Metaphors and cultural models

Abstract

Conceptual metaphors have long been believed to be formed in human minds and yet grounded in physical and cultural experience. The article aims at elaborating on the cultural aspect of the issue by clarifying the role of cultural models. The culturally specific aspect of metaphors have shed light on the incongruence between sets of metaphorical expressions of different languages, hence different cultural models despite the common physical experience of human body. One illustration from Ning Yu’s study about the differences between Chinese ‘xin’ and its English counterparts ‘heart/ mind’ confirms the claim that ‘metaphors are grounded in bodily experience but shaped by cultural understanding’. Another illustration is an analysis of Vietnamese versus English metaphors of heart, which also leads to confirmation of cultural factors in the forming of conceptual metaphors.