A cognitive study of metaphor of love in english versus vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
UNIVERSITY OF DANANG

HỒ TRỊNH QUỲNH THƯ

A COGNITIVE STUDY OF EXPRESSIONS OF
METAPHOR OF LOVE IN ENGLISH VERSUS
VIETNAMESE

DOCTORAL THESIS
IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Da Nang, 2018


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
UNIVERSITY OF DANANG

HỒ TRỊNH QUỲNH THƯ

A COGNITIVE STUDY OF EXPRESSIONS OF
METAPHOR OF LOVE IN ENGLISH VERSUS
VIETNAMESE

Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Code: 62.22.02.01

DOCTORAL THESIS
IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

SUPERVISOR: Assoc.Prof. Dr. Phan Văn Hòa

Da Nang, 2018


i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
Except where bibliography is made in the text, the dissertation contains no
material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from another author’s
thesis or document. It does not comprise any parts by which I have qualified for or
been awarded another degree or diploma.
This dissertation is also assured that it has not been submitted for the award of
any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution.
Da Nang, January 2018

Hồ Trịnh Quỳnh Thư


ii

ABSTRACT
The dissertation is carried out in the light of the conceptual metaphor theory
fathered by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). It aims at investigating and comparing the
expressions of metaphor of romantic love in three linguistic dimensions- space, time
and sensory perceptions- of English and Vietnamese modern poetry. The study uses
the metaphor identification procedures raised by Charteris Black (2004), Pragglejaz
Group (2007) and Steen (1999) to minimize the mistakes and increase the believability
of its results of linguistic and conceptual metaphor identification. Besides,
technological tools, namely SPSS20 and Microsoft Excel 2013, are also applied to the
analysis process of 3300 samples (1650 in each language) collected from 547 love

poems. The finding is that love is conceptualized in terms of 21 conceptual metaphors
in English and Vietnamese. Especially, one more source domain that is used for love
in Vietnamese but not uncovered in our English data is sight. It is one of the
differences found between English and Vietnamese conceptualization of love via the
language of space, time and sensory perceptions. Interestingly, 7 of 22 these source
domains are considered partly or wholly new, including climate, drug, life, music,
sight, source of energy, and time. Besides, the expressions of metaphor of love are
also determined both conventional and novel. The novelty is manifested via four
techniques- extending, elaboration, questioning, and combination, which once again
proves the creativity and imaginativeness in poetic language. In addition, the study
also finds it that not only the conceptual metaphors but the spatial, temporal and
sensory terms used to express love are similar between English and Vietnamese. The
similarities may result from the universality of conceptual metaphor and the
objectiveness of natural world. However, language is a cultural factor and directly
under the effects of culture. Metaphor is the reflection of individual thoughts and
experiences. As a result, the ways to express love identified in our study are different
between these two languages.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................................. i
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ iii
ABBREVIATIONS AND TYPOGRAPHICAL CONVENTIONS....................... viii
LIST OF THE TABLES ..................................................................................................ix
LIST OF THE FIGURES ................................................................................................xi
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale ....................................................................................................................... 1

1.2. Aims and objectives of the study .............................................................................. 4
1.2.1. Aims of the study .......................................................................................4
1.2.2. Objectives of the study ..............................................................................4
1.3. Research questions ...................................................................................................... 4
1.4. Focus and scope of the study ..................................................................................... 5
1.4.1. Focus of the study .....................................................................................5
1.4.2. Scope of the study .....................................................................................6
1.5. Justification for the study .......................................................................................... 7
1.5.1. Theoretical significance of the study ........................................................7
1.5.2. Practical significance of the study ...........................................................8
1.6. Organization of the study........................................................................................... 9
1.7. Summary ....................................................................................................................11
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
.............................................................................................................................................13
2.1. Theoretical background ...........................................................................................13
2.1.1. The conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) ................................................14
2.1.1.1. The systematicity of conceptual metaphors ....................................14
2.1.1.2. Partialness of conceptual metaphors. ..............................................15


