Ẩn dụ về mùa trong ca từ bài hát tiếng anh và tiếng việt nghiên cứu theo đướng hướng tri nhận TT TIENG ANH

THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG
UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

SY THI THOM

SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

SEASON METAPHORS IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE SONGS: A COGNITIVE STUDY

Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Code: 9220201

DANANG – 2021


CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Lakoff and Johnson mark a revolution for cognitive linguistics by
their grounding-breaking Metaphor We Live By (1980) when they present
metaphor from the cognitive perspective. The idea that metaphor needs
viewing as a conceptual phenomenon and not just as a linguistic one has
been argued at length by Lakoff and his fellow researchers (notably
Kövecses, 2002, 2010; Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980a, 1999;
Lakoff & Turner, 1989). Consequently, their theory has become a foundation
for a good research by other authors. In Vietnam, basing on Lakoff and
Johnson’s theory, a number of scholars have formulated a variety of reviews,
overviews, research related to conceptual metaphor.
In addition, a great number of studies have been conducted to
examine conceptual metaphors of both concrete and abstract concepts around
our human worldwide, as well as in Vietnam. Particularly, significant

attention has been paid to abstract concepts as target domains in investigating
conceptual metaphors, which can be easily understood because conceptual
metaphor is a process of conceptualizing a more abstract domain in terms of
more concrete domains (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980a). Remarkably, time, an
abstract concept, is also widely investigated by both foreign and Vietnamese.
However, TIME in the works is treated as a target domain in a metaphorical
mapping. In other words, there has been no research conducted to investigate
the concept TIME as a source domain which is exploited to map onto other
concepts.
In short, this topic is not adequately investigated in Vietnam
although it is interesting and meaningful. Hence, this study entitled “Season
metaphor in English and Vietnamese songs: a cognitive study” is carried out
to fill the literature gap and to provide useful implications to the practice of
teaching, learning, and translating English in Vietnam. Moreover, it helps to
promote metaphor competence for users of Vietnamese as a foreign
language.
1.2. Aims and Objectives of the Study
The thesis aims at examining the metaphors of season in English and
Vietnamese songs in the light of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT).
Subsequently, a comparison is made to find out the similarities and
differences between the conceptual metaphors of season in English and
1


Vietnamese song lyrics when SEASON is treated as a target domain as well
as a source domain. Simultaneously, several explanations are given as causes
for these similarities and differences. In addition, to obtain these aims, this
study is to pursue the following objectives:
- To describe how season is mapped through concrete entities in English
and Vietnamese song lyrics.

- To describe how season maps onto abstract entities in English and
Vietnamese song lyrics.
- To identify the similarities and differences between conceptual
metaphors of season in English and those in Vietnamese song lyrics.
- To provide possible explanations to these similarities and differences
through physical embodiment from both physical environment and sociocultural environment.
1.3. Significance of the Study
The present thesis is to examine how people in the English -speaking
countries involved in the Inner Circle (Kachru, 1985), and Vietnamese
people conceptualize the entity of season. Accordingly, the study has both
theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, it contributes to the
effectiveness of CMT, which is continuously updated, by combining
blending theory in the analysis and understanding of conceptual metaphors.
It is also hoped that the study will contribute to the understanding of the
nature of human language in general, motivate our investigation of
conceptual metaphors and their characteristics in particular, and encourage
further research in the cognitive linguistic field as well. Methodologically,
the thesis suggests a novel approach to metaphor for investigating metaphors
as a cross-linguistic comparison, namely between English and Vietnamese.
Practically, the study could provide useful implications to the practice of
teaching and learning languages. Specifically, the study contributes to
improving language competence of Vietnamese learners and users of English
as well as foreign learners of Vietnamese.
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEWAND THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
2.1. Theoretical Background
2.1.1. Traditional Metaphor Theories
Metaphor has been an object of study which has been discussed for a
long time in different views worldwide. Traditionally, the studying of
2

metaphor has been regarded as a figure of speech, i.e., as more or less
ornamental devices used in rhetorical style (as cited in Ungerer & Schmid,
2006, p.114). Besides, in the West, metaphor has been approached in various
ways such as Aristotle's methodologies study metaphors as transference
names; traditional linguistic methods approach metaphor is a linguistic
deviance leading to incorrect or illogical sentences; in terms of pragmatic
approach, metaphor is considered as an unusual speech act, from which a set
of special principles are called for; and from perspective of interactive
approach, metaphor is understood as the interaction between the two
subjects. Hence, the method of interaction opens the recognition for the value
of metaphor in cognition. It creates the groundwork for the appearance of
cognitive theory, especially, with the classical well-known work Metpahors
we live by (1980) by Lakoff & Johnson that this study is mainly based on.
2.1.2. Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), proposing that metaphor is not
a type of stylistic use of language but primarily a systematic cognitive model
of concepts, has given rise to a major revolution in the study of metaphor.
Consequently, CMT is widely applied to metaphor analysis by a great
number of cognitive linguists (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980a; Lakoff, 1993;
Kövecses, 2010; Gibbs, 2011). CMT not only highlights the pervasive nature
of metaphor in everyday life but also suggests that metaphor influences how
people think, speak and act (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003; Deignan, 2005;
Littlemore 2009; Kövecses, 2010). More important for linguists is that CMT
can be considered to be a conceptual explanation for the metaphorical part of
language use.
The term metaphor used in this study refers to conceptual metaphor,
which one conceptual domain is understood in terms of another conceptual
domain. Conceptual metaphors can be given by means of the formula A is B

