The Metaphorical Interpretation of English and Chinese Body-part Idioms Based on Relevance Theory

As a special language coding way and phenomenon, metaphor is an important form when humans use in communication. However, metaphorical mappings are not arbitrary. They based on our physical experience of the world around us. Idioms crystallization human culture play role The idiomatic meaning simply sum lexical meanings, but often extended from literal meaning. paper relevance theory proposed by Sperber Wilson (1995), adopts methods comparative analysis text analysis, takes idioms “body metaphor” contained English Chinese as main research object to explore following questions: 1. What interpretation model “body-part metaphors” idioms? 2. In idioms, what similarities differences body-part metaphors? Firstly, classified their projection types, then analyzing each type. Finally, through new reasoning guided analyze process exploring importance cognitive context idioms.