The Relationship Between Language and Thinking from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor

Abstract

There has been a heated debate between the view that language determines thought and the view that thought determines language. An important point of discussion on this issue is that relating to metaphor. Metaphor is a universal phenomenon, not only as a linguistic and rhetorical device but also as a cognitive tool for human beings. While Chinese metaphors are usually short and concise, often conveying meaning in a single word, metaphors in English are usually complex sentences that require the reader to establish a larger context in order to understand them. But they also share many of the same or similar metaphors. English and Chinese, as two languages developed in different cultural contexts, both adopt similar concepts in expressing temperature and use the concept of temperature metaphor to express similar content. The article aims to examine the similarities and differences between the English and Chinese concepts of temperature and to give examples of the similarities and differences between English and Chinese temperature to argue its point. The article also compares the conceptual domain of temperature in English and Chinese and finds that ways of thinking that come from the same bodily experience create similar linguistic expressions, ultimately concluding that thinking significantly influenced language.