This article focuses on cultural variations in conceptual metaphors of love between English and Vietnamese. In order to enhance English teaching and learning, we would like to analyze different possibilities of cultural variations from a cognitive perspective and propose several explanations for those issues. | VNU Journal of Science: Foreign Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2016) 42-51 Cultural Variations in Conceptual Metaphors of Love in English and Vietnamese Ngo Dinh Phuong*, Nguyen Thi Kim Anh Vinh University, 182 Le Duan, Vinh, Nghe An, Vietnam Received 20 October 2015 Revised 06 April 2016; Accepted 27 May 2016 Abstract: One central issue in cognitive linguistics that has received interest from researchers in recent years is the conceptual metaphor. This article focuses on cultural variations in conceptual metaphors of love between English and Vietnamese. In order to enhance English teaching and learning, we would like to analyze different possibilities of cultural variations from a cognitive perspective and propose several explanations for those issues. Keywords: Conceptual metaphor, metaphor of love, cultural variations. 1. Introduction* understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain. A simple way of acquiring this view of metaphor is the following: CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN (A) IS CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN (B). The two domains that involve conceptual metaphor are specifically named. “The target domain is the domain that we try to understand through the use of the source domain” [2: 4]. It is noticeable that a more abstract concept is assigned target and a more concrete or physical concept as their source. Therefore, several domains such as life, arguments, love, friendship and others are chosen as target domains while journeys, building, food, plants and others are source domains. The knowledge we get from experience with the physical world around us enables a natural and logical comprehension of more abstract domains. Another issue that should be taken into consideration is the difference between the conceptual metaphors and metaphorical linguistic expressions. The latter are words or For a long time, metaphor has been regarded as an expressive agent that is separated from reality and everyday language. According to Lakoff [1: 202] the word “metaphor”
