1.2 Objectives of This Study-1

1.3 Structure of This Thesis-1

Chapter Two Literature Review-3

2.1 Previous studies-3

2.1.1 Previous Studies on the English Metaphor of Happiness Emotion-3

2.1.2 Previous Studies on the Chinese Metaphor of Happiness Emotion-3

2.2 Theoretical Basis-4

2.2.1 The Comparison View-4

2.2.2 The Pragmatic View-4

2.3 Emotion Language-5

2.3.1 Basic Emotion Words-5

2.3.2 Metaphorical Words-5

Chapter Three Types of Happiness Metaphor-6

3.1 Pleasant Weather-6

3.2 The Light-6

3.3 Warm Color-6

3.4 Sweet-7

3.5 Passion-7

Chapter Four Similarities and Differences of Happiness Metaphor in English and Chinese-8

4.1 Similarities of Happiness Metaphors in English and Chinese-8

4.2 Differences of Happiness Metaphors in English and Chinese-8

4.2.1 Different Cultural Contexts-8

4.2.2 Physical Environment-9

Chapter Five Conclusion-10

5.1 Major Findings-10

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study-10

Reference-11