The Metaphorical and Metonymical Conceptualizations of the Term Sea (Hai) in the Four-Character Chinese Idioms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a comprehensive and well-structured paper that explores the cultural and cognitive aspects of hai-related idioms. The explanation for conceptual metaphor and metonymy theory was effective, making it accessible for readers who may not be familiar with this framework.

This study could serve as a foundation for further research into how metaphors and metonymies are used to convey cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes in other languages and cultures. It also highlights the importance of considering the broader socio-cultural context when analyzing linguistic expressions.

My concern is that the concept of sea corresponds to numerous words in Chinese. It is probably also worthwhile mentioning the word hai (sea) has many other synonyms in the ancient Chinese language and why hai is the only one that the researcher has decided to focus on. 

Also, the analysis is entirely based on the author's own interpretations of the meanings of these idioms. Does the authors have other sources to back up claims such as "It conveys that the people are eager for peace and care about the fate of the country.", "Humans should worship nature and behave in accord-ance with it. This does not mean that humans should give up without making any effort. Rather, what humans should do is act or behave according to the rules of nature and let nature decide." These are related to some fundamental philosophical beliefs that prevail in Chinese culture. It needs more explanation. 

Author Response

Dear Ms./Mr.,
Best greetings!

We have revised the manuscript according to the suggestions of readers one by one. The details can be seen  the part marked by red.
Yours,

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting paper which investigates the use of the term ‘sea’ in four-character Chinese idioms from the point of view of conceptual metaphor and metonymy theory. In doing so, it categorises the idioms according to the type of conceptual operation motivating them, and explores the extent to which these motivations reflect elements of Chinese history and philosophy. It contributes to the existing literature on idioms, and provides a foundation for future comparative work.  

I enjoyed this paper and support its publication, with some suggestions for revision.

 

1 Introduction 

 

The Introduction section provides an effective foundation to the paper. However, I would encourage the authors to be a little more cautious about making the claim that idioms are at the ‘core’ of human language, or that they have a ‘high frequency in daily communication’. This may indeed be the case in Chinese, but depending on the definition of ‘idiom’ in use, they may not be particularly frequently used in all human language. I would like to see a clear definition of what constitutes an ‘idiom’ for the purpose of your study, and citations to indicate how widespread their use may be.  

 

The Introduction may also be improved by more clearly articulating the relationship between metaphor and idiom, and the extent to which metaphor theory can be applied to the study of idiom. It may be enough simply to state that idioms are largely figurative, but care needs to be taken here as the citations you include to Kovecses, Szabo and Gibbs in this section seem to be relevant to metaphor more broadly, not just idiom. 

 

As a minor point in this section, you refer to ‘shared features with the idioms discussed above’, but you have not discussed any idioms at this point to refer back to. The features you discuss come from three perspectives, and it isn’t clear which one you are taking.  

 

 

2 Background and review of CM(M)T 

 

This section serves as an effective review of the theory underpinning your study, and situates your work in the context of previous research. The cited references here are relevant and largely recent. It would be good to include a citation for your first sentence of Section 2 (‘One of the basic tenets...’), however.  

 

In Section 2.1, I would advise caution in saying that the target is ‘less accessible through sensory perception’ where the source is ‘more concrete and accessible’. More recent research (e.g. Gibbs) has demonstrated that this is not always the case, and indeed, later in Section 3 you give the conceptual metaphor ‘a concrete entity is the sea’, which would contradict the idea that target domains are less accessible through sensory perception. Literary articles and calligraphy are quite concrete. 

I would advise rephrasing the sentence in Section 2.1 ‘Conceptual metaphor is pervasive in ordinary language and constitutes the linguistic realization of such cross-domain mappings’; this is written in a way that makes it sound inaccurate. Conceptual metaphor may motivate linguistic metaphor, but is not ‘pervasive in language’ itself (although its linguistic instantiations may be), as it is a matter of thought.  

 

As a minor point, I would take a slightly different view of your metonymic relationship in 2.2, that ‘crossing ocean and sea’ is a part for whole metonymy where ‘crossing the ocean’ stands for the whole process of travelling to another country – not that the ocean and the sea stand for the foreign country itself (which, after all, may be landlocked!).  

 

3 Data Collection and Metaphor Identification Procedure

 

There are some linguistic inaccuracies in this section which at times make the information hard to understand (e.g. ‘The three standards laid upon to the selection of the idioms from the obtained results’). Perhaps this section could be rephrased as simply ‘four-character idioms containing the character 海 in any position were extracted’? 

 

As mentioned above, the fact that you offer ‘concrete entity’ as a target domain seems contradictory to the definition you give. This can be rectified either by hedging the description, or explaining that it is not the concrete objects themselves (a book, a piece of calligraphy, people) that are the target, but the abstract qualities of these (which seems to become more apparent in Section 4).  

 

Data collection is described clearly. 

 

4 Conceptual analysis 

 

As mentioned above, it seems to me that ‘style’ and ‘quantity’ are not necessarily concrete entities in themselves, so you may like to consider retitling this section as ‘Abstract qualities of concrete entities are the sea’ (which will still enable you to distinguish it from 4.2 and 4.3 - although 4.3 may perhaps become a subtype of the new 4.1).  

 

Overall, this section is effective. It clearly explains that metaphorical relationships, with effective examples. The figures are also effective. I wonder if ‘entails’ is the best word in Section 4.2, line 3 (‘The first submetaphor... entails three mappings’), or if ‘involves’ might be better. 

 

The table in Section 4.5 is clear, but perhaps the conceptual metaphors could be written in bold to make them clearer. The conventional way of presenting conceptual metaphors is in small capitals.

 

5 Discussion, Conclusion 

 

While this section offers some interesting information, it is arguably the weakest. It is not always clear how the points made in this section relate back to the results of the analysis, and claims are frequently made without substantiation. The logical links between points are unclear at times. For example, how does the conceptual metaphor ‘a country is the sea’ convey how country, families and individuals are interdependent? I’m not sure how ‘evident’ it is that literature and calligraphy related metaphors are so clearly related to the Imperial Examination System; it seems very speculative. This tendency continues throughout this section – the conclusions drawn are very general and it is not clear how they arise from the analysis. One way to strengthen this section may be through citations to Chinese philosophical texts, particularly to support the ideas of ‘the culture of...’ or ‘the attitude to...’ which are included here uncritically. 

 

The conclusion wraps up the paper effectively, and presents some relevant suggestions for future research. It was good to see the full list of idioms in the appendix, although would you consider providing an English translation of each, as you do for those you provide as examples in the paper? 

 

Overall, this was an interesting and enjoyable paper, and with some further substantiation it will represent a good contribution.  

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Overall, the quality of the English language is good, except in Section 3 (Data Collection). As mentioned above, there are some sections here which are rather awkwardly phrased.

Author Response

Dear Ms./Mr.,
Best greetings!

We have revised the manuscript according to the suggestions of readers one by one. The details can be seen  the part marked by red.

As to the suggestion of offerring an English translation to each idiom in the appendix, we would like to inquire whether they can be  omitted, because their translations are available in CNKI,  the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, whose the official portal is http://gongjushu.cnki.net/rbook/. And  the data of this research are also taken from this database.

Yours,

Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

A Modern approach, an interesting work. 

Author Response

Dear Ms./Mr.,
Best greetings!

Thank you very much for your very positive comments. We have revised the manuscript according to the suggestions of the other two readers one by one. The details can be seen  the part marked by red.

Yours,

Authors