Chinese conceptualisations of personhood

Informed by previous cognitive linguistic studies on the conceptualisation of self among English speakers, Chapter 5 analyses a variety of linguistic constructions in Mandarin Chinese that reflect the conceptual structures of the self. The conversational data collected for the present study discloses some basic cognitive structures. Speakers associate abstract concepts with a number of conceptual domains, such as space, object possession, and exertion of physical force. This chapter adopts a conceptual approach in unpacking inner self and relationship metaphors through the lens of metaphorical mapping, metonymies or image schemas.