Conceptualizing Emotions through Metaphors in Fortress Besieged

Using conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), this article examines how metaphors of emotion are constituted in the Chinese novel Fortress Besieged (Wei Cheng). The article makes two important contributions to CMT and cognitive linguistics: a) it investigates the universality thesis of CMT, by assessing its tenets in relation to the Chinese language; and b) it analyses the textual use of metaphors of emotion, by drawing from a corpus extracted from a full-length literary narrative. The article considers the role of culture and geography in the development of language-specific conceptual metaphors, and focuses on the emotions of happiness (喜), anger (怒), sadness (悲), and love (爱).


Introduction
Traditionally metaphor has been viewed as a rhetorical and stylistic device.However, the publication of Lakoff and Johnson's seminal book Metaphors We Live By in 1980 marked the beginning of the cognitive era in metaphor study.These authors put forward the idea of "Conceptual Metaphor Theory" (CMT) for the first time, and claimed that "metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature."(p.3).Therefore, instead of being an ornament to language, metaphor was promoted to a powerful tool that helps humans cognize the world.

Conceptual Metaphor Theory
Conceptual Metaphor Theory, sometimes called Cognitive Metaphor Theory, argues that metaphor does not only denote a figure of speech but also refers to a basic way by which speakers understand one conceptual domain in terms of another.As Barcelona (2000, p. 3) defines it, metaphor is "the cognitive mechanism whereby one experiential domain is partially 'mapped', i.e., projected, onto a different experiential domain, so that the second domain is partially understood in terms of the first one.The domain that is mapped is called the source or donor domain, and the domain onto which the source is mapped is called the target or recipient domain".For example, the source domain WAR which is more concrete and easy to understand is mapped onto the target domain ARGUMENT, which is more abstract, via the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR.At the same time, the metaphorical mappings are not arbitrary, for they are deeply rooted in our bodily experience.As the philosophical basis of cognitive linguistics-"experiential realism" claims, "conceptual structure is meaningful because it is embodied, that is, it arises from and is tied to our preconceptual bodily experience" (Lakoff, 1987, p. 267).
Conceptual metaphor is an important concept in cognitive linguistics.Yu (1998, p. 16), however, points out that a unique feature of CMT is that "it makes a remarkable distinction between conceptual metaphors and metaphorical expressions".Metaphorical expression is the linguistic manifestation of conceptual metaphor, whereas a conceptual metaphor can be expressed in several different metaphorical expressions.In other words, as Lan (2005) notes, the existence of metaphorical expressions is due to a metaphorical conceptual model existing in human conceptual systems.Lakoff and Johnson (1980) point out that according to the cognitive functions that they perform, i.e., the way in which metaphors are used to help humans possess a better way to understand the world, conceptual metaphors can be classified into three general kinds: structural metaphor, ontological metaphor, and orientational metaphor.Structural metaphors refer to "those cases where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another, that is, structural metaphors allow speakers to use one highly structured and clearly delineated concept to partially structure another" (Lakoff & Johnson,l980,p. 61), such as the above mentioned conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR.In ontological metaphor, "[o]ur experiences provide the basis for an extraordinarily wide variety of ontological metaphors, that is, ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., as entities and substances" (Lakoff & Johnson,l980,p. 25).The most typical and representative metaphor in ontological metaphor is the container metaphor, such as ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER.Orientational metaphor is to do with basic human spatial orientations: "up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, center-periphery" (Lakoff & Johnson,l980,p. 14), for example, HAPPINESS IS UP.

A Brief Introduction to Fortress Besieged
Fortress Besieged (Chinese name:《围城》Wei Cheng) was written by Qian Zhongshu and published in 1947.Qian Zhongshu is a well-known modern Chinese literary scholar and writer and "ranks among the foremost twentieth-century Chinese novelists" (Kelly & Mao, 2003, p. iii).He is one of the few acknowledged masters of written vernacular Chinese in the 20th century (Hsia, 1999) and one of the best-known Chinese writers in the West (Zhang, 1985).Fortress Besieged, as Qian's representative work, is one of the most popular contemporary Chinese novels in China.Its story satirizes the behavior and attitudes of middle-class Chinese society in the late 1930s and the writing is full of detailed and ethnographically rich depiction of emotions.Fortress Besieged is characterized by the extensive use of metaphor and extracts from the novel have entered the modern Chinese idiomatic lexicon.For example, "Clayton University" is used as an idiom meaning an illegitimate academic institution, and "Wei Cheng" has become a proverb in modern Chinese meaning a dilemma situation.Besides its great reputation in China, Fortress Besieged is also internationally famous, and has been translated into many different languages, including English, Russian, French, Japanese, German, Spanish and Korean.Ortony, Clore and Collins (1988) note that the most readily available access people have to emotion is through language.Also, Allan (1995) states that one of the most important sources of information for studying emotion concepts is linguistic analysis.Therefore, this paper will use linguistic qualitative analysis, in particular a close-reading text analysis, as its main method.More specifically, how the emotions are conceptualized will be uncovered through a detailed study of the linguistic expressions used to express the emotions.

