The fish in the figurative lexicon and the phraseology of Chinese and Spanish

Abstract

Following the Cognitive Theory of Figurative Language (Dobrovol'skij and Piirainen 2005), this article analyses the background of the metaphoric symbolic motivation of fish in Chinese culture, from a cultural and historical perspective, focusing on the figurative vocabulary, idioms and proverbs, comparing with Spanish. Throughout the history, the fish has played an important role in the Chinese culture, since it has always been a basic and common food in China. Obviously, these metaphoric images are found in poetry and phraseological units, whose figurative components reflect its cultural symbolism. Based on the collected data, it has been showed that the fish embraces various symbols, such as wealth, happiness, a beloved person, and the benefit. Besides, the images of fish are applied extensively in many areas, such as in loving relationship, situations, concepts of value and suggestions, all of them reflecting vividly the folk wisdom of both countries.