or A as B. Specifically, A denotes the target domain and B the source domain
as in the metaphor time passing as a moving object, where the concept of
moving object is mapped to the concept of time passing. (Lakoff & John,
1980a; Lakoff, 1993, 2003; Kövecses, 2010).
Components of Conceptual Metaphor
When discussing mentioning metaphor in culture, Kövecses (2005)
notes that ‘metaphor is seen as being constituted by a variety of parts,
aspects, or components that interact with each other.’ (p.5). He also outlines
11 components of conceptual metaphor, namely, (1) source domain, (2)
3


target domain, (3) experiential basis, (4) neural structures corresponding to
(1) and (2) in the brain, (5) relationships between the source and the target,
(6) metaphorical linguistic expressions, (7) mappings, (8) entailments, (9)
blends, (10) nonlinguistic realizations, and (11) cultural models. (ibid, p.5).
Characteristics of Conceptual Metaphor
To refine the definition of metaphor, some main characteristics of
conceptual metaphor, including isomorphism, systematicity, ubiquity,
partiality, and duality are presented.
2.2. Review of Related Studies
Time is treated as target domain in most of the famous work. Lakoff
and Johnson (1980a, pp.7-9), provide the conceptual metaphors of time via a
number of metaphorical expressions, i.e., TIME IS MONEY, TIME IS
LIMITED RESOURCE, TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY. Besides,
they give another conceptual metaphor of time which is TIME IS MOVING
OBJECT. Similarly, Kövecses agrees and gives the metaphor TIME IS
MOTION. However, he extends this metaphor when adding that “TIME IS
MOTION conceptual metaphor exists in the form of two special cases in
English: TIME PASSING IS MOTION OF AN OBJECT and TIME

PASSING IS AN OBSERVER’S MOTION OVER A LANDSCAPE.”
(2010, p.37). In addition, Goatly (1997) finds out TIME IS SPACE.
Moreover, discussing personification, a metaphorical device used commonly
in literature, i.e., in poetic language, Kövecses finds more conceptual
metaphors of time, namely, TIME IS A THIEF, TIME IS A REAPER, TIME
IS A DEVOURER, TIME IS DESTROYER, TIME IS AN EVALUATOR,
and TIME IS A PURSUER.
Developing the conceptual metaphor of time by Lakoff and Johnson
(1980a), Evans (2004) present the conceptual metaphor approach to time.
Particularly, he clarifies the metaphor TIME IS MOVING OBJECT by two
sets of mappings in terms of which time is metaphorically structured by
motion. In other words, space-to-time mappings in this case have been
subcategorized on the basis of the moving object. These are the MOVING
TIME mapping and the MOVING EGO (or OBSERVER) mapping (ibid,
pp.60-61).
“A Corpus-Based Analysis of Metaphorical Uses of the High
Frequency Noun Time: Challenges to Conceptual Metaphor Theory” by Li
(2014). Using the Bank of English (BoE), this study analyses the frequentlyoccurring linguistic expressions of time that are associated with two
4


conceptual metaphors of time (TIME IS MONEY and TIME IS MOTION).
Especially, the concept of time is frequently used as the topic to exemplify
the existence of conceptual metaphor in CMT. Interestingly, its result reveals
that the list of the frequently-occurring linguistic metaphors found here
seems to be quite different from the list of examples given by Lakoff and
Johnson (1980a, b) for these two sets of conceptual metaphors.
In Vietnam, conceptual metaphors of time are investigated in
Nguyễn Thị Quyết’s research (2015). Through the manifestation of time:
day, parts of day, night, month, season, and time in general as the target

domains, beside the conceptual metaphors of time shown above (by Lakoff
and Johnson, 1980a, b; Kövecses, 2010; Goatly, 1997; Evans, 2004), the
study discovered 7 conceptual metaphors of time.
In addition, the research, which was conducted by Bạch Thị Thanh
Phượng (2014) investigated the conceptual metaphors of spring and xuân
denoting seasons in English and Vietnamese poems. The study shows the
interesting findings and reveals its limitations.
Another study by Hồ Trịnh Quỳnh Thư’s (2018) entitled a cognitive
study of expressions of metaphor of love in English versus Vietnamese, one
of rare studies whose findings are related to time metaphors in which time is
treated as a source domain.
In brief, a great number of studies have been carried out to
investigate the conceptualization of time as a target domain. On the contrary,
little research shows time is employed to express other entities which are
considered as target domains. In other words, time as a source domain used
to map onto other domains is an immense vacationland or the promised land
welcoming scholars of cognitive metaphors to discover.
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research Questions
This dissertation makes attempts to answer the following
overarching research question:
What are the similarities and the differences between the conceptual
metaphors of season expressed in English and Vietnamese song lyrics?
To obtain this overarching aim, the study answers two research
questions as follows:
5


