Being Assiduous: Do We Have BITTERNESS or PAIN?

Abstract

This paper examines both synaesthetic and conceptual metaphors of BITTERNESS and PAIN in Chinese and English. In terms of synaesthetic metaphor, BITTERNESS is more versatile than PAIN, as the former can be transferred to more sensory domains than the latter. Regardless of the sensory domains, the synaesthetic metaphor basically inherits the negative polarity in both Chinese and English. Regarding conceptual metaphor, both BITTERNESS and PAIN exhibit noticeable cross-linguistic differences. Specifically, EFFORT IS BITTERNESS and INTENSITY IS PAIN are attested in Chinese, while EFFORT IS PAIN and INTENSITY IS BITTERNESS are in operation in English. Whenever EFFORT is targeted, the expression at issue obliterates the negative sense of BITTER and PAIN, probably because the concept of “effort” is cross-culturally positive.