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2.1.1.3. Metaphorical coherence and understanding ...................................16
2.1.1.4. Cognitive mechanism of conceptual metaphors .............................18
2.1.1.5. Types of conceptual metaphors ......................................................19
2.1.1.6. Limitations of the CMT ..................................................................20
2.1.2. Recent development in conceptual metaphor .........................................21
2.1.2.1. Categorization view of metaphor ....................................................22
2.1.2.2. Blending theory of metaphor ..........................................................22
2.1.2.3. Neural theory of metaphor ..............................................................24

2.1.2.4. The view based on the main meaning focus ...................................25
2.1.3. Expression of metaphor ..........................................................................26
2.1.4. Metaphor and culture .............................................................................26
2.1.5. Metaphor in literature and in poetry ......................................................27
2.1.6. Concepts of space, time and sensory perceptions ..................................31
2.1.6.1. Space ...............................................................................................31
2.1.6.2. Time ................................................................................................32
2.1.6.3. Sensory perception ..........................................................................32
2.1.7. Love as an emotion .................................................................................33
2.1.8. Conceptual metaphors of love ................................................................34
2.2. Previous studies of metaphors of love ....................................................................37
2.3. Summary ....................................................................................................................42
CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................44
3.1. Research design .........................................................................................................44
3.1.1. Inductive approach .................................................................................44
3.1.2. Qualitative and quantitative methods ....................................................45
3.1.3. Descriptive and contrastive methods .....................................................46


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3.1.3.1. Descriptive method .........................................................................46
3.1.3.2. Contrastive method .........................................................................47
3.2. Data collection............................................................................................................47
3.2.1. Sources of data .......................................................................................48
3.2.2. Identification of linguistic metaphors ....................................................49
3.2.2.1 Charteris-Black’s method ................................................................50
3.2.2.2 MIP and MIPVU ..............................................................................51
3.2.3. Identification of conceptual metaphors ..................................................54
3.2.4. Identification of novel metaphors of love ...............................................55

3.3. Data analysis ..............................................................................................................56
3.3.1. Statistical analysis tool ...........................................................................56
3.3.2. Data analysis procedure ........................................................................60
3.4. Summary ....................................................................................................................62
CHAPTER 4. EXPRESSIONS OF METAPHOR OF LOVE IN ENGLISH
POETRY ............................................................................................................................63
4.1. General description ...................................................................................................63
4.2. English spatial language used to express love.......................................................65
4.2.1. English terms of location used to express love ......................................65
4.2.2. English terms of configuration used to express love ..............................69
4.2.3. English terms of movement used to express love ...................................72
4.3. English temporal language used to express love ..................................................76
4.3.1. English chronological terms used to express love .................................76
4.3.2. English kairotic terms used to express love ...........................................79
4.4. English sensory language used to express love .....................................................84
4.4.1. English terms of visual perception used to express love ........................84
4.4.2. English terms of tactile perception used to express love .......................87


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4.4.3. English terms of gustatory perception used to express love ..................91
4.4.4. English terms of olfactory perception used to express love ...................93
4.4.5. English terms of auditory perception used to express love ....................94
4.5. Novelty of love metaphors in English poetry ........................................................97
4.5.1. Novelty of conceptual metaphors of love in English poetry ...................97
4.5.2. Novel use of love metaphors in English poetry ......................................99
4.6. Summary ..................................................................................................................102
CHAPTER 5. EXPRESSIONS OF METAPHOR OF LOVE IN VIETNAMESE
POETRY ..........................................................................................................................103

5.1. General description .................................................................................................103
5.2. Vietnamese spatial language used to express love .............................................105
5.2.1. Vietnamese terms of location used to express love ..............................105
5.2.2. Vietnamese terms of configuration used to express love......................108
5.2.3. Vietnamese terms of movement used to express love ...........................112
5.3. Vietnamese temporal language used to express love .........................................116
5.3.1. Vietnamese chronological terms used to express love .........................117
5.3.2. Vietnamese kairotic terms used to express love ...................................120
5.4. Vietnamese sensory language used to express love............................................123
5.4.1. Vietnamese terms of visual perception used to express love ................124
5.4.2. Vietnamese terms of tactile perception used to express love ...............126
5.4.3. Vietnamese terms of gustatory perception used to express love ..........129
5.4.4. Vietnamese terms of olfactory perception used to express love ...........130
5.4.5. Vietnamese terms of auditory perception used to express love ............131
5.5. Novelty of love metaphors in Vietnamese poetry ...............................................132
5.5.1. Novelty of conceptual metaphors of love in Vietnamese poetry ..........132
5.5.2. Novel use of love metaphors in Vietnamese poetry ..............................135


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5.6. Summary ..................................................................................................................138
CHAPTER 6. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH
AND VIETNAMESE EXPRESSIONS OF METAPHOR OF LOVE..................140
6.1. Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese conceptual
metaphors of love............................................................................................................140
6.2. Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese expressions of
metaphor of love .............................................................................................................142
6.2.1. Similarities ............................................................................................142
6.2.2. Differences ............................................................................................147

6.3. Summary ..................................................................................................................152
CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .......................................154
7.1. Conclusions...............................................................................................................154
7.2. Implications ..............................................................................................................156
7.3. Limitation and suggestions for further research ...............................................158
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS ..........................................................................................159
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................161
LIST OF THE POEMS .................................................................................................176
DECISION ON THE ADOPTION OF THE DOCTORAL RESEARCH TOPIC
...........................................................................................................................................212
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................213


viii

ABBREVIATIONS AND TYPOGRAPHICAL
CONVENTIONS

CD

: Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

CMT

: conceptual metaphor theory

E

: English

LD

: Longman Dictionary of comtemporary English online

MD

: Macmillan Dictionary

MIP

: metaphorical identification procedure

MIPVU

: MIP extended by the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

MWD

: Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary

V

: Vietnamese

VD

: Vietnamese Dictionary (Từ điển tiếng Việt)

-

: unfound

+

: found

lower case : linguistic metaphor, e.g. the season of love
upper case : conceptual metaphor, e.g. LOVE IS A JOURNEY


ix

LIST OF THE TABLES
Table 3. 1. The missions of qualitative and quantitative methods in the study ........45
Table 4. 1. Top five source domains underlying English locative terms used for love .68
Table 4. 2. Analysis of the images of moon, sun, stars, earth, sky and sea in the
metaphor LOVE IS LIFE .................................................................................70
Table 4. 3. Top seven source domains underlying English configurative terms used
for love..............................................................................................................72
Table 4. 4. Top three source domains underlying English moving terms used to
express love ......................................................................................................74
Table 4. 5. Top five source domains under English spatial language used to express
love ...................................................................................................................76
Table 4. 6. LOVE-AS-TIME mapping .....................................................................80
Table 4. 7. Top three source domains underlying English kairotic terms used to
express love ......................................................................................................83
Table 4. 8. Analysis of the visual terms of beautiful, dark, rounded, light beam and
shine metaphorically used to describe love ......................................................85
Table 4. 9. Analysis of the terms of temperature metaphorically used for love .......89
Table 4. 10. Analysis of the terms of pain perception metaphorically used to express

love ...................................................................................................................90
Table 4. 11. Analysis of musical terms metaphorically used to express love ..........95
Table 5. 1. Analysis of the images of chùm, khóm, lá, cành, nụ and hoa in the
metaphor LOVE IS A PLANT .......................................................................110
Table 5. 2. Analysis of the moving terms - lia and nhặt lên used for love .............113
Table 5. 3. Table 5.3. LOVE-AS-TIME OF A YEAR mapping ............................119
Table 5. 4 LOVE-AS-FLOWER mapping ..............................................................122


