Universality vs. cultural specificity of anger metaphors and metonymies in English and Vietnamese idioms

Abstract

As a human basic emotion, anger has been extensively investigated to gain insights into human cognition and psychology. From the cognitive linguistic perspective, research into metaphor and metonymy of anger across languages can shed light on the cultural models of respective speech communities. This paper looks into metaphors and metonymies of anger in Vietnamese and English idioms to find out how this emotion is conceptualized in each language, what features are universal and what characteristics are culturally specific. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory framework proposed by Lakoff & Johnson (1980) was used for data analysis, which involves 68 English and 52 Vietnamese idioms. It was found that both languages conceptualize anger based on embodied experiences as well as cultural models. Six major conceptual metaphors of anger are identified with more diverse elaborations in Vietnamese idioms. Cultural differences are that Vietnamese makes frequent use of body parts and internal organs metonymies while English tends to utilize the whole body to describe emotional states. Vietnamese feudalist values and folk culture are also evident in the metaphorical and metonymic idioms of anger. These findings have both linguistic significance and pedagogical implications. It is suggested that awareness of conceptual motivation should be promoted when teaching idioms as figurative, metaphorically based expressions.