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c study of conceptual metaphors of learning is meant to be obtained in thisthesis. Since experiences influence conceptual metaphor so heavily, this thesis will firstlyexplore the experiential basis of each conceptual metaphor. Cross-domain mappings andcorresponding metaphorical expressions will then be presented and analyzed to show howconceptual metaphors structure the concept of learning. People’s experiences, such as culturalbackgrounds and thinking styles turn out to ultimately influence metaphorical expressions.For Chinese and English, some of their experiences are same, and some are different.Consequently some metaphorical expressions about learning in Chinese and English are sameand some are different. For example, “LEARNING IS BUILDING” is employed both inChinese and English. There are similar metaphorical expressions, such as “build up theirknowledge system” in English and “ 构建知识框架 ” in Chinese which are the linguisticrealizations of the epistemic correspondence (construct a building learn some knowledge).However, “HUMAN LEARNING IS PLANT GROWING” and its metaphorical expressions,for example, “这些学生踢球学习全是优，都是好苗子” which is the realization of oneontological correspondence (plants learners) in this conceptual metaphor only exist inChinese. Therefore, different Chinese and English metaphorical expressions in conceptualmetaphors of learning will be pointed out. Finally, possible reasons for these similarities anddifferences will be given. After these steps, the second research objective can be achieved.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

Metaphor has been studied for a long time and it always plays an important role in thelinguistic field. Until now, it has been studied for more than two thousand years. There existseveral different theories of metaphor, such as Aristotle’s Comparison Theory and Lakoff andJohnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory. This thesis is dedicated to analyzing expressionsabout learning by using Conceptual Metaphor Theory. In order to make the reader have anoverall understanding of conceptual metaphor, it is necessary to review some otherrepresentative theories of metaphor.

2.1 Previous Studies of Metaphor
This section is a review of several influential theories of metaphor. These theories will bereviewed from the perspectives of rhetoric, semantics, pragmatics and cognition. The purposeof this part is to help the reader have an overall understanding of metaphor.It is a common knowledge that words are often used in figurative senses. Even youngchildren are adept at using figurative language. According to Ungerer & Schmid (2009: 114)“the study of this linguistic phenomenon was for a long time the exclusive domain of literaryscholars and the odd linguist who was interested in the rhetoric”. Rhetorical studies ofmetaphor last a long span of time which is about two thousand years. Aristotle is widelyregarded as the first person who does a systematic study of metaphor. His theory is calledComparative Theory. Aristotle defines metaphor as “metaphor consists in giving the thing aname that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, orfrom species to species, or on grounds of analogy” (Aristotle 1954: 6). In brief, according tohim, metaphor is actually a comparison between two similar things. For example, “There liesmy ship” is an instance where the transference is from genus to species, because “lie” itselfhas a wide