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Table 5. 5. Quantification of sensory language used for love in Vietnamese ........123
Table 5. 6. LOVE-AS-CLIMATE mapping ...........................................................125
Table 5. 7. Analysis of the tactile terms - mềm and ấm in the metaphor LOVE IS LIFE
........................................................................................................................127
Table 5. 8. Analysis of Vietnamese temperature terms metaphorically used to express
love .................................................................................................................128
Table 6. 1. LOVE - AS - TIME OF A DAY mapping ............................................ 144
Table 6. 2. Source domains used for love in English and Vietnamese ...................153


xi

LIST OF THE FIGURES
Figure 1.1. Map of the thesis .....................................................................................12
Figure 2. 1. The systematicity in the conceptualization of love in terms of a journey
........................................................................................................................15
Figure 2. 2. The coherence of a complex metaphor of love structured by two single
metaphors- LOVE IS A JOURNEY and LOVE IS A UNITY ......................16
Figure 2. 3. The coherence of the conceptualization of love in terms of time that is

understood metaphorically in terms of an entity............................................17
Figure 2. 4. Conceptual mapping ..............................................................................18
Figure 2. 5. Conceptual blending of “surgeon as butcher” .......................................23
Figure 2. 6. Neural theory applied to the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor ...........25
Figure 3. 1. Sample of detecting mistakes in the data inputs ....................................57
Figure 3. 2. Sample of the data statistics under linguistic fields ..............................57
Figure 3. 3. Sample of the data statistics under source domains ..............................58
Figure 3. 4.Sample of drawing charts on Excel ........................................................59
Figure 3. 5. Sample of the comparisons of using metaphorical expressions of love
between English and Vietnamese ..................................................................59
Figure 4. 1. Quantification of English expressions of metaphor of love under spatial,
temporal and sensory languages ....................................................................63
Figure 4. 2. Source domains underlying English expressions of love metaphor ......64
Figure 4. 3. Quantification of English spatial terms used to express love under the
aspects of location, configuration and movement..........................................75
Figure 4. 4. Source domains underlying English spatial language used for love .....75
Figure 4. 5. Cycle of a day ........................................................................................77


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Figure 4. 6 The lifetime of living-beings ..................................................................81
Figure 4. 7. The growth phases of living-beings.......................................................82
Figure 4. 8. Quantification of English terms of sensory perceptions used to express
love .................................................................................................................96
Figure 4. 9. Source domains underlying English terms of sensory perceptions used to
express love ....................................................................................................96
Figure 5. 1. Quantification of Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love under
spatial, temporal and sensory languages ...................................................... 103
Figure 5. 2. Source domains underlying Vietnamese expressions of love metaphor104

Figure 5. 3 Quantification of Vietnamese spatial terms used to express love under the
aspects of location, configuration and movement........................................115
Figure 5. 4 Source domains underlying Vietnamese spatial language used for love116
Figure 5. 5 Source domains underlying Vietnamese temporal terms used to express
love ...............................................................................................................117
Figure 5. 6. Cycle of seasons .................................................................................118
Figure 5. 7. The lifetime of a flower .......................................................................121
Figure 5. 8. Source domains underlying Vietnamese terms of sensory perceptions
used for love .................................................................................................124
Figure 6. 1. Source domains used to express love in English and Vietnamese ...... 140


1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Love, which is hardly definable, is one of the significant things in human lives.
Without it, people feel as though their lives were incomplete, “I’m incomplete
without you” (Bryan, My red heart is blue), for example; or even they are unviable
as the words described by Gordon “I cannot live/ Without you” (I look at you and
think: I cannot live), similar to what is expressed in Vietnamese “Làm sao sống được
mà không yêu…?” (Xuân Diệu, Bài thơ tuổi nhỏ). Nevertheless, to understand ‘what
love is’ is certainly not easy. This question has long been addressed but the answer
may be pretty abstract. It may be the reason for which Xuân Diệu – a Vietnamese
romantic poet – uttered “Làm sao cắt nghĩa được tình yêu!” (How to explain love!)
Several researchers (e.g. Gray, 1993; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, and O'Connor,
2001) support that love is one of the basic human emotions. It is a natural phenomenon
that can be found in all cultures around the world. However, much of semantics is

culturally and experientially based (Casad, 1995; Steenbergen, 2006). It is especially
right in description of abstract concepts like love, which has been demonstrated to be
one of the concepts richest in imagery by cognitive linguists (e.g. Lakoff & Johnson,
1980a,b; Kovecses, 1986, 1988, 2000; Tessari, 2001). The love expressions are thus
diversified, dependent on individual experiences and under cultural influences.
In the period of integration nowadays, the need of cross-cultural
communication and interpretation becomes necessary. Meanwhile, semantic field
plays an important role in understanding a speech. However in Langacker’s view,
semantics does not just reflect objective reality but rather represent subjective
perceptions of the world (see Casad, 2012). An expression does not only show its
inflexibly literal meaning of its components but is also understood in a specific
context based on our bodily experiences. The words expressing love are not the
exception. Let us look at the following description.