1. What are the similarities and the differences between conceptual
metaphors of season expressed in English and Vietnamese song lyrics

regarding SEASON as a target domain?
2. What are the similarities and the differences between conceptual
metaphors of season expressed in English and Vietnamese song lyrics
regarding SEASON as a source domain?
3.2. Research Methods
This dissertation is a comparative study conducted to identify
metaphors of SEASON in the light of CMT in which the comparative
method is mainly used combining the descriptive method, and with the
assistance of some techniques of qualitative and quantitative methods.
3.3. Data Collection Procedure
3.3.1. Sources of Data
The data collected comes from English and Vietnamese song lyrics
from the 20th century onward. As an investigation of conceptual metaphors
of season, the samples selected come from song. There are several sources,
namely, Internet-based records, CD/DVD-based records, and printed
publications.
The process of data collection follows some procedures to build the
two corpora in the two languages. The built corpora contained 1646 and
1897 metaphorical expressions related to season in English and Vietnamese
respectively.
3.3.2. Conceptual Metaphor Identification
Identification of metaphors (including identification of linguistic
metaphors and conceptual metaphors) is a crucial step in the procedure of
any metaphor research. As can be seen, identification of conceptual metaphor
depends on the meaning of expression (i.e., linguistic metaphors) which
points to the conceptual metaphors in discourse.
Identification of Linguistic Metaphor
The study applied the approaches to linguistic metaphor
identification raised by Charteris-Black, Pragglejaz Group and the extension
of Pragglejaz’s procedure by Wittink.

Identification of Conceptual Metaphor
The five-step procedure of conceptual metaphor identification by
Steen (1999, 2007) was applied.
3.4. Data analysis
3.4.1. Analytical Framework
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The concept season in this research is denoted with the lexemes,
namely mùa, xuân, mùa xuân, hè, mùa hè, hạ, mùa hạ, thu, mùa thu, đông,
mùa đông in Vietnamese, and season, spring, springtime, summer,
summertime, autumn, autumntime, fall, winter and wintertime in English.
The analytical framework of this study can be visualized in Figure
below:

Figure 1. Analytical framework of conceptual metaphor of SEASON
in English and Vietnamese
3.4.2. Data Analysis Procedure
The analysis procedure of this study combined between CMA
(Charteris-Black, 2004) and the FSM (Steen, 2011) with assistance of
Context- induced Creativity (CIC) (Kövecses, 2010), which is re-mentioned
in the book Extended conceptual metaphor theory (Kövecses, 2020) when he
discusses metaphor in context, can be visualized via 3 stages as follows:

Figure 2. Analysis procedure of conceptual metaphor of season
7


CHAPTER 4: THE ENTITY OF SEASON MAPPED THROUGH THE
CONCRETE DOMAINS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SONG

LYRICS
This chapter presents the results of our analysis of English and
Vietnamese season metaphors when SEASON is considered a target domain.
Followed Zheng’s (2017) classification, the concrete domains which
are used to conceptualize SEASON have been found with the great total
numbers of metaphorical expressions in both English and Vietnamese,
holding 1.275 and 1.359 respectively from the two corpora with the
distribution of animate and inanimate entities as source domains seen in the
following figure:

Figure 3. The distribution of animate and inanimate entities mapped
onto SEASON in English and Vietnamese
4.1. Inanimate Domain
Regarding SEASON AS AN INANIMATE ENTITY, the findings
uncover 9 metaphors of season as in the figure below:

8


Figure 4. The distribution of source domains in terms of inanimate
entities mapping onto season in English and Vietnamese
It is apparent that the metaphor SEASON IS ENTITY IN SPACE is
the most common in the both languages. It means that both Westerners and
Vietnamese people perceive SEASON as an entity which is manifested the
correlation in space. Similarly, the entities, namely, concrete entity, natural
substance, characteristic of natural are densely employed to depict SEASON.
These metaphors are conventional because these domains are familiar with
all people in the Earth. Specifically, everybody considers themselves as an
entity, and they embody themselves as a container of contained things in a
certain space. Moreover, people experience their living environment with

weather pattern, temporal units every day.
Besides, the research findings reveal novel metaphors, i.e.,
conceptualization SEASON as a social entity and a social activity. In fact,
when TIME is investigated as a target domain, no findings show that MUSIC
is utilized to portray TIME. However, the results of this thesis uncover the
metaphor SEASON IS MUSIC which is applicable in the both languages. It
can be concluded that people share the same way to perceive the world in
general, SEASON in particular when they have the same physical
experiences no matter where they live in the Earth.
4.2. Animate Domain
Animate entities here consist of animals and plant, in which animals
include lower animals and higher animals (namely human beings), which is
followed the Zheng’s classification (2017, p.28). The collected data statistics
reveal that the metaphor SEASON IS AN ANIMATE ENTITY is rather
common in both English and Vietnamese. Precisely, there are 201 expressions,
with 336 frequencies in English and 268 expressions in Vietnamese, holding
285 frequencies. Like above domains, the number of expressions supporting
each case in each language is not the same. It can be illustrated in the figure
below:

9


Figure 5. The distribution of animate entities as source domains mapping
onto Season in English and Vietnamese
4.3. Concluding Remarks
The findings reveal that there are two superior source domains
mapping onto the target domain SEASON in English and Vietnamese
corpora, namely inanimate and animate domains, with 13 subordinates. In
addition, each of these subordinates has a great number of sub-domains. In

other words, in terms of SEASON as target domain, there are 40 conceptual
metaphors found in the two languages like in Table below:
Table 1. Conceptual Metaphors of SEASON in English and Vietnamese
in terms of SEASON as target domain

