ContentsAbstract (1)Ⅰ. Introduction (3)Ⅱ. Literature Review (3)A. The cognitive study of metaphor (3)B. Conception of structural metaphor (4)Ⅲ. Homogeneity of Chinese and English structural metaphors of love (4)A. Love is a journey (4)B. Love is war (5)C. Love is a physical force (5)D. Love is fluid (5)E. Love is plant (5)Ⅳ. Heterogenity of Chinese and English structural metaphors of love (6)A. The difference caused by the diversity of ecomomic structure (6)B. The difference caused by the diversity of culture (6)C. Emotional expression in a different way (7)Ⅴ. Conclusion (7)Notes (7)Bibliography (9)Acknowledgements (9)Abstract: Love, one of human's deepest and strongest passions, is expressed in hundreds of ways in human civilization.The abstract concept of love can not be fully elucidated without metaphors. Structural metaphor is a mapping from one conceptual structure to another. Chinese and English structural metaphors of love share a similar central conceptual system because of the cognitive similarity. However, the diversity of national cultures makes differences between them. This paper analyzes the homogeneity of Chinese and English structural metaphors of love; and meanwhile it expatiates the heterogeneity of them through comparing the cultural diversities.Key words: love; structural metaphor; cognition; culture摘要: 在人类繁衍生息的漫长历史进程中，爱情是人类最厚重久远的感情之一。

没有隐喻，爱情这一抽象概念就得不到充分阐释。

结构隐喻是指以一种概念的结构来构造另一种概念。

由于人类认知的相似性,中英文惯用的爱情结构隐喻有着惊人的相似之处; 而中英不同的民族文化又导致了中英爱情结构隐喻的差异性。

本文分析了中英爱情结构隐喻表达的趋同性; 同时通过对中英文化背景异的比较, 阐述了中英爱情结构隐喻表达的异质性。

关键词: 爱情; 结构隐喻; 认知; 文化Comparison Between Chinese and English StructuralMetaphors of LoveⅠ. IntroductionLove is a beautiful but abstract thing. Over the course of history it has been artists, poets and playwrights who have made the greatest progress in humanity's understanding of love. Romance has seemed as inexplicable as the beauty of a rainbow. This beauty is visible gragually after metaphor used in this special field.It seems to be a perfect progress in literature that metaphor has become a poetic way to express the nebulous concept—love. Metaphor is not only a rhetoric device, but a matter of thought and action. Without metaphor,people can not fully understand love. People often use specific or tangible things to describe love, through metaphor, people can express love more visually.Metaphors have been being studied since the age of Aristotle. Aristotle believes that metaphors exists everywhere anytime in human beings’ life. However, we must know that metaphors can help human beings better understand the new things, categories and concepts. In 1980, scholars George Lakoff and Mark Johnson published the book Metaphors We Live By. It is claimed that metaphor is one of our most important tools for attempting to understand partially what cannot be comprehended totally.1Lakoff and Johnson first put forward conceptual metaphor theory in this book, and try to study human metaphor from the view of human cognition. This paper will focus on studying Chinese and English structural metaphors of love.Ⅱ. Literature ReviewA. The cognitive study of metaphorThe cognitive status of metaphor has been pointed out by many a researcher. Lakoff and Johnson argue that the language of the imagination, especially metaphor is the most significant aspect of our experience as it transcends rationality and objectivity. Thus, meaning is the sum of objective and subjective personal experience with categories, which makes the study of figurative language insightful and enriching.The creative nature of metaphor suggests that metaphor making is not reliant onexisting objective similarity between a source domain and a target domain. “The only similarities relevant to metaphors are similarities as experienced by people”, not objective similarities.2 Lakoff and Johnson propose that metaphors can be based on similarities, though in many cases these similarities are themselves based on conventional metaphors that are not based on similarities. Similarities based on conventional metaphors are nonetheless real in our culture, since conventional metaphors partly define that we find real.The cognitive linguistics are excessively concerned with the role of metaphor in cognition, instead of trying to explain how metaphor really works, which has aroused criticisms from other linguistics. In fact, metaphor is presented as a cognitive operation, and its import cannot be communicated otherwise. One of the most recent developments in metaphor study has appeared within the framework of the conceptual metaphor theory.B. Conception of structural metaphorLakoff and Johnson (1980) classify conceptual metaphors into 3 categories: ontological metaphors, structural metaphors and orientational metaphors.Structural metaphors partially structure our every concept and that this structure is reflected in our literal language. Structural metaphors is most important because it allows us to go beyond orientation and referring and gives us the possibility to structure one concept according to another. This means that structural metaphors are grounded in our experience. Structural metaphors imply how one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another.3Ⅲ. Homogeneity of Chinese and English structural metaphors of loveA. Love is a journeyThe metaphor involves understanding one domain of experience, love, in terms of a very different domain of experience, journeys. More technically, the metaphor can be understood as a mapping (in the mathematical sense) from a source domain (in this case, journeys) to a target domain (in this case, love). The mapping is tightly structured. There are some relationships between love and journey.Lover correspond to traveller.Love correspond to travel tools.The common goal of loving correspond to travel destination.The setbacks of love correspond to difficulties in travel.In the journey of love, both two sides will face various hardship, and sometimes they can overcome difficulties and work hand in hand toward the goals; sometimes, it will be difficult to defeat, and finally break up. English examples are:Look how far we’ve come.It’s been a long, bump road.Our relationship has hit a dead end street.We may have to go our separate ways.In Chinese literary works, the concept of using journey to express love also is very common, for example:情长路更长/ 情路艰辛/ 分道扬镳B. Love is warIn this structure, the cruelty and voilence have been mapped to the concept of love. Love likes war, which is a process of fierce competition. Sometimes it need to beat the rival to capture love, filling with the smell of gunpowder. In English, there are some expressions:I’m just wild about Harry.He constantly raves about her.In Chinese, love also has some similarities to war.他终于获取了她的芳心。