Water as Metaphor of Human Beings in English and Vietnamese Poems

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the conceptual metaphors of water, which are metaphorically used to describe human beings, emotions, behaviours and relationships in English and Vietnamese poems. Based on the theory of cognitive linguistics and conceptual metaphors of Kövecses (2002) and Lakoff and Johnson (1980), this study examined 200 English and Vietnamese samples from a collection of poems written in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through the application of descriptive, quantitative, and qualitative approaches and contrastive analysis, the study reveals that there are 6 categories of water images which are metaphorically used to characterize human beings. The study also finds out the similarities and differences between conceptual metaphors of water symbolizing human beings in English and Vietnamese poems. This investigation is hoped to improve our understanding of how metaphorical phenomena are interpreted across languages and enhance the process of teaching and learning English.