Modern Social Science Research

Emotions, as an indispensable component of human subjective experience, occupy a central position in an individual’s inner life, characterized by universality and centrality. Fear, as the fifth basic feeling in humans, is a typical negative emotion, arising from apprehension and concern about unknown dangers. Since emotions themselves often manifest as abstract, vague, and ineffable internal feelings, metaphor serves as a common tool to concretize these abstract concepts. Grounded in cognitive metaphor theory, this paper focuses on idiomatic expressions of ‘fear’ in both English and Chinese to systematically explore the commonalities and individualities of their conceptual metaphors, as well as their underlying causes. The paper reveals that English and Chinese idioms not only share the basic cognition of “Fear is the fluid in a container,” but also exhibit distinct individual characteristics. Specifically, the conceptual metaphors of fear idioms in Chinese are mainly reflected in traditional culture, the visceral cognition of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and historical allusions. In contrast, the individualities of English fear metaphors primarily stem from Western religious mythology, seafaring culture, folk traditions, and anatomical knowledge.

Emotion; Fear; Cognitive commonality; Cognitive individuality