Study on Orientation Metaphors of Up in Shakespeare’s Plays from a Cognitive Perspective

The large number of ups in Shakespeare's plays has not only conventional usage but also metaphorical usage, especially orientation metaphors. From the aspect of syntactic structure, V+up phrasal verbs combined with verbs are usually metaphorical usages. The types of these verbs include noun-transformed verbs, transitive verbs, and special usages. Based on the metