7.3. Semantic Functions of Animal Vehicles in Languages
7.3.1. In Mandarin Chinese
7.3.1.3. Names of Mythical Animals
The above discussion supports Lakoff and Turner’s (1989: 170) proposal: “animals form the second highest level, and are seen in terms of ‘instinctual attributes and behavior.’” However, another kind of animal expression, formed using the names of mythical animals, is used with over 10% in the collected Mandarin corpus of animal expressions (only 0.67% in the German corpus) and should be taken into consideration. Mythical animal expressions in Mandarin Chinese convey [best people, strong man, power]. They can even be [holy, auspicious] (Table 7.3).
From the viewpoint of derivation, dragon lexemes, unlike other animal lexemes that favorably describe the appearance, for example, ying1gou1bi2 鷹 鉤 鼻 ‘hawk-hook-nose = aquiline nose’ and yu2du4bai2 魚肚白 ‘fish-belly-white = the whitish color of a fish’s belly; gray dawn,’ etc. or the character of the referents, e.g., gou3ji2tiao4qiang2 狗 急 跳 牆
‘dog-rush-jump-wall = a cornered beast will do something desperate’ and ji2ru2re4guo1shang4de ma3yi3 急如熱鍋上的螞蟻 ‘hot-pot-on-of-ant = as restless as ants on a hot pan.’ Dragon lexemes only mention the body parts but have no description (long2yan3 龍眼 ‘dragon-eye = longan’) or only draw attention to the dragon’s movement but still leave the space and imagination to the language users, as in long2xing2hu3bu4 龍行虎步 ‘dragon-walk-tiger-pace = a great warrior’s firm strides are like the dragon’s and the tiger’s’ and long2fei1feng4wu3 龍 飛 鳳 舞
‘dragon-fly-phoenix-dance = like dragons flying and phoenixes dancing; lively and vigorous
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flourishes in calligraphy.’ A mythical creature has no determined appearance to be described; thus, also it offers the speaker and listener a space for imagination and a blank to fill in on their own accord.
The same as the modern usage of ji1 雞 ‘chicken’ and ma3 馬 ‘horse’ (as mentioned above), long2 龍 ‘dragon’ has even become a morphological root in transliteration, e.g., meaning textile goods: 奧龍 ‘Orlon,’ 帝人帝特龍 ‘Teijen Tetoron,’ 特多龍 ‘Tetoron,’ 愛絲龍 ‘Exlan,’
and毛麗龍 ‘Vonnel’ (Yao 1992: 343). Homonyms play a key role because the words are borrowed.
Long2 not only is a semantic marker denoting [+positive, +super], but it also serves as a popular phonetic representation for the phonological unit [+liquids] + [-front vowels] + [+nasal C.]. This is a robust tendency for many Chinese characters when borrowing words from other languages:
semantic marker > phonetic element.
There are many meteorological and astronomical terms that include long2, because long2 carries the semantic concept of nature – sky, earth, water, and fire. As a bound morpheme used to describe the head of the lexeme, dragon represents this group of adjectives: “remarkable, valuable, important, strong, powerful, super,” all positive, e.g., long2zi3 龍子 ‘dragon-son = descendents of emperors in ancient times’ and long2zhong3 龍種 ‘dragon-race = Chinese people.’ It reaches all dimensions: big, deep, wide, high, and far. The female counterpart of long2 ‘dragon’ is feng4 鳳
‘phoenix,’ which also carries the same positive sense, e.g., long2feng4pei4 龍 鳳 配
‘dragon-phoenix-match = union of a dragon and a phoenix.’ Feng4 鳳 is male in compounds with huang2 凰 or luan2 鸞 such as in feng4qiu2huang2 鳳求凰 ‘male phoenix-ask-female phoenix = the male chasing after the female’ and luan2feng4he2ming2 鸞鳳和鳴 ‘female phoenix-male phoenix-harmony-sound = be blessed with conjugal felicity; be a happy couple.’
Table 7.3. Semantic functions of mythical animal vehicles in Mandarin Chinese
Vehicles Semantic Functions
dragon best people 32.8%, auspiciousness 32.8%, strong man 16.4%, holiness 9.8%, power 9.8%
phoenix auspiciousness 60%, beauty 30%
qilin auspiciousness 66.7%
7.3.2. In German
The following will discuss only the most productive metaphorical vehicles in the German corpus:
domestic animals comprise 37% and wild animals 10.1% of the collected animal expressions.