Identification of Metaphorical Expressions of Emotions
Due to the fact that talking about emotions does not necessarily require the emotions to be named, I conducted a hand search approach of Fortress Besieged, and extracted a corpus of 608 metaphorical expressions of happiness, anger, sadness, and love.All these metaphorical expressions were analyzed following CMT as a model to show how these emotions are conceptualized through metaphors in Fortress Besieged.
Taking Pragglejaz Group's metaphor identification method (2007) as a main guide, I identified the metaphorical expressions of emotions in Fortress Besieged in this paper by: 1) Reading the whole novel first in order to become familiar with its story and context.
2) Reading the novel again sentence by sentence and taking each chapter as a unit to find and determine the emotions and their linguistic expressions.
3) Establishing and checking the meaning of each lexical unit in each linguistic expression in the context, and considering the collocations before and after the lexical unit.4) Determining if the lexical unit has a more ordinary meaning in other contexts than the one in the novel context.More ordinary meanings refer to:  A more basic and specific meaning which is easier to come into the mind;  A widely known and accepted meaning in daily life;  The first or second definition in the contemporary dictionary (Note 1).
5) Comparing the contextual meaning of each lexical unit with its ordinary meaning to see whether the contextual meaning is different from the ordinary meaning but can be understood in comparison with it.

6
) If the answer to 5) was positive, then this linguistic expression was confirmed as a metaphorical expression.
As regards the way metaphors are presented in this paper, in translating the metaphorical expressions of emotions into English, each expression is first provided with a word-for-word translation, which is then followed by a freer translation.The expressions are first translated literally with a view to revealing the Chinese thought patterns involved in conceptualizing emotions.

Happiness
140 metaphorical expressions of happiness in Fortress Besieged were found.Through my analysis, 15 typical conceptual metaphors were employed to conceptualize happiness, which are listed in Table 1. "……spirit-head-up……" "When his father received the letter, which proved his authority had reached across several thousands miles, he was extremely satisfied.He, in high spirits, sent his son a sum of money to let him buy tonic medicine." (2) "三闾大学的电报，家里还没知道，报告了父亲母亲，准使他们高兴，他们高兴头上也许心气宽和， 不会细密地追究盘问。" (p.226) "……high-spirit, …..high-spirit-head-up……" "His family still didn't know about the telegram from San Lu University.If he tells this to his parents, they would certainly be happy, and in their high spirits they might be more magnanimous and not ask him too much."

HAPPINESS IS LIGHT
(3) "高松年看方鸿渐和颜悦色，不相信世界上会有这样脾气好或城府深的人...  "The quarrel didn't become more serious because they couldn't go to the Suns to quarrel or to the Fangs to quarrel, or they couldn't quarrel on the street.Thus there was no place for them to cross verbal swords with each other."

