Date of Award

5-2010

Thesis Type

Masters

Document Type

Dissertation

Divisions

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

In recent years, the reading of Chinese traditional poems has become more popular in the Chinese society in Malaysia. Traditional Chinese philosophical poems have even been incorporated into the Chinese language syllabus in primary as well as secondary schools. However, students still encounter difficulty in understanding the real meaning of the poems because of the artistic language of the poems which contain numerous metaphors.  This is a descriptive study which aims to identify the kinds of metaphor used and the reasons for using such metaphorical items in traditional Chinese philosophical poems. In this research, 122 lexical metaphors from 30 traditional Chinese philosophical poems which were written during the Tang and Song Dynasty were analyzed qualitatively.  In this research a comparison is made between the denotative and metaphorical meaning of the metaphor. The type of classification used in this research is based on the syntactical metaphorical structure, image metaphor and conceptual metaphor. The metaphors are analysed based on the similarity between the two objects being compared. The other factors include context, previous used of the metaphor, universal, experience concepts and culture. It is hoped that this research will help increase students’ confidence and enhance their interest in the study of metaphors in traditional Chinese poems. Therefore, the metaphorical meaning of traditional Chinese philosophical poems may be better understood and will aid in one’s spiritual development for a better society and country.

Initial

khm

Additional Information

Dissertation (M.A.) – Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, 2010.

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