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7.3.2.1. Names of Domestic Animals
Null Bock haben ‘nil-ram-have = it does not really grab me to it’ and auf etwas Bock haben
‘to-something-ram-have = feel like doing something’ may have originated in the late 1970s and become popular among teenagers (Röhrich 1991: 227). The adjective “stier” is a homonym of Stier
‘bull.’ Drosdowski (1997: 713) says that this is a conversion of the Low German and of the Dutch word stur being influenced by the animal name Stier. Even around 1600, the Dutch stuur ‘stern, gruff’ was used in sense of “staring like a bull in a wild and threatening way.”
The distinct functions of semantic domains are shown by animal expressions. Take the vehicle Katze ‘cat’ as an example; it evokes the concepts [weak, false, small, unimportant, flattering, quick, shrill] in a German-speaker’s mind, and a large number of Katze expressions connote these semantic features. Therefore Katze is a “perfect” semantic contributor for the subject ‘woman.’
Many German Katze expressions denote this meaning, such as Kätzchen ‘little cat = an endearment for a woman,’ falsch wie eine Katze ‘a woman who is as false as a cat’ and Schmusekatze ‘flattering cat = an endearment for a woman.’ This domain is occupied by Katze, and should not be invaded. It is bordered by gender,10 i.e., the semantic features of Katze [+small, weak, false, moody] do not function for males; rather, when used for men, the meaning shifts to [+intoxicate, loaded, hangover], the behavior when a man is drunk, as in Katzenjammer ‘cat’s complaint = the complaint after a hangover.’
Some semantic features of the metaphorical vehicles seem awkward and have puzzled linguists, driving them to trace folk-etymology for answers (Riegler 1907, Storfer 1935, Büchmann 1972, Röhrich 1991: 818). However, they can be understood after using semantic interconnection and interaction; e.g., one of the semantic features of German cat is [+nothing], as in Das ist für die Katz ‘this is for the cat = This is worth nothing, I don’t know why I bothered’ or Dann gehört er der Katz ‘this belongs to the cat = This is in vain, I don’t know why I bothered.’ The Germans nevertheless can understand the meaning of Das ist für die Katz ‘this is for the cat = this is worth nothing’ from the other semantic features of Katze: [+small] (as in Katzenschwanz11 and Katzentisch12) and [+unknown matter] (as in die Katze im Sack kaufen13 and die Katze aus dem Sack lassen14). The interconnection and interaction of semantic features explains. The senses of the vehicles in question are intimately related because they are developed from the same animal and
10 Katze (cat) can also be used for children, but not for men.
11 Meaning: A cat tail = a triviality.
12 Meaning: A cat’s table = a little table for dining.
13 Meaning: To buy a cat in a sack = to buy something without knowing what it is.
14 Meaning: To let cat go out of the sack = to tell the covered truth; let the cat out of the bag.
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denote the same cultural background. Salient elements will surface and occupy syntactic positions available with understood elements in the background.
According to Braun et al (1993: 495) the meaning of Hahnrei ‘cuckold = a deceived husband’ may have been originally Kapaun ‘capon,’ as being used as late as 16/17th century. This may provide an explanation for the origin of the saying jemandem Hörner aufsetzen
‘someone-horn-put on = to cuckold someone.’ It used to be a custom to cut the spurs of the capon and to implant them into its crest, where they continued growing like horns. We give a more complete list of semantic functions of domestic animal vehicles in German below (Table 7.4).