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(1.1) You’ve slipped under my skin, invaded my blood and seized my heart
(Snyder, Poison study)
Obviously, the saying cannot be understood based on the literal meaning of
the words in it. How can a person “slip under one’s skin”, “invade one’s blood” and
“seize one’s heart”? How can these words express love? In this case, the speech can
just be interpreted thanks to our experiences and perceptions. These expressions are
metaphors whose meanings, according to the conceptual metaphor theory (CMT)
fathered by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a), lie not just in language, but in thought and
actions. It can also be seen from the example that love is described not only by the
word “love” but by many other words as well. Based on “slip under one’s skin”,
“invade one’s blood” and “seize one’s heart”, love is interpreted as a war in which
the lover has been defeated and controlled by his beloved. Accordingly, it is evident
that love becomes easier to approach and flexible to understand thanks to metaphor.

Let us consider another example,
(1.2) …we'll fly away together,/ Fly far away into our own secret place,/ Where you
and I can share this fire./ This fire in our hearts that will burn forever... (Laset, Fire of
love)
There is no word meaning love in the extract, but one can perceive here a sweet
love in which the lovers desire to “fly away together to a secret place” where they
can share their love together forever. The expression metaphorically draws a love
journey with the couple’s travelling (to fly) and their common destination (secrete
place). Also in the poem, the image of fire is used to talk about the hope of a lasting
duration of love via the expression “burn forever”. In this case, it can be seen that an
expected durable love is presented smoothly in terms of a fire. In Vietnamese, love is
also depicted through metaphorical images.
(1.3) cả vũ trụ say bừng men lửa/ từ em/ ôm trùm anh/ rạo rực/ nỗi yêu rền
(the whole universe is intoxicated by the fire from you which covers me, makes me
excited about a successive love) (Bùi Minh Quốc, Em đến)


3

(1.4) Cuộc đời chồng thêm tuổi/ Tình yêu càng mặn nồng/ Cây xanh rồi cây
cỗi/ Tình yêu vẫn không già. (The older we are, the saltier (the more passionate) our
love is. Unlike trees that become older over time, love will not be old.) (Diệp Minh
Tuyền, Tình yêu... thì thầm)
Besides fire, love in (1.3) and (1.4) is also understood relating to an object that
can “ôm trùm” (cover) the lover, in terms of a nutrient with its saltiness (“mặn nồng”)
and in relation to time by the words “rền” (successive or repeated) and “già” (old).
It can briefly be seen from (1.1) to (1.4) that the kind of love mentioned is
romantic love; and the expressions used to describe it can be classified into spatial
language (including slip under, invade, seize, fly (away/ far/ into), share, this, cover),
temporal terms (successive or repeated) and terms of sensory perceptions (fire, burn).

The topic of love has so far been considerably explored in philosophy, psychology,
anthropology, etc. In linguistics, numerous studies of metaphors of love have been
carried out in the light of both traditional and cognitive views. Many of them are
conducted along with the studies on emotion in general. Some others examine
metaphors of love just in one language in many different periods of time. There are
also some cross-cultural investigations that aim to discover the conceptual metaphors
of love in a certain language and compare them to the English metaphors found by
Lakoff and Johnson (1980a) and Kovecses (2000). However, expressions of space,
time and sensory perceptions that are used to detect romantic love are still left open,
especially those in English and Vietnamese.
In those senses, a cognitive study of expressions of metaphor of love in
English versus Vietnamese is chosen as the topic for our investigation. The
expression (which is understood as a word or a group of words - Cambridge dictionary)
is analysed and put into one of three categories- space, time, and sensory perceptionwith the samples collected from modern poetry in these two languages. The study also
tries to find out whether there are similarities and differences between English and
Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love.


