A CORPUS-BASED CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF SELECTED LEXICAL REALISATIONS OF LIGHT AND DARK METAPHORS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Main Article Content
Abstract
Metaphor use is both universal and culturally variable. Although previous cross-cultural studies have explored metaphorical expressions, not many have focused on comparisons between English and Vietnamese using corpus data. To address this gap, the present study conducts a corpus-based contrastive analysis of selected lexical realisations of light and dark metaphors in English and Vietnamese. The data were drawn from the British Web Corpus and the Vietnamese Web Corpus. Selected lexical items associated with light and dark were analysed through concordance and collocation searches, and sampled concordance lines were manually coded for metaphorical use. The findings reveal substantial overlap in the conceptual metaphors identified in the two corpora. However, the differences were observed in lexical realisations and translation equivalence. The findings suggest shared metaphorical tendencies across the two languages while also highlighting language-specific patterns. The study has implications for contrastive metaphor research, translation, and language teaching.
Keywords
contrastive metaphor analysis, light and dark metaphors, metaphor and translation, English/Vietnamese
Article Details
References
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Callies, M., & Onysko, A. (2017). Metaphor variation in Englishes around the world. Cognitive Linguistic Studies, 4(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.4.1
Ciolăneanu, R., & Villalva, A. (2023). Anger is red and fear is white: Universal conceptual metaphors? In L. Strobel (Ed.), Contextual and Crosslinguistic Facets of Emotion Concepts (pp. 145-159). https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9783960916154_A47268411/preview-9783960916154_A47268411.pdf
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Ho, T. Q. T., & Phan, V. H. (2016). Terms of Sensory Perception in English and Vietnamese Metaphorical Expressions of Love. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 4(2), 47. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20160402.11
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Krennmayr, T. (2015). What Corpus Linguistics Can Tell Us About Metaphor Use In Newspaper Texts. Journalism Studies, 16(4), 530-546. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.937155
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. L. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago press.
Meier, B. P. (2015). Do metaphors color our perception of social life? In A. J. Elliot, M. D. Fairchild, & A. Franklin (Eds), Handbook of Color Psychology (1st ed, pp. 419-432). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107337930.021
Meier, B. P., Robinson, M. D., & Clore, G. L. (2004). Why Good Guys Wear White: Automatic Inferences About Stimulus Valence Based on Brightness. Psychological Science, 15(2), 82-87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.01502002.x
Meier, B. P., Robinson, M. D., Crawford, L. E., & Ahlvers, W. J. (2007). When ‘light’ and ‘dark’ thoughts become light and dark responses: Affect biases brightness judgments. Emotion, 7(2), 366-376. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.366
Neumann, C. (2001). Is Metaphor Universal? Cross-Language Evidence from German and Japanese. Metaphor and Symbol, 16(1-2), 123-142. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2001.9678890
Nguyen, G. B. H. (2023). How to be impolite with emojis: A corpus analysis of Vietnamese social media posts. [Thesis, Purdue University Graduate School]. https://doi.org/10.25394/PGS.24581637
Nguyen, L. (2019). Ẩn dụ ý niệm cuộc đời trong tiếng Việt nhìn từ miền nguồn màu sắc. [The Conceptual Metaphor of Life in Vietnamese: A Source-Domain Perspective on Colour] Hue University Journal of Science: Social Sciences and Humanities, 128(6C), 215-226. https://doi.org/10.26459/hueuni-jssh.v128i6C.5433
Nguyen, V. T. (2016). The Cross-cultural Analysis of the Metaphorical Conceptualization of Happiness in English and Vietnamese: Idioms Can Tell. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2), 275-302. https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.14.2.02ngu
Nguyen, N. L. (2013). The EMOTION-IS-LIQUID Metaphor in English and Vietnamese: A Contrastive Analysis. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 95, 363-371. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.658
Pham, N. H. (2017). Đối chiếu ý nghĩa ẩn dụ của hai từ “mặt trời”, “mặt trăng” trong tiếng Hán và tiếng Việt. [Metaphorical Features of “the Sun” and “the Moon” in Chinese and Vietnamese]. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 33(5), 27-36. https://dulieu.itrithuc.vn/media/dataset/2020_08/4186-73-7817-1-10-20171102.pdf
Pike, G., Edgar, G., & Edgar, H. (2012). Perception. In N. Braisby & A. Gellatly (Eds), Cognitive Psychology (pp. 65-99). Oxford University Press.
Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926480709336752
Roystonn, K., Teh, W. L., Samari, E., Cetty, L., Devi, F., Shahwan, S., Chandwani, N., & Subramaniam, M. (2021). Analysis and Interpretation of Metaphors: Exploring Young Adults’ Subjective Experiences With Depression. Qualitative Health Research, 31(8), 1437-1447. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323211004104
Samani, E. R., & Hashemian, M. (2012). The Effect of Conceptual Metaphors on Learning Idioms by L2 Learners. International Journal of English Linguistics, 2(1), 249-256. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v2n1p249
Upton, T. A., & Lee-Thompson, L.-C. (2001). The Role of the First Language in Second Language Reading. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23(4), 469-495. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263101004028
Valiulienė, E. (2015). Temperature metaphors in Lithuanian and English: Contrastive analysis. Verbum, 6, 207-219. https://doi.org/10.15388/Verb.2015.6.8819
Vu, D. N. (2007). Những đơn vị từ vựng biểu thị tâm lý, ý chí, tình cảm có yếu tố chỉ bộ phận cơ thể người trong tiếng Việt. [Vietnamese Lexical Items Denoting Psychological States, Willpower, and Emotions Containing Human Body-Part Terms]. VNU Journal of Science: Social Sciences and Humanities, 23(3). https://repository.vnu.edu.vn/server/api/core/bitstreams/e6a0c11e-db60-4296-a99c-0627d75ec210/content
Wichlinski, L. J. (2022). Adaptive Solutions to the Problem of Vulnerability During Sleep. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 8(4), 442-477. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-022-00330-3
Yu, N. (2008). Metaphor from body and culture. In R. W. Gibbs (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (pp. 247-261). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816802.016
Annamary, K., Prathima, G. S., Sajeev, R., Kayalvizhi, G., Ramesh, V., & Ezhumalai, G. (2016). Colour Preference to Emotions in Relation to the Anxiety Level among School Children in Puducherry – A Cross-Sectional Study. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research, 10(7). https://doi.org/10.7860/JCDR/2016/18506.8128
BBC Bitesize. (2019, March). Six stories behind horse racing jargon. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zmwy7nb#:~:text=Dark%20horse&text=Benjamin%20Disraeli%20described%20such%20a,and%20which%20the%20careless%20St.
Berlin, B., & Kay, P. (1969). Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution (1. paperback pr). Univ. of California Press.
Boers, F., & Lindstromberg, S. (2008). Cognitive linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary and phraseology. Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110199161
Boyatzis, C. J., & Varghese, R. (1994). Children’s Emotional Associations with Colors. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 155(1), 77-85. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.1994.9914760
Callies, M., & Onysko, A. (2017). Metaphor variation in Englishes around the world. Cognitive Linguistic Studies, 4(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.4.1
Ciolăneanu, R., & Villalva, A. (2023). Anger is red and fear is white: Universal conceptual metaphors? In L. Strobel (Ed.), Contextual and Crosslinguistic Facets of Emotion Concepts (pp. 145-159). https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9783960916154_A47268411/preview-9783960916154_A47268411.pdf
Deignan, A. (2005). Metaphor and corpus linguistics. J. Benjamins Pub. https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.6
Ferraresi, A., Zanchetta, E., Baroni, M., & Bernardini, S. (2008). Introducing, evaluating ukWaC, a very large web-derived corpus of English. In Proceedings of the 4th Web as Corpus Workshop. https://aclanthology.org/2008.wac-1.8/
Forceville, C., & Renckens, T. (2013). The GOOD IS LIGHT and BAD IS DARK metaphor in feature films. Metaphor and the Social World, 3(2), 160-179. https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.3.2.03for
Frank, M. G., & Gilovich, T. (1988). The dark side of self- and social perception: Black uniforms and aggression in professional sports. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(1), 74-85. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.74
Goatly, A. (1997). The language of metaphors. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203210000
Gordon, J. E. (2017). Nighttime fears in children: Origins, frequency, content and severity. [Thesis, Monash University]. https://doi.org/10.4225/03/59CB31953289F
Gordon, J., King, N., Gullone, E., Muris, P., & Ollendick, T. H. (2007). Nighttime fears of children and adolescents: Frequency, content, severity, harm expectations, disclosure, and coping behaviours. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45(10), 2464-2472. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2007.03.013
Ho, T. Q. T., & Phan, V. H. (2016). Terms of Sensory Perception in English and Vietnamese Metaphorical Expressions of Love. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 4(2), 47. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20160402.11
Huynh, H. (2020). Shining Light on the “Dark Continent”. https://cla.umn.edu/aaas/news-events/story/shining-light-dark-continent#:~:text=Africa%20was%20originally%20dubbed%20the,until%20the%20late%20nineteenth%20century.