Table 7.4. Semantic functions of domestic-vehicle names in German
Vehicles Semantic Functions
horse strength 12.2%, stupidity 12.2%, arrogant 10.2%, means of transportation 8.2%, values 8.2%, robustness 6.1%, heavy workload 6.1%, common people
cow stupidity 27.8%
calf silly behavior 53.8%, stupidity 30.8%, money 23%
ox stupidity 41.2%, heavy labor 23.5%
bull stupidity 17.6%, aggressiveness 17.6%, intensifier 17.6%
sow intensifier 26.3%, dirt 15.8%, obscenity 15.8%, happiness 13.2%, mess 10.5%, insidious 7.9%
chicken stupidity 16.7%, woman 10%, craziness 10%, mess 10%, talkative, proud rooster man 18.2%, weather vane 18.2%
cat
Insignificance 14%, superficiality 8%, flattering behaviour 8%, small amount 6%, falseness, quickness, shrillness, ill-temper, pursuance, cleanliness, misfortune, cowardice, absurdity, intolerableness
tomcat hangover 55.6%, depression, craziness, misfortune
dog poverty 13%, wickedness 9.8%, intensifier 7.6%, worthlessness 6.5%, baseness 5.4%, insignificance 5.4%, malevolence 4.3%, someone 3.3%, labor
pig dirt 37.5%, mess 25%
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7.3.2.2. Names of Wild Animals
The notable semantic functions of Tiger ‘tiger’ [+quickness, +jealousy], Vogel ‘bird’ [+symbol of freedom],15 Wurm ‘worm’ [+wriggling forward] and Fisch ‘fish’ [+no intelligence, +uncertainty, +unreliability] as discussed in Riegler (1907) are fading; some were lost during the last century.
There are many animal-name endearments in German. They reveal the traditional gender roles in German society. The endearments applied to women are derived either from a domestic animal (lamb: Lamm, Lämmchen), pets (cat: Schmusekatze, Kätzchen, rabbit: Hase, Hasi, Häschen), a culture follower16 (mouse: Mäuschen, Mausi), or small and light birds (swallow: Spatz, Spätzchen, dove: Täubchen), whereas, those for men are derived from a wild animal, the bear: Bärchen, Knuddelbär, Brummbär. This linguistic fact first shows that men are generally physically stronger than women. Secondly, traditionally, women were responsible for the household while men were considered to be the breadwinners in society. As this notion fades in modern society, language continues to file it.
The original meaning of Elefantenhaut ‘elephant skin’ was merely “the skin of an elephant.”
By sense extension, the expression gained an additional meaning. The semantic feature [+thick/fat]
was decisive. The outer physical size transformed into a behavior feature. The extension of the meaning of Elefantenhaut ‘to have a thick skin; to be insensitive, inured, indifferent, apathetic’ goes from the skin of the elephant to insensitive people. This tendency of changing from a concrete to an abstract concept echoes Aitchison’s (2001: 130) universal laws: Humans “using everyday external bodily behavior to describe internal events.”
Sometimes both the Chinese and the German people share the same point of view about some animals. But differences in interpretation and in opinion have led to different animal expressions.
Both peoples produce animal expressions based on their observations that a snail carries a shell.
They are wu2ke2gua1niu2 無殼蝸牛 ‘no-shell-snail = people who are not capable of purchasing houses’ and gua1niu2zu2 蝸牛族 ‘snail-tribe = people who do not possess real estate’ in Mandarin Chinese, where the basic need of housing is the focus, and sich in sein Schneckenhaus zurückziehen
‘self-in-one’s-snail shell-withdraw = to go into one’s shell’ und jemanden zur Schnecke machen
‘someone-to-snail-make = to come down on someone like a ton of bricks’ in German, it concentrates more on behavior and emotion. The underlying conceits vary in these snail-expressions, and the idiom schemas are recognizable. We give a more complete list of semantic functions of wild animal vehicles in German below (Table 7.5).
15 The Vogel ‘bird’ is still the symbol of freedom in German society, but not shown in modern German. Vogelfrei ‘bird-free = outlawed’ is a closed one.
16 Culture followers are animals that live close to humans.
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Table 7.5. Semantic functions of wild-animal vehicles in German
Vehicles Semantic Functions
bird comic 11.1%, symbol of freedom
fish fishfishing 26.4%, fish-water 14.7%, profit 11.8%, event 11.8%, fish-swimming 11.8%, no intelligence, uncertainty, unreliability
fox cleverness 28.6%, shrewdness 19%, anger 19%
rabbit fear 26.7%, woman 20.7%, event 17.2%
snake poison 15.8%, cunning 15.8%
tiger power 66.7%, courage, hunt, jealousy, protector, quickness, gasoline
wolf cruelness 27.8%, destruction 22.2%, hunger 16.7%, greed 16.7%, malevolence 16.7%
worm parasite 25%, small size 20%, defenselessness 20%, defect 15%, danger 15%, wriggling forward