10


1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22

23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40

Conceptual Metaphors
SEASON IS MOTION
SEASON IS A CONTAINER
SEASON IS A CONTAINED OBJECT
SEASON IS A CORPOREAL OBJECT
SEASON IS A COLORED OBJECT
SEASON IS AN OLFACTORY OBJECT
SEASON IS A TASTY OBJECT
SEASON IS EXISTENCE
SEASON IS POSSESSION
SEASON IS LOCATION

SEASON IS PATH
SEASON IS A FORCE/CHANGER
SEASON IS PLACE
SEASON IS HEAVEN
SEASON IS SEA
SEASON IS A RIVER
SEASON IS FIRE
SEASON IS HEAT
SEASON IS LIGHT
SEASON IS SUNSHINE
SEASON IS WIND
SEASON IS COLDNESS
SEASON IS LIQUID
SEASON IS SOUND
SEASON IS TEMPORAL CYCLE
SEASON IS MUSIC
SEASON IS MONEY
SEASON IS MAGIC
SEASON IS FOOD
SEASON IS COSTUMES
SEASON IS COSMETICS
SEASON IS A SOCIAL EVENT
SEASON IS A HOLIDAY/VOCATION
SEASON IS CHARACTERISTIC OF CLIMATE
SEASON IS CHARACTERISTIC OF GALACTIC ENTITIES
SEASON IS CHARACTERISTIC OF TEMPORAL UNITS
SEASON IS A LIVING ENTITY
SEASON IS A PERSON
SEASON IS AN ANIMAL
SEASON IS A PLANT

Note: + = existent; - = nonexistent

English
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

Vietnamese
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

CHAPTER 5. THE ENTITY OF SEASON MAPPING ONTO THE
ABSTRACT DOMAINS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SONG
LYRICS
5.1. Natural State Domain
State here refers to the shapes and facial features of objects, or the
conditions of the material system. Besides, according to Longman Dictionary
English (LDE), it is defined as a “condition which a person or thing is; way
of being”. Specifically, natural state in this paper includes vitality, decline,
perpetuation, life, beauty, and youth.

11


Figure 6. The distribution of natural state domains mapped through

SEASON in English and Vietnamese
Season is widely utilized to conceptualize the natural states in both
English and Vietnamese. It is remarkable that positive states such as good
life, beauty, and youth are conceived through SPRING while negative states,
i.e., decline is metaphorically understood via two seasons: autumn and
winter. In addition, in terms of sub-mappings, beside the two domains:
vitality and decline the two languages share, the findings show that there are
three target domains, i.e., life, beauty, and youth mapped from season in
Vietnamese data only, and there is only one domain, namely, perpetuation
which English people map season onto. It seems that SEASON is used to
conceptualize natural states more widely in Vietnamese than in English.
5.2. Social Domains
The social domain, a fundamental domain in cognitive linguistics,
consists of a great number of relationships which are inseparable with
people’s lives. The findings of this research expose that SEASON is
exploited to view the social domains, such as reunion, separation, victory,
etc., which is synthesized like in the figure below:

Figure 7. The distribution of social domains mapped through SEASON
in English and Vietnamese
12


5.3. Emotional Domain
As a matter of fact, emotion has become a common object in the
studies related to metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: Ning Yu, 1998;
Kövecses, 2000, 2005, 2010). Lakoff and Johnson (1980) assert that
metaphors play essential part in the conceptualization of emotion.
Additionally, when discussing common target domains, Kövecses shares that
emotion is a superior target domain, with a great number of subordinates

such as anger, fear, love, happiness, sadness, shame, pride, etc., which are
primarily understood by means of conceptual metaphors. (2010, p.23).
Intriguingly, the findings of the research uncover that SEASON is exploited
to express emotions, with the domains of love, happiness, sadness, and
loneliness. whose distribution like in Table below:
Table 2. Emotional domains mapped through SEASON in English
and Vietnamese
Emotional domains
English
Vietnamese
Number of
Number of
expressions
expressions
1
Love
94
124
2
Happiness
31
34
3
Sadness
49
97
4
Loneliness
54
51

Total 228
301
In brief, SEASON is considered as a source domain to map onto
emotion. It is noteworthy that positive emotion, i.e., happy love, happiness is
metaphorically manifested through two seasons, namely spring and summer.
Conversely, the two other seasons are utilized to express negative emotions
such as sadness, and loneliness.
5.4. Concluding Remarks
To sum up, regarding a source domain, people deploy SEASON to
express abstract domains, which are classified into natural state, social, and
emotional domains.
With three superior target domains mapped through the source
domain SEASON, there are 18 subordinate domains found in English and
Vietnamese in total. They can be synthesized in the following table:
1
2
3

Conceptual Metaphors
VITALITY IS SEASON
DECLINE IS SEASON
PERPETUATION IS SEASON

13

English
+
+
+

Vietnamese
+
+
-


4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

LIFE IS SEASON
BEAUTY IS SEASON
YOUTH IS SEASON
REUNION IS SEASON
SEPARATION IS SEASON
MEMORY IS SEASON
HOPE IS SEASON
DIFFICULTY IS SEASON

VICTORY IS SEASON
FREEDOM IS SEASON
PEACE IS SEASON
LOVE IS SEASON
HAPPINESS IS SEASON
SADNESS IS SEASON
LONELINESS IS SEASON
Note: + = existent; - = nonexistent