Kay, P., & McDaniel, C. K. (1978). The Linguistic Significance of the Meanings of Basic Color Terms. Language, 54(3), 610. https://doi.org/10.2307/412789
Kilgarriff, A., & Le-Hong, P. (2012). Vietnamese Word Sketches. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Vietnamese Language and Speech Processing. https://www.sketchengine.eu/wp-content/uploads/Vietnamese_word_sketches_2012.pdf
Kövecses, Zoltán. (2005). Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511614408
Krennmayr, T. (2015). What Corpus Linguistics Can Tell Us About Metaphor Use In Newspaper Texts. Journalism Studies, 16(4), 530-546. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.937155
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. L. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago press.
Meier, B. P. (2015). Do metaphors color our perception of social life? In A. J. Elliot, M. D. Fairchild, & A. Franklin (Eds), Handbook of Color Psychology (1st ed, pp. 419-432). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107337930.021
Meier, B. P., Robinson, M. D., & Clore, G. L. (2004). Why Good Guys Wear White: Automatic Inferences About Stimulus Valence Based on Brightness. Psychological Science, 15(2), 82-87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.01502002.x
Meier, B. P., Robinson, M. D., Crawford, L. E., & Ahlvers, W. J. (2007). When ‘light’ and ‘dark’ thoughts become light and dark responses: Affect biases brightness judgments. Emotion, 7(2), 366-376. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.366
Neumann, C. (2001). Is Metaphor Universal? Cross-Language Evidence from German and Japanese. Metaphor and Symbol, 16(1-2), 123-142. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2001.9678890
Nguyen, G. B. H. (2023). How to be impolite with emojis: A corpus analysis of Vietnamese social media posts. [Thesis, Purdue University Graduate School]. https://doi.org/10.25394/PGS.24581637
Nguyen, L. (2019). Ẩn dụ ý niệm cuộc đời trong tiếng Việt nhìn từ miền nguồn màu sắc. [The Conceptual Metaphor of Life in Vietnamese: A Source-Domain Perspective on Colour] Hue University Journal of Science: Social Sciences and Humanities, 128(6C), 215-226. https://doi.org/10.26459/hueuni-jssh.v128i6C.5433
Nguyen, V. T. (2016). The Cross-cultural Analysis of the Metaphorical Conceptualization of Happiness in English and Vietnamese: Idioms Can Tell. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2), 275-302. https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.14.2.02ngu
Nguyen, N. L. (2013). The EMOTION-IS-LIQUID Metaphor in English and Vietnamese: A Contrastive Analysis. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 95, 363-371. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.658
Pham, N. H. (2017). Đối chiếu ý nghĩa ẩn dụ của hai từ “mặt trời”, “mặt trăng” trong tiếng Hán và tiếng Việt. [Metaphorical Features of “the Sun” and “the Moon” in Chinese and Vietnamese]. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 33(5), 27-36. https://dulieu.itrithuc.vn/media/dataset/2020_08/4186-73-7817-1-10-20171102.pdf
Pike, G., Edgar, G., & Edgar, H. (2012). Perception. In N. Braisby & A. Gellatly (Eds), Cognitive Psychology (pp. 65-99). Oxford University Press.
Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926480709336752
Roystonn, K., Teh, W. L., Samari, E., Cetty, L., Devi, F., Shahwan, S., Chandwani, N., & Subramaniam, M. (2021). Analysis and Interpretation of Metaphors: Exploring Young Adults’ Subjective Experiences With Depression. Qualitative Health Research, 31(8), 1437-1447. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323211004104
Samani, E. R., & Hashemian, M. (2012). The Effect of Conceptual Metaphors on Learning Idioms by L2 Learners. International Journal of English Linguistics, 2(1), 249-256. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v2n1p249
Upton, T. A., & Lee-Thompson, L.-C. (2001). The Role of the First Language in Second Language Reading. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23(4), 469-495. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263101004028
Valiulienė, E. (2015). Temperature metaphors in Lithuanian and English: Contrastive analysis. Verbum, 6, 207-219. https://doi.org/10.15388/Verb.2015.6.8819
Vu, D. N. (2007). Những đơn vị từ vựng biểu thị tâm lý, ý chí, tình cảm có yếu tố chỉ bộ phận cơ thể người trong tiếng Việt. [Vietnamese Lexical Items Denoting Psychological States, Willpower, and Emotions Containing Human Body-Part Terms]. VNU Journal of Science: Social Sciences and Humanities, 23(3). https://repository.vnu.edu.vn/server/api/core/bitstreams/e6a0c11e-db60-4296-a99c-0627d75ec210/content
Wichlinski, L. J. (2022). Adaptive Solutions to the Problem of Vulnerability During Sleep. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 8(4), 442-477. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-022-00330-3
Yu, N. (2008). Metaphor from body and culture. In R. W. Gibbs (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (pp. 247-261). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816802.016