4

1.2. Aims and objectives of the study
1.2.1. Aims of the study
The study aims to examine and compare expressions of metaphor of love in
English and Vietnamese modern poetry under three headings, “space”, “time”, and
“sensory perceptions”. These expressions are semantically clarified in their
respective poetic contexts to discover the principles or mechanisms of meaning
transferring and the ways of adopting the conventional conceptual metaphors in
poetry. Subsequently, a comparison is made between English and Vietnamese spatial,
temporal and sensory terms used to describe love.

1.2.2. Objectives of the study
The study is carried out with a desire of investigating, analyzing and
comparing the poetic metaphorical expressions of romantic love between English and
Vietnamese; therefore, it is necessary to achieve the following objectives:
(i) Providing linguistic evidences collected from modern poetry to illustrate
the existence of metaphors of love underlying English and Vietnamese expressions
of space, time and sensory perceptions.
(ii) Analysing and clarifying how the terms of space, time and sensory
perceptions are used to express love in English and Vietnamese.
(iii) Comparing to find out the similarities and differences between English
and Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love in terms of space, time and sensory
perceptions; at that time, the factors that have influences on these similarities and
differences are also shed light on.

1.3. Research questions
To achieve the objectives of the study, the following questions need to be dealt
with.
(1) What expressions of space, time and sensory perceptions are


5

metaphorically used to describe romantic love in English and Vietnamese poetry?
(2) What cognitive mechanism(s) can be constructed for understanding and
interpreting romantic love via expressions of space, time and sensory perceptions?
(3) How similar or different are terms of space, time and sensory perceptions
expressing romantic love in English and Vietnamese poetry?
(4) Which factor(s) contribute(s) to the similarities and differences between
English and Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love?

1.4. Focus and scope of the study
1.4.1. Focus of the study
If other sciences study the nature and the operation mechanisms of love,
linguistics treats the way how the concept of love is expressed via language. Many
linguistic studies have been carried out to learn about the way to express the
experiences of this feeling. They have discussed the love expressions in many
different senses. In this thesis, only expressions of metaphor of romantic love are
chosen for our investigation for some following reasons.
First, romantic love is a complex of attitudes, a complex sentiment involving
erotic, cognitive, emotional and behavioral components which are difficult, if not
impossible, to disentangle (Bartels & Zeki, 2004; Sternberg, 1988). Hence, studying
romantic love means studying a sentiment with several components, which is an
interesting challenge facing researchers who decide to study this kind of love.
Second, expressions of metaphor of romantic love are plentiful and
diversified. It is common knowledge that love captures the attention of many
researchers for its complexity, abstraction and being difficult to define literally.
Kovecses (2000) supposed that for lack of an adequate vocabulary to clearly explicate
and discuss the abstract idea of love, our language utilizes metaphors that draw from
concrete experience as a means to relate this emotion in understandable terms. The
concept of love, especially romantic love, is thus perhaps the most highly


6

“metaphorized” emotion concept because it is not only an emotion but a relationship
as well (Kovecses, 2000, p.27).
Besides, romantic love is regarded as one of the endless inspirations of writers,
particularly poets, as a catalyst thanks to which their works are more tender and
attractive. This kind of affection is expressed or described depending on the writers’
thought and experiences. Accordingly, it may be believed that poetical works provide

our investigation with a considerably rich source of expressions of metaphor of
romantic love. It is the reason why our study just deals with the expressions of
metaphor of romantic love collected from English and Vietnamese poetry.

1.4.2. Scope of the study
The study focuses on investigating and analysing English and Vietnamese
metaphorical expressions of romantic love which are classified into three categories:
space, time and sensory perceptions. Then, they are compared to draw out the
similarities and differences between these two languages. Therefore, the issues that
are concerned with our study are determined and limited as follows.
Firstly, except romantic love, the metaphorical expressions of other love kinds
such as familial love, love of friends, religious love, and universal love are not
examined. The expression “full of love” in the lines “We're a proud family/ [...]
Happy/ full of love” (Walton, A Mountain Family Full of Love), for example, is not
collected for our investigation because it expresses familial love.
Secondly, the expressions of metaphor of romantic love must be arranged into
one of three categories: space, time and sensory perceptions, which are defined in
2.1.6. If they cannot meet this criterion, they are not chosen. For example, although
the terms “intoxication”, “drunk” and “high” in “Intoxication, you're pure
intoxication./ To me, you're like a drug./ I get, drunk, high off you.” (Gardiner,
Intoxication) are applied to express romantic love, they are not selected for our
investigation because they do not belong to any of three categories: space, time, or
sensory perceptions.