+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+

Like the case of SEASON treated as target domain, the similarities
and differences of conceptual metaphors for SEASON as source domain are
found in the both corpora.
Regarding the degree of linguistic exploitation, the metaphor
EMOTION IS SEASON is the most common, compared with the others, in
the both languages. in detail, there are 228 and 306 expressions supporting
this metaphor in English and Vietnamese data respectively. Besides, some
entailments such as LOVE, LONELINESS, VITALITY are widely
applicable in both corpora, with 94 and 124, 54 and 51, and 48 and 55 in
English and Vietnamese respectively. Conversely, some metaphors are less
common in the two languages, for example, REUNION IS SEASON, with 8
and 10 expressions in English and Vietnamese, and HOPE IS SEASON, with
9 in English, and 10 in Vietnamese corpus. Apart from these similarities, the
two languages have the differences in harnessing SEASON to conceptualize
the abstract entities. VICTORY and PERPETUATION are typical cases.
Precisely, there are 15 expressions supporting the metaphor VICTORY IS
SEASON in Vietnamese, meanwhile no metaphorical expression is found in
English corpus. Inversely, PERPETUATION IS SEASON is drawn out from 8
expressions in English, but there are not any expressions found in Vietnamese
data.
In terms of the themes of domain, the two languages share 10
subordinate domains which are mapped through SEASON. They are
VITALITY, DECLINE, REUNION, SEPARATION, MEMORY, HOPE,
LOVE, HAPPINESS, SADNESS, LONELINESS. In contrast, the two subdomains: PERPETUATION, DIFFICULTY are existent in English corporal
14

while 6 other domains, namely, LIFE, BEAUTY, YOUTH, PEACE,
VICTORY, FREEDOM which is metaphorically understood via SEASON
are applicable in Vietnamese data.
In regard with types of conceptual metaphor, the study reveals a
number of interesting findings. As mentioned earlier, as regards SEASON
treated as target domain, most of the metaphors found are conventional.
However, in the case of SEASON as source domain mapping onto abstract
entities, the metaphors of SEASON here are novel (new) in the both
languages. As a matter of fact, the related studies carried out to investigate
the metaphors of season regarding SEASON as target domain. Therefore, in
the beginning, the author of this research tended to examine the target
domain SEASON mapped through source domains. Surprisingly, the data
uncover that SEASON is exploited to express other entities, particularly,
abstract domains. In other words, the conceptualization of abstract entities
through SEASON domain has not found in the prior studies, except for the
metaphor SEASON IS LOVE (Phan, et al. (2018). Therefore, 18 conceptual
metaphors, which are found in this study, may be considered novel
metaphors.
It is noticeable that although SEASON can be used to express other
abstract domains in general, each season tends to be harness to imply certain
concepts. Particularly, SPRING and SUMMER are often utilized to
conceptualize positive concepts, meanwhile negative concepts seem to be
comprehended via AUTUMN and WINTER in the two languages.
VITALITY, HOPE, or HAPPY LOVE are expressed through SPRING and
SUMMER. It can be understandable because in two seasons with sound
conditions, living things in general, human beings in particular, experience
good things. Accordingly, people employ these seasons to describe the
positive things. On the contrary, DECLINE, BROKEN LOVE,
LONELINESS, SADNESS, etc., are associated with AUTUMN and

WINTER.
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
6.1. Recapitulation
In the light of the CMT, 3175 expressions of metaphor season, 4105
times of appearance have been identified and collected from 854 English and
Vietnamese lyrics of songs. The data analysis is based on the frameworks
suggested by Steen (2011). The qualitative method of CMA is used to code
15


the data manually to identify the metaphors of season. Subsequently, they are
quantified to assist the process of comparing and contrasting between the two
languages. From the data analysis process, the major findings of the study
can be summarized as regards the answer for the overarching research
question above-mentioned as follows:
The aim of the study is to identify the metaphors of season in
English and Vietnamese in terms of season treated as both a target domain
and source one. In total, there are 58 metaphors of season found from the two
corpora, with 40 metaphors regarding season as target domain, and 18 ones
in terms of season mapping onto other domains. Remarkably, the number of
metaphors with SEASON as target domain is far higher than that when
SEASON is treated as a source domain. TIME, as a matter of fact, has been
considered as a target domain in the studies related to conceptual metaphors
(Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Evans, 2004; Kövecses, 2005, 2010; Li, 2014;
Walinski, 2014, etc.,). Therefore, that SEASON, a concept of time, is
metaphorically perceived with widespread application in both languages is
understandable. Simultaneously, it is inferred that finding out 18 metaphors
via the source domain SEASON is relatively novel.
In addition to the target and source domains found, the findings
uncover the similarities and differences in metaphorizing SEASON between

