Cognitive Mappings and Cultural Motivations in Chinese <i>Yu</i>-Related Idiomatic Expressions

By defining cultural metonymy and cultural metaphtonymy, this research contributes to the expansion of cultural–cognitive studies and offers insights into how core cultural symbols are conceptualized in idiomatic expressions.

Key findings include: (1) the identification of A HUMAN BEING IS <i>YU</i> as the dominant cultural metaphor, primarily mapping personality traits and talents with a positive semantic prosody and a nuanced gender pattern; (2) metonymic mappings that foreground <i>yu</i>’s acoustic property and cultural-epistemic attribute of high value; and (3) two recurrent metaphtonymic structures – metonymic reduction of metaphoric source and target – which generate layered meanings by grounding abstract mappings in tangible attributes and refining them within cultural-pragmatic contexts.