Sadness
137 metaphorical expressions of sadness in Fortress Besieged were found.Through my analysis, 12 typical conceptual metaphors were employed to conceptualize sadness, which are listed in Table 3. "He didn't know the fact that when women are in the joy and triumph of love, they never think of those things.Until some doubts rise, they will demand the man to do the engagement and marriage in order to have their love safeguarded." (62) "想来这是一切女人最可夸傲的时候，看两个男人为她争斗。" (p.110) "......for-she-fight" "Fang Hongjian thought that two men fighting for her must be a woman's proudest moment." "......hungry-mouth-kiss-she" "Fang Hongjian and Miss Bao walked side by side in silence.A big wave made the ship shake violently, so Miss Bao didn't stand still.Fang then held her waist, and leaning against the handrail, he kissed her hungrily." LOVE IS PROXIMITY (64) "鸿渐也摇头不说，这更显得他跟唐小姐两口儿平分着一个秘密。" (p.128) "......sharing-one-secret" "Hongjian also shook his head and said nothing, which more clearly showed that he and Miss Tang were sharing a secret." "from-love-to-white head-together-old, ......" "From falling in love to growing old together, it's like a bunch of grapes, which always has one best grape.The best one is the only one, so it is often left to the end as a hope.Isn't that good?" LOVE IS A STANDARD (66) "母亲不服气道："咱们鸿渐也是个博士，不输给她，为什么配不过她？"" (p.68) "......match-no-over-her" "His mother protested, "Our Hongjian is also a Ph.D., not inferior to her, so why not a good match for her? "  "He was just waiting for a chance to tell her that he did not love her, but he hated himself in that he was so tenderhearted that he could not be courageous to cut a tangled skein of silk with a sharp knife (make a lightning decision)." HEART IS A CONTAINER OF LOVE (76) "并非因为她年龄大了；她比鲍小姐大不了多少，并且当着心爱的男人，每个女人都有返老还童的绝 技。" (p.52) "......heart-love......" "It's not that her age was older; she wasn't much older than Miss Bao.Besides, in front of their beloved men, every woman has the unique skill of rejuvenation."EYES ARE THE CONTAINERS OF LOVE (77) "鸿渐本想说："其实全没有关系，"可是在苏小姐抚爱的眼光下，这话不能出口。" (p.166) "......doting-eyes-light......" "Hongjian was going to say: it doesn't matter at all, but under Miss Su's doting gaze, he didn't say it out."

Discussion
Based on the above analysis, the following observations are noteworthy.Kövecses (2000) finds that there are 13 common source domains of metaphor, which are listed in Table 5.According to my analysis, there are 18 common source domains of emotion metaphor in Fortress Besieged, which are shown in Table 6.

ANGER IS QI
"ANGER IS QI" is frequently used to conceptualize anger in Fortress Besieged.Here, I think the "阴阳学说" (Yin-yang Theory) of Chinese philosophy (YYT) and the "传统中医理论" (Traditional Chinese Medicine Theory) (TCMT) play an important role.
YYT thinks that all things in the universe are governed by the law of the unity of two opposite but complementary aspects, "阴" (Yin: feminine) and "阳" (Yang: masculine) (Z.Chen, 1989a).According to YYT, "negative, static and weak" are the typical characteristics of Yin, whereas "positive, dynamic and strong" are the typical characteristics of Yang.Some typical opposites and binary properties of Yin and Yang are listed in Tables 7 and 8 (based on Z. Chen, 1989a, p. 997).From the above tables, we can see that "Hot" and "Qi (Gas)" belong to the group of Yang.As "body feels hot" is an important physiological effect of anger, it is obvious why "ANGER IS QI" is so dominant in conceptualizing anger in Fortress Besieged.
According to TCMT, the human body is composed of three basic substances: Qi (Gas), Xue (Blood), and Jinye (Body fluids other than blood), which serve to maintain the normal activities of the human body (Z.Chen, 1989b;Zhang, Wang & Shi, 1990a).Z. Chen (1989b) further notes that Qi is "the moving but invisible, nutritive substance which functions as the motive power for the physiological movement of internal organs" (p.1010), and it is Qi that promotes the formation and circulation of blood and the metabolism of body fluids as well.Furthermore, Zhang, Wang and Shi (1990a) states that TCMT thinks a sudden, violent or long-term emotion will cause the functional disorder and derangement of viscera, bowels and Qi.This may well be the other motivation why anger is so closely related to Qi in Fortress Besieged.

Human Body Organs as Source Domains
Human body organs (e.g., eyes, nose, mouth, heart, spleen, and stomach) are used as the source domains of emotion metaphors in Fortress Besieged.Here, I think the "五行学说" (Theory of Five Elements) (TFE) of Chinese medicine can provide an explanation.TFE proposes that the universe is composed of five basic elements: "金" (metal), "木" (wood), "水" (water), "火" (fire) and "土" (earth), which can be used to classify things according to their properties and relations to other things.The five elements are in a relation of mutual promotion and restraint, through which the balance of the universe is achieved (Z.Chen, 1989a).Taking "wood, fire, earth, metal, water" as a basic framework, TFE divides natural phenomena and the human body into five basic categories according to their properties, function and relationship with others.According to TFE, items classified into the same category are related to each other and have the same mutual promotion and restraint relations with the objects in the neighbouring categories.For instance, a disease in the liver affects the eyes and the emotion of anger.Extreme anger is considered to be harmful to the liver.Such classification and correspondence in terms of the five elements clarify the mutual relationship between the human body, senses and emotions.As pointed out by Zhang, Wang and Shi (1990b, p. 28), "human mental activities are closely related with the viscera.Certain viscus is related to certain emotional activity: the liver is related to anger, the heart to joy, the spleen to anxiety, the lung to melancholy and the kidney to fear.Only by acting on the corresponding viscera can the environmental emotional stimuli evoke specific emotional responses".These relations help to explain why Fortress Besieged uses human body organs in conceptualizing emotions.

