Publications

Publication details [#14781]

Liu, Xiaoyu and Yongbing Liu. 2020. The Development and Prospect of the Neural Theory of Metaphor. Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice 2 : 42–49. 8 pp. URL
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
Chinese
ISBN
16741234

Abstract

Lakoff & Johnson treat the relationship between language and other cognitive faculties with his metaphorical cognitive mechanism based on the structure of concept, and develops conceptual metaphor theory. Conceptual metaphor theory forms a sound integration between language and cognition, while the mapping from the source domain to the target domain within a metaphor makes it possible to structuralize and conceptualize experience event. However, Conceptual metaphor theory does not show any trace of being adequate as it tries to reveal the essence of mind through linguistic phenomena. Recently, to make up for the deficiency of conceptual metaphor theory, the study of conceptual metaphorical mechanism has been extended to the field of neuroscience, showing more persuading advantages of the theory and methodology in dealing with the relationship between metaphorical expressions and the cognitive mechanism of the brain, and the integration with scientific experimental method. The paper presents a brief review over neural theory of metaphor, covering its development history and main components. In interpretation and discussion, the paper highlights some implications and promising prospect for the future applications of the theory.