Conceptual metaphors of marriage from image schema container in Vietnamese (Based on Vietnamese prose data from 1986 to present)

Abstract

The article is based on conceptual metaphor theory in general, container schema theory in particular to analyze the characteristics of container image schema and Vietnamese people’s conceptual metaphors of marriage.. The selected corpus are linguistic expressions of the conceptual metaphor of marriage whose source domain is CONTAINER in Vietnamese prose from 1986 to present. Research results show that Vietnamese people have used the container image scheme to conceptualize two opposing aspects of marriage in human life, specifically, they use the conceptual metaphor MARRIAGE IS A HOUSE to depict the constructive process and the protective role of marriage for people; the conceptual metaphor MARRIAGE IS A PRISON to structure the restrictions of marriage on the human being - one of the downsides of marriage