English and Vietnamese. In terms of the degree of linguistic exploitation, the
statistics data show that Vietnamese corpus has more metaphorical
expressions than English does, with 1717, and 1458 respectively. However,
regarding frequencies, English corpus predominates, with 2777 times of
appearance, meanwhile there are 2061 times of appearance in Vietnamese. It
can be inferred that the metaphorical expressions are densely repeated in
English lyrics of songs. In terms of the sense of domains, the two languages
share 40 metaphors when considering SEASON as both source and target
domains. Particularly, classified into two main domains: animate entities and
inanimate entities, the same 30 source domains are found. Moreover,
SEASON is a target domain mapping onto 10 other abstract domains in the
two languages. On the contrary, the findings uncover 8 sub-domains
regarding SEASON as target domain, and 2 sub-domains regarding
SEASON as source domain in English only. Inversely, there are 4 source
domains and 6 target domains found in Vietnamese corpus, but they are
absent in the other language. In short, the source and target domains that map
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onto or are mapped through the entity SEASON are synthesized in Table
below:
Table 6.1. Map of domains SEASON mapping onto and mapped
through

The findings are coherent with Lakoff’s statement (1993):
“metaphorical mappings vary in universality; some seem to be universal,
others are widespread, and some seem to be culture specific.” (p.245).
However, it is obvious that the concept SEASON, as it is shown through the
corpus data, is conceptualized with much more complexity than the
Lakoffian thesis of CMT assumptions (Khajeh, 2013).

6.2. Discussion
6.2.1. Degree of Four- SEASON Exploitation
Regarding SEASON treated as a target domain, data from the both
languages reveal that SEASON is conceptualized as inanimate and animate
entities evenly for four seasons, namely, spring, summer, autumn/fall, and
winter. In other words, the number of metaphorical expressions supporting
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the metaphors with season as target is quite equal in metaphorizing the four
seasons in English and Vietnamese as well.
While most of the conceptual metaphors with regard to season as
target domain are available in the four seasons fairly equally, the
conceptualization of season as a source domain is rather different for each
season. It means that although SEASON can be used to express other
abstract domains in general, each season tends to be harness to imply certain
concepts. Particularly, SPRING and SUMMER are often utilized to
conceptualize positive concepts, meanwhile negative concepts seem to be
comprehended via AUTUMN and WINTER in the two languages. For
example, VITALITY, HOPE, or HAPPY LOVE are expressed through
SPRING and SUMMER. It can be understandable because in two seasons
with sound conditions, living things in general, human beings in particular,
experience good things. Accordingly, people employ these seasons to
describe the positive things. On the contrary, DECLINE, BROKEN LOVE,
LONELINESS, SADNESS, etc., are associated with AUTUMN and
WINTER, which is elaborated in the previous sections.
In addition to the shared similarities in harnessing the four seasons
for the metaphors, the two languages expose the dissimilarities. Firstly, in
terms of the metaphor expression quantity, summer is deployed most
productively in English; however, autumn is used the most densely in

Vietnamese. Whereas, autumn and summer are borrowed with the lowest rate
compared with the other seasons in English and Vietnamese data
respectively, which is significantly surprising to the author of this research
because the results differ from the predictions and suppositions the
researcher thought before data collection and process had been done. More
specifically, I at first thought that people would utilize spring for
conceptualization most in the both languages. Secondly, some seasons are
used to metaphorize certain entities, which is applicable in one language, yet
absent in the other, and vice versa. For example, that SUMMER is used to
talk about perpetuation, and AUTUMN and WINTER are harnessed to
express difficulty is existent in English. In contrast, SPRING is utilized to
reflect beauty, victory, freedom, etc., which is found in Vietnamese data
only.
6.2.2. Degree of Conceptual Metaphor Type Exploitation
In terms of types of conceptual metaphor, the findings show that
some types of metaphors of season are dominant in both languages. Basing
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on SIL International and Lakoff and Johnson (1980a), Sandström (2006)
groups sub-types of metaphor into a superior one. Particularly, conventional
metaphors include ontological, orientational, and structural metaphors. In
ontological metaphors, there are containers, entity metaphors, and substance
metaphors. In fact, these metaphors are ubiquitous in the two corpora with a
great number of linguistic metaphors. For instance, SEASON IS A
CONCRETE ENTITY has 152 and 137 expressions in English and
Vietnamese respectively. Accordingly, it can be concluded that in terms of
SEASON treated as the target domains, the conceptual metaphors of season
are mainly conventional metaphors. Similarly, regarding schematicity
hierarchy (Kövecses, 2020), most metaphors with SEASON treated as target

domain belong to the high schematic level, namely image schema, and
domain. For example, the conceptual metaphors SEASON IS A MOVING
OBJECT, SEASON IS CONTAINER, SEASON IS A CONTAINED
THING, SEASON IS SPACE, etc., are at image schema level.
On the other hand, in the case of SEASON as source domain
mapping onto abstract entities, the metaphors of SEASON here are novel
(new) in the both languages. Unlike the case of season as target domain, here
most of the metaphors are at low schematic level, i.e., frame and mental
space from the perspectives of Kövecses’ (2020) schematicity. In other
words, these metaphors become more specific. The case can be illustrated
through some typical metaphors such as HOPE IS SPRING, LOVE IS
SEASON, LONELINESS IS SEASON and so forth, which are construed and
interpreted mainly based on specific context where these metaphors are
created.
It is obvious that in regard to the types of metaphors, the research
shows the findings which are various, compared with the previous studied
earlier mentioned. To be more specific, beside the source domains such as
MOTION, CONTAINER, FORCE, MONEY, PERSON, etc, which were
also found out in the aforementioned research related to investigating TIME
conceptualization, the current study finds out more other domains mapping
onto SEASON, for example, SOUND, LIGHT, LIQUID, PLANT, and so on.
Especially, the target domains which are mapped through SEASON found
out here nearly new. In other words, it is surprising that regarding SEASON
as target domain, the data uncover that SEASON is exploited to express
other entities, namely, abstract domains. Thus, the conceptualization of
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abstract entities through SEASON domain has not found in the prior studies,
except for the metaphor SEASON IS LOVE (Hồ Trịnh Quỳnh Thư, 2018).

