Animosity and suffering: Metaphors of BITTERNESS in English and Chinese

Animosity and suffering: Metaphors of BITTERNESS in English and Chinese Gábor Parti1, Andreas Liesenfeld2, Chu­Ren Huang1 1 Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong 2 Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Netherlands gabor.parti@connect.polyu.hk andreas.liesenfeld@ru.nl churen.huang@polyu.edu.hk Abstract This pilot study attempts a novel compari­ son on how metaphors of BITTERNESS are used in English and Mandarin Chinese, in or­ der to identify subtle cross­linguistic differ­ ences. Using dictionary definitions and Word­ Net databases, we conduct a lexical semantic analysis and establish the various senses “bit­ ter words” can convey. Then, with the help of corpus data we explore the typical themes and contexts the two languages utilize sensory words related to this concept. We observed that figurative uses of bitter in English tend to revolve around ANIMOSITY, while Chinese 苦 ku3 ‘bitter’ frequently expresses SUFFER­ ING. Due to the displeasing character of this human taste experience, conceptualizations of BITTERNESS are overwhelmingly negative. However, we also found that BITTERNESS does not always transmit negative polarity, ex­ pressions such as “a bitter pill to swallow” and “良藥苦口 good medicine tastes bitter” carry an evaluative positivity. Related to linguistic synaesthesia, we found that bitter in English has origins in the tactile sensory domain, and channels this modality when used as a con­ ceptual metaphor for HARSHNESS, describ­ ing colds and winds, or sometimes words. 1 Introduction In the present pilot study, we are looking into cross­ linguistic differences and similarities regarding the usage of words for BITTERNESS. We investigate the literal and figurative uses pertaining to this con­ cept across a range of dictionaries and WordNets, and two very large corpora of English and Man­ darin Chinese. We are interested in how people use BITTERNESS figuratively to describe difficult, dis­ pleasing, or desperate – overwhelmingly negative – events and emotions. First, we delve into the origins of these sensory words from a lexicographical point of view, briefly touching on the topic of linguistic synaesthesia. Then, we have a closer look at the myriad of narrow senses of these words in both En­ glish and Chinese and present a comprehensive list of them, while establishing a taxonomy of broader sense categories for both languages. Finally, we turn towards analyzing empirical data from language cor­ pora using collocation analysis, and apply our taxon­ omy on datasets to see in what context, and to what extent our categorizations appear in common usage. The paper will also touch on questions of polarity, whether or not BITTERNESS metaphors always re­ tain their negative overtones. We pose the following research questions: How is BITTERNESS in the fig­ urative sense used in English and Mandarin Chinese? What can the figurative uses tell us about metaphors of BITTERNESS as the source domain in both lan­ guages? We conclude with a comparison of typi­ cal figurative usage associated with BITTERNESS, which will show us how differently or similarly the two languages use “bitter words”, and what can we learn about their metaphoric use. 2 Literature review Cross­linguistically, uses and …

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