Agricultural Products as Source Domains
Agricultural products (e.g., vinegar, silk, and net) are used as the source domains to conceptualize love in Fortress Besieged.According to Kövecses (2002, p. 187), "The natural and physical environment shapes a language, primarily its vocabulary, in an obvious way; consequently, it will shape the metaphors as well.Given a certain kind of habitat, speakers living there will be attuned (most subconsciously) to things and phenomena that are characteristic of that habitat; and they will make use of these things and phenomena for the metaphorical comprehension and the creation of their own conceptual universe." China is a country with a distinct geography: vast ocean to its east, valleys and hillocks to its south, desert to its northwest, and Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau to its southwest.Though the adequate living space is blessed with natural resources, the half-isolated terrain keeps China from outward exploration.In this case, a continental farming culture is nurtured with people toiling in field from dawn to dusk as daily routine.Throughout the five-thousand-year's Chinese civilization, agriculture has always occupied a key position in social structure.For example, Chinese people plant mulberry trees and raise silkworms to produce silk and make clothes; vinegar, made by crops, is one of the indispensable condiments in Chinese food.This environment could justify why Qian used a number of agricultural products as the source domains to conceptualize love in Fortress Besieged.

Conclusions
In this article, I have studied how emotions are conceptualized through metaphors in Fortress Besieged.Through my analysis, I find CMT is a powerful tool for conceptualizing the abstract concepts not only in spoken language but also in the literary text, in this case, the novel Fortress Besieged.Emotions, which are abstract in nature, are largely conceptualized through metaphors grounded in bodily experiences in Fortress Besieged.Most of the conceptual metaphors of emotions are ontological and structural, and some are orientational.This empirical result supports Lakoff and Johnson's claim that "[t]here are systematic correlates between our emotions and our sensory-motor experiences" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 58).
A range of typical conceptual metaphors of emotions in Fortress Besieged are found, such as "HAPPINESS IS UP", "HAPPINESS IS LIGHT", "ANGER IS QI", "ANGER IS DOWN", "SADNESS IS EMPTY", "SADNESS IS PAIN", "LOVE IS UP", "LOVE IS DRINKING VINEGAR" and "HEART IS A CONTAINER OF EMOTIONS".However, I find that living environment and cultural models play a significant role in selecting one source domain over another when conceptualizing emotions through metaphors in Fortress Besieged.For example, "Qi" takes a fairly higher proportion than any other source domains in conceptualizing anger.I suggest that it is the cultural models of YYT and TFE of Chinese philosophy and medicine that motivate its high frequency.This finding confirms the claim of Kövecses (1999), Quinn (1991) and Yu (1998) that "cultural models play a significant role in constituting our understanding of the world and constraining the selection of metaphors" (Yu, 1998, p. 44).

Table 1 .
Typical conceptual metaphors of happiness in Fortress Besieged

Table 3 .
Typical conceptual metaphors of sadness in Fortress Besieged At first, Xinmei and Hongjian both seemed to suffer the same misfortune.Xinmei tried his best to compete with his friend in the expression of pain and misery, not just letting Hongjian alone get a name for being brokenhearted."......heart-pain, ......" "Some time later, he awoke as if from a faint.He began feeling a continuous pain in his heart, which was like the stabbing pain a person feels when his numb limbs are stretched out and the blood is once again circulating."Thiswasthescenefamiliar to Hongjian before he went abroad.But now when he saw it, his heart suddenly squeezed in pain and his eyes soured to tear."5.4 Love76 metaphorical expressions of love in Fortress Besieged were found.Through my analysis, 20 typical conceptual metaphors were employed to conceptualize love, which are listed in Table4.

Table 5 .
Common source domains of metaphor

Table 6 .
Common source domains of emotion metaphor in Fortress Besieged

Table 7 .
Some typical opposites of Yin and Yang

Table 8 .
Some typical binary properties of Yin and Yang

Table 9 .
Table 9 (based on Z. Chen, 1989a, p. 1000) illustrates how natural phenomena, human body organs and human emotions are classified into five categories headed by TFE.Five categories of theory of five elements