6.2.3. Bases for Metaphor Explanations
Another objective of this study is to uncover the reasons to explain
for these similarities and differences, based on the mechanism of
conceptualization and human’s cognitive construction through physical
embodiment. Within this research the basement of reasoning for the
phenomenon is grounded in terms of physical environment, and sociocultural environment mentioned above, which the two languages share the
similarity and disclose the differences.
6.2.3.1. Commonalities
In actuality, the present study proves that metaphors of SEASON are
motivated by human physiological and psychological responses to this
concept of time. This similarity is a result of the general cognition and
conceptualization of SEASON based on the pervasive bodily experience
when time is one of the essentials pertaining to human life. For instance, the
metaphors SEASON IS A CONTAINER and SEASON IS A CONTAINED
OBJECT are common in the two languages. In fact, every person in all over
the world is a container when he is bounded via his skin, therefore they
consider other things as a container or a contained thing, which is coherent
with Lakoff and Johnson’s words (1980a) in their famous book named
Metaphors We Live by:
We are physical beings, bounded and set off from the rest of the
world by the surface of our skins, and we experience the rest of the world as
outside us. Each of us is a container, with a bounding surface and an in-out
orientation. We project our own in-out orientation onto other physical objects
that are bounded by surfaces. Thus, we also view them as containers with an
inside and an outside. (p.29)
Thus, that the image schema container is employed to conceptualize
SEASON is conventional. Another case exemplifies that physical
environment impact on formulating metaphors in general, metaphors of
season in particular, is common all over the world. The instantiation is
manifested via the metaphor SEASON IS A RIVER/STREAM. It seems that

the images of rivers or streams are familiar for everyone in our earth. People
borrow these images to depict season by virtue of the association of flow of
rivers with the flow of season. This conceptualization of season is in line
with Evan’s words: ‘…the motion event described by the lexeme flow, as
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evidenced by the ubiquity with which it is likened to bodies of water such as
streams or rivers which prototypically flow’ (2005, p.145) when he mentions
the relationship of motion between river and time.
In addition, some research (Barcelona, 1986; Kövecses, 2003;
Stefanowitsch, 2006; Polley, 2012) found out the metaphors HAPPINESS IS
LIGHT, and SADNESS IS DARKNESS. Western and Eastern countries, the
sun shines brightly in spring and summer in, yet, in autumn and winter, there
is little sunshine meaning it is often gray and dark. That is maybe the reason
why people associate positive emotion with spring and summer, and negative
emotion with autumn and winter. As a result, the metaphors HAPPINESS IS
SPRING, and WINTER IS SADNESS are popular in both corpora. In short,
from the interpretations and explanations for some of above examples, it can
be drawn out a conclusion that people who have the same physical and sociocultural environment can have the common way to conceptualize things
around them, which is one of the reasons leading to the ubiquity and
convention of metaphors mentioned in the earlier sections.
6.2.3.2. Differences
The differences of physical environment leading to the differences of
conceptualization of SEASON in the two languages here are understood as
the differences of geographical location and climate. It is likely that natural
living conditions influences the way people conceptualize things around
them. For example, SUMMER IS SUNSHINE is existent in Vietnamese. The
reason is maybe that Vietnamese belongs to the zone with the weather
pattern of tropical climate, leading to intense sunshine in this season.

Therefore, the way Vietnamese people experience summer is similar to the
way they experience the sunshine of summer. Another metaphor, an
instantiation to expose physical environment related to human’s
metaphorization, is WINTER IS CHARACTERISTIC OF SNOW, which is
applicable in English only. This conceptualization of winter is maybe be
grounded in the geographic feature, partially forming weather pattern. In
detail, many Western countries, Eastern European ones in particular, are in
an area with continental climate. In addition, they have many parts which are
with high altitude. As a result, it is very cold and there is a lot of snow falling
in winter in these countries. Snow becomes a relatively familiar image in the
relation with the coldest time of a year – winter - for Westerners. In contrast,
Vietnam is in a tropical monsoon climate, the temperature is rarely below 1
degree Celsius, so snow hardly appears in this Southeast Asia country, but in
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the high mountains in Northern provinces such as Lào Cai, Hà Giang, where
snow has fallen few times so far. It means Vietnamese people hardly see
snow in real life. That is reason why this snow conceptualization is existent
in English data, but nonexistent in Vietnamese one.
Besides, socio-cultural environment is an importance factor
influencing human’s cognition. The preceding analysis of the metaphors in
English and Vietnamese proves this statement. Specifically, SEASON IS
MONEY and SEASON IS POSSESSION mentioned earlier are available in
English, but totally absent in Vietnamese data. As a matter of fact, Western
countries belong to industrialized societies with developed economy, so
TIME for them is valuable thing and considered as MONEY and
POSSESSION, which is coherent with Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980a) claim:
Time in our culture is a valuable commodity. It is a limited resource that we use to
accomplish our goals. Because of the way that the concept of work has developed in

modern Western culture, where work is typically associated with the time it takes and time
is precisely quantified. (p.8)

