Lexical categories denoting metals “金” (gold), “银 ” (silver), “铜 ” (copper) in Chinese from a cognitive perspective

Abstract

According to theory of Cognitive Linguistics, each nation with different conceptual pictures will form different linguistic pictures of the world that are mainly created by vocabulary. Therefore, the lexical categories are not only semantically rich but also express the cultural thinking of a nation. This article studies the basic and important contents of the lexical categories of three words denoting metals, including “金” (gold), “银” (silver), “铜” (copper) in Chinese. The lexical categories “金” (gold), “银” (silver), “铜” (copper) map to most conceptual domains in the human mind, creating a series of structural metaphors.