英汉“骨/Bone”概念隐喻对比分析

A Comparative Analysis of Metaphorical Concepts of “骨/Bone” in English and Chinese

摘要: 骨作为人体的重要部分，在英语和汉语中都是常用的人体词。本文基于概念隐喻理论，采用语料库驱动与定性定量分析相结合的方法，对英汉两种语言中基本人体词“骨/bone”的概念隐喻进行对比分析。研究发现，英汉“骨/bone”概念隐喻存在共性与差异。共性源于人类相似的生理结构和身体经验，例如将“骨/bone”喻指为支撑结构、内在本质、品格气概和感受深度。而差异主要源于生产活动、文学审美、文化观念与构词方式等因素，体现在汉语“骨”更侧重于文学艺术风格、血缘亲情和彻底改变，而英语“bone”则更侧重于基本要素、争端矛盾和习语化的表达。文章旨在通过此项对比分析，为跨文化沟通、语言教学和翻译实践提供参考。

Abstract: “Bone” is an essential component of the human body and a body-part term shared both by English and Chinese. Framed within Conceptual Metaphor Theory, this paper adopts a corpus-driven approach integrated with qualitative and quantitative analyses to investigate the conceptual metaphors of the basic body-part term “骨/bone” in the two languages. The findings reveal that conceptual metaphors of “骨/bone” exhibit both similarities and differences between English and Chinese. The similarities are largely attributed to shared physiological structures and embodied human experiences, such as using “bone” to represent support structures, inner essence, character, and depth of emotion. Differences are primarily arise from factors including production activities, literary aesthetics, cultural perspectives, and word formation patterns-for instance, the Chinese “骨” emphasizes literary and artistic styles, kinship bonds, and radical transformation, whereas the English “bone” focuses more on fundamental components, conflicts, and idiomatic expressions. This paper aims to provide insights for cross-cultural communication, language teaching, and translation practice.