Simultaneously, it can be explained why these metaphors are not
applicable in Vietnamese. Although Viet Nam is growing in economy with
the presence of industry at present, it is not deniable that Viet Nam is a
developing country, an agricultural country, even it was known as
underdeveloped country in the early 20th century. As a result, the concept of
commodity is not familiar for Vietnamese people, and they do not consider
time as a valuable thing. Accordingly, they do not associate SEASON with
MONEY or POSSESSION.
The metaphor SPRING IS FREEDOM/INDEPENDENCE is found in
Vietnamese corpus only. The social background impacts on Vietnamese’s
conceptualization for SEASON here. In fact, Vietnam was colonized for a
long time. In other words, they must be dominated by Western countries.
Therefore, Vietnamese people desire getting their freedom from other
nation’s control. Accordingly, they use spring which often denote positive
things to express freedom they wish to have. The metaphor is created
through the expressions from the Vietnamese lyrics written in wartime.
Another case evokes culture is dominant for human cognition. It is selection
of lexeme to metaphorize SEASON AS MOTION. Specifically, in terms of
motion verbs, về is highly frequently exploited in Vietnamese corpus as
discussed above when the verb is defined as “di chuyển trở lại chỗ của mình,
nơi ở, nơi quê hương của mình”, ‘moving back to your home or where you
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are from’. The selection becomes common for Vietnamese people maybe
because Viet Nam has an agricultural economy, farming was the main
method of survival, so settling down with a stable life is a familiar thought

for Vietnamese people. Hence, the verb về is widely used in
conceptualization, including application for the metaphor SEASON IS
MOTION. The application of this metaphor reflects the more introverted
character of east Asian, (Kövecses, 2005), including Vietnam, compared
with Westerners who seem to be more extroverted.
In conclusion, it can be drawn out from the findings that SEASON is
a dynamic domain in conceptual metaphors when it can be both source and
target domains. In addition, the physical and socio-cultural environment
takes part in constituting metaphors of season as analysis above.
6.3. Implications
In terms of theoretical and methodological basement, the study
follows the CMT proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a), developed by
Kövecses (2005, 2010, 2020), combining with the extended theory related
conceptual metaphor, such as conceptualization, categorization, blending,
etc,. Besides, the study builds a method of metaphor identification, and a
metaphor analysis procedure by adapting the different methods, namely MIP,
MIPVU, CMA, FSM. Thus, these frameworks seem to be significant when
subsequent metaphor studies can apply them.
Regarding practice, the outcomes of this study may serve as
guidance for teaching, learning, and translating.
With the assistance of a conceptual metaphor awareness method,
teachers can help learners gain metaphoric competence. More specifically,
teachers can employ metaphor teaching as a useful method for their students,
especially in teaching idioms, phrasal verbs, and collocations, one of the
complicated aspects in languages in general and in English and Vietnamese
in particular. Specially, Vietnamese learners of English comprehend
conceptual metaphors means it is easier for them to master idioms and
collocations in English. Simultaneously, it helps foreign learners of English
learn Vietnamese better.Danesi ever claims that conceptually fluent in a
language is to know how that language reflects or encodes its concepts on the

basis of metaphorical structuring (1992b, p.490).
For translators, acquiring good competence of metaphors is
relatively significant for their work. Wallerstein ever states:
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If an individual reader misreads, he suffers the consequences individually. If
a translator misreads, he leads innumerable others astray, all of whom pay
the consequences as well (as cited in Schaffner, 1997, p.130).
In fact, it is known that translators are not told here to 'reproduce' the
metaphorical mappings of the source text. It means that the issue is the
business of the translators themselves (Polley, 2012). Therefore, it is implied
that translators should not ignore metaphor interpretation because this
neglect can have serious results for which translators themselves can be
responsible as Schaffner’s statement above.
Besides, the findings of the study could be significantly meaningful
for listeners and writers of songs. Namely, thanks to the interest of metaphors
in the lyrics, listeners can enjoy their songs better; young composers can
write song lyrics more attractively and profoundly.
6.4. Limitation and Suggestions for Further Studies
The present study attempts to investigate English and Vietnamese
metaphors of season. Apart from the contributions, this thesis reveals
limitations that other researchers can take into consideration for their future
research. As the name suggests, the thesis is conducted to uncover the
metaphors of season from the English and Vietnamese songs. As a matter of
fact, songs are manifested underlying their different modes such as, lyrics,
visual, and melody. However, the present study only focuses on lyrics of
songs, verbal language, but excludes the other modes of songs. Furthermore,
although this research employs a method for metaphor identification and
analysis that is empirical instead of intuitive, while being as transparent and

as detailed as possible, all the steps of data process are done manually, which
is time-consuming. Therefore, it is suggestible for further researchers to
conduct interdisciplinary studies which examines metaphors of songs in
terms of music, written language, and images following the corpus-based
approach, even the multimodal corpus-based approach, with assistance of
software for time-saving in data processing. In addition, it cannot be denied
that not a small number of new English metaphors have not been construed
profoundly enough compared with Vietnamese ones due to the researcher’s
limitations for Western culture. Therefore, the differences of season
conceptual metaphors between the two languages are not fully discussed and
well explained. Accordingly, it is expected that these problems will be
resolved in future research.
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