| Acknowledgements | 第1-5页 |
| English Abstract | 第5-7页 |
| Chinese Abstract | 第7-10页 |
| Chapter 1 Introduction | 第10-13页 |
| Chapter 2 Literature Review | 第13-22页 |
| ·Three historical stages of metaphor research | 第13-15页 |
| ·The rhetorical study of metaphor | 第13-14页 |
| ·The structural and semantic study of metaphor | 第14页 |
| ·The contemporary cognitive study of metaphor | 第14-15页 |
| ·The cognitive nature of metaphor | 第15-17页 |
| ·Metaphor Studies in China | 第17-19页 |
| ·Previous studies of water metaphor | 第19-20页 |
| ·Limitations of the previous studies and contributions of this study | 第20-22页 |
| Chapter 3 Methodology and Data Collection | 第22-28页 |
| ·Theoretical framework: The cognitive theory of conceptual metaphor | 第22-25页 |
| ·Conceptual metaphor | 第22-24页 |
| ·The conceptual metaphor of water in Chinese | 第24-25页 |
| ·Corpus-based approach to the water metaphor study | 第25-28页 |
| Chapter 4 Research Findings and Analysis | 第28-53页 |
| ·Eight major categories of the conceptual metaphor of water | 第30-49页 |
| ·MOVEMENT IS WATER | 第32-34页 |
| ·TIME IS WATER | 第34-36页 |
| ·MONEY IS WATER | 第36-38页 |
| ·EMOTIONS ARE WATER | 第38-41页 |
| ·POWER IS WATER | 第41-43页 |
| ·HUMAN BEINGS ARE WATER | 第43-45页 |
| ·THOUGHTS (IDEAS) ARE WATER | 第45-47页 |
| ·VIRTUE IS WATER | 第47-49页 |
| ·Experiential Bases of Water Metaphors | 第49-53页 |
| ·Experiential Bases of Conceptual Metaphors | 第49-50页 |
| ·Bodily and Cultural Experience basis of water metaphor | 第50-53页 |
| Chapter 5 Characteristics of the Conceptual Metaphor of Water in Chinese | 第53-59页 |
| ·Abundance and ubiquity of water metaphors | 第53-55页 |
| ·Uniqueness of source domain vocabulary | 第55-57页 |
| ·Four-character Chinese idioms as the most frequently used water metaphors | 第57-59页 |
| Chapter 6 Cognitive Roles of Metaphor Revealed by the Conceptual Metaphor of Water in Chinese | 第59-63页 |
| ·The use of metaphor to understand abstract concepts | 第59-60页 |
| ·The use of metaphor to generate new knowledge and new perspective | 第60-61页 |
| ·Water metaphor and Chinese philosophical concepts | 第61-63页 |
| Chapter 7 Conclusion | 第63-67页 |
| ·Major findings in this study | 第63-65页 |
| ·Contributions and limitations | 第65-67页 |
| Bibliography | 第67-70页 |
| Appendix 1 | 第70-71页 |
| Appendix 2 | 第71-72页 |
