As stated by Lakoff and Johnson, conceptual metaphors “are shaped and con-strained by our bodily experiences in the world, experiences in which the two conceptual domains are correlated and consequently establish mappings from one domain to another” (1980, p。246)。 Metaphor is not arbitrary, but systematic。 It has a root or source in our everyday experience。 Human’s conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature。 Metaphor is guided by experience, in the meantime, metaphor becomes an access to conceptualize our experience。 And that is why different language societies may has different metaphors——we have different bodily experience and awareness to the world。

3。 Literature Review

3。1 A Review of Research on Metaphor

Metaphor is seen as an interdisciplinary subject which is considered in many studies beyond linguistics。 Researchers use metaphor as a device to understand the questions or difficulties in their own fields, especially in the field of literature, philosophy, art of conversation or speech。 Literature is one of the most closely connected areas。 Many researchers look into the image in a book through metaphor。 Beverly B。 Mack (2006) studies the metaphor in Hausa women's poetry and he views metaphor as a bridge to ultimate reality。 Earl R。 MacCormac notices the connection between metaphor and literature, “Literature without metaphor would become less imaginative and poetry would be so impaired as to become dull and perhaps even trite。” (1972, p。57) Those studies mainly study metaphor through a specific image and try to explain the writers’ writing skills or further meaning。 Metaphor is acknowledged as a rhetorical tool。 So as the role metaphor play in the art of speech。 Boaz Keysar and Sam Glucksberg (1992) discuss the relation between metaphor and communication so as to explain why people use metaphor in communication。

Researchers are also interested in the nature, theory and historical development of metaphor。 Jay T。 Keehley (1979) discusses some metaphor theories and summarizes main arguments of some linguists。 Some others focus on the metaphor theory of a particular scholar。 John T。 Kirby (1997) dates back to the metaphor theory of Aristotle; D。 O'Brien (1977) studies the metaphor in Plato, illustrating by the example of “Staying behind” and “Running Away” in the Phaedo and the Timaeus。 Erin M。 Cline (2008) discusses a lot about the metaphor of “mirror” and “mind” according to classical Chinese philosophy, especially the philosophical theories of Zhuangzi and Xunzi。

Some study metaphor as a concept and focus on the cognitive characteristics。 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) point out that conceptual metaphors are in everyday language。 Daniel Serig (2006) looks into the implications of “the conceptual structure of visual metaphor for art education。” 

3。2 A Review of Research on WATER and SHUI

Water is mainly studied as a real physical material that matters in the field of physics, Power Electronics, natural resource, science, etc。 When “water” is acknowledged as a concept, it is firstly taken as a concept in philosophy。 In the ancient explanation of the world, water is believed by some people to be the origin of the outside world, both in home and abroad。 

An early research that is estimable in the study of water is given by scholar Sarah Allan, in her The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue (1997)。 She mentions “in the absence of a transcendental concept, the ancient Chinese turned directly to the natural world” (Allan, 1997, p。Ⅻ)。 She in her book regards water and plants to be the formative metaphors of early Chinese thought。 She finds Chinese philosophy usually proceed from concrete to abstract, therefore she looks into the theories of Laozi, Mencius, and Zhuangzi about the “qi≈water” metaphor and where the difference lies。 So, it can be found that water is with rich imagery meaning and is used as the primary model to conceptualize cosmic principles。