7

Thirdly, all the expressions of metaphor of romantic love are gathered from
modern love poems that have been composed since the early 20th century. Neither the
poems before this period of time nor the language of other types of discourse (prose,

novel, drama) is in our investigation. Besides, the study is just conducted with the
data sources in American-English, British-English and Vietnamese. The love poems
written by the authors who are not American, British or Vietnamese are eliminated.
Fourthly, as a parallel contrastive analysis, the thesis treats the data equally
between English and Vietnamese. There is neither the source nor the target language
in the process of contrasting.
Finally, there are many theories of metaphor but our study is carried out based
on the CMT developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a). The other metaphorical
theories are not applied to this study.

1.5. Justification for the study
Love, one of the most basic human emotions, appears frequently everywhere
in our daily life. Romantic love is not only pervasive in our conventional life but
inspiring to writers as well. Expressions of romantic love are plentiful and diversified,
but mainly metaphoric. Understanding them seems not to be easy, especially for nonnative speakers, because “each language has its own metaphors that have accumulated
over time and that must be learned by second and foreign language learners”
(Richards & Schmidt, 2002, p. 201). Accordingly, the study can provide readers with
an approach to the use and understanding of expressions of metaphor of romantic love.
On the other hand, the study is believed to make some contribution to the enrichment
of metaphorical study resources. It becomes a piece of the large picture of metaphor
study in general and that of expressions of romantic love metaphor in particular.

1.5.1. Theoretical significance of the study
In view of a cognitive study of romantic love metaphor in poetry, the CMT set
up by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a) is chosen as the guideline on our work. The


8

findings of the study on expressions of metaphor of love in English and Vietnamese

poetry makes a contribution to the effectiveness of the updated classic CMT in the
analysis and understanding of conceptual metaphors once again. It is manifested in
22 conceptual metaphors of love identified underlying 3300 metaphorical expressions
found in English and Vietnamese. Besides, the theories that are directly related to the
matter of metaphor, metaphors of love and metaphors in poetry in the light of cognitive
view are collected and blended into a theoretical framework for our study that is
presented in Chapter 2. It includes the CMT set up by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a),
which is combined with the criteria of metaphor identification provided by CharterisBlack (2004), Pragglejaz group (2007), and Steen (1999), the issue of metaphors in
poetry by Kovecses (2002), Lakoff and Turner (1989). In addition, the re-categorizing
of 24 English conceptual metaphors of love discovered by Lakoff and Johnson
(1980a,b) and Kovecses (1986, 1988, 2000) into 14 ones helps prevent confusion on
conceptual metaphor identification for the overlaps of metaphorical expressions among
some conceptual metaphors of love, contributing to facilitate the procedure of analysis.
All the framework can be applied to subsequent studies of the similar interest.

1.5.2. Practical significance of the study
Along with the terms that can express the emotional state of love by
themselves such as adoration, affection, love, like, etc. in English and yêu, thương,
thích, etc. in Vietnamese, there are many other expressions employed to describe this
feeling but they do not mean ‘love’ literally. People understand and use them thanks
to their thought, experiences and perception that are called cognition in the light of
the CMT. When the study is carried out, it hence provides readers with the mappings
whereby romantic love is interpreted in terms of space, time and sensory perceptions.
Besides, the findings with the novelty in both conceptual and linguistic metaphors
contribute to love interpretation, help to enrich the source of love metaphors.
Because it is conducted on the basis of analysis of the data collected from the
different nations (including Britain, the United States and Vietnam), the study


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clarifies the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese expressions
of metaphor of romantic love, giving the explanations of them as clearly as possible
so as to uncover the cultural or geographical factors hidden in these expressions.
Thereby, the study helps the readers learn more about cultural values underlying the
expressions of metaphors of romantic love in English and Vietnamese poetry. The
knowledge of cultural variation combined with that of mappings can be applied to
learning, teaching and translation as well.

