A Cognitive Analysis of the Symmetric and Asymmetric Use of UP/DOWN and SHANG/XIA Schemas in English and Chinese
Abstract: UP/DOWN and SHANG/XIA were first used by our ancestors to indicate the height of a physical object. From a cognitive perspective, in UP/DOWN and SHANG/XIA schemas, spatial fields (source domains) often map onto other non-spatial fields (target domains), which allows us to understand non-spatial concepts through spatial concepts, such as quantity, time, social hierarchy, behavior and movements, etc. Generally speaking, the usage of UP/DOWN and SHANG/XIA is symmetric in the process of mapping. However, it is not always symmetric in language practice, but it can also be asymmetric: when UP/SHANG should be used but DOWN/XIA should not, and vice versa. Mostly from a linguistic viewpoint, this dissertation tries to focus on a cognitive analysis of its symmetric and asymmetric use of UP/DOWN and SHANG/XIA schemas in the course of mapping and the reasons why this phenomenon occurs in order to give a more in-depth understanding of these pairs of spatial words by providing abundant examples both in English and Chinese.
Key words: source domain, target domain, mapping, cognition, symmetry, asymmetry