1.6. Organization of the study
The dissertation is structured in seven chapters, comprising introduction,
theoretical background and literature review, methodology, results (including 3
chapters), and conclusion.
Chapter 1, Introduction, is a general introduction of the study. It sheds light
on the reasons for choosing the topic including the role of love in human life, the
importance of metaphor, and the role of spatial, temporal and sensory language in
human cognitive system. The chapter also involves general intentions of the study
and specific tasks consistent with them. It is the examination and comparison of the
English and Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love in poetry by answering four
research questions which is shown in this chapter. Besides, the focus of the studyexpressions of metaphor of romantic love is pointed out along with its extent of the
content to be covered. In addition, the chapter is a place for the significances and
structure of the study to be presented.
Chapter 2, Literature Review and Theoretical Background encompasses
two sections. The first section is a presentation of the CMT fathered by Lakoff and
Johnson (1980a), in which metaphor is treated as a matter of thought and states the
pervasiveness of metaphor in everyday language. Also, some other cognitive theories
of metaphorical use and interpretation that have been developed on the basis of the CMT
are mentioned in this section. Besides, Section 2.1 is concerned with the concepts
related to the study (i.e. romantic love, space, time and sensory perception), the

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expression of metaphor, the relation between metaphor and culture, metaphor in
poetry, and conceptual metaphors of love identified by previous studies which is
represented in the second section of the chapter. Furthermore, Section 2.2 also gives
some comments on their achievements and limitations. The issues discussed in this
chapter are selected based on the study intentions and blended into a theoretical
framework for the study.
Chapter 3, Research Methodology, contains the research design where the
strategy for the study is presented, including the methods used for collecting and
dealing with the data. It helps to orientate the research process to ensure that the
study just focuses on the research problem (i.e. expressions of metaphor of romantic
love in poetry). The chapter is also a place for the sources of our study data
(encompassing over 500 English and Vietnamese love poems composed since the
early 20th century) to be described. The data collection obeys the criteria for metaphor
identification procedures by Charteris-Black (2004) and Pragglejaz group (2007),
which is involved in this chapter. Besides, the chapter also provides the guiding
principles on which conceptual and novel metaphors of love are identified. In
addition, the tools for and the process of data analysis are also displayed clearly in
this chapter.
Chapter 4, Expressions of metaphor of love in English poetry, includes the
general and specific description of English spatial, temporal and sensory terms that
are used to express romantic love metaphorically. In this chapter, linguistic evidences
in English are pointed out and analysed to illustrate the existence of metaphorical
expressions of romantic love under three categories- space, time, and sensory
perception. The findings of conceptual metaphors of romantic love in English are also
mentioned in this chapter along with the representation of the novelty of metaphors
of romantic love in English.
Similarly in chapter 5, expressions of metaphor of love in Vietnamese

poetry are presented.


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Chapter 6 presents similarities and differences between English and
Vietnamese expressions of metaphor of love in poetry. Besides, whether the source
domains used to conceptualize romantic love are similar or different between English
and Vietnamese poetry, which is also made clear in this chapter. Further in this
chapter, some cultural characteristics that impact on expressions of metaphor of
romantic love are mentioned and shed light on.
The last chapter, Conclusions and implications, sums up the development of
the study, highlights the findings, puts forward some suggestions for practical
applications in learning, teaching, and translating metaphors, points out some
limitations and recommendations for further research.

1.7. Summary
As the beginning of the thesis, the chapter Introduction has presented the whys
and the wherefores of the study in which the reasons for our work are clarified. It can
be seen that, along with the focus of the study, Chapter 1 shows the research questions
and identifies the range of the work so that it can achieve the aims and objectives of
the research which are also included in this chapter. Furthermore, some theoretical and
practical significances of the study that are considered as the contributions of the thesis
are mentioned. This chapter also helps the readers have an overview of the study by
provided them with the organization of the thesis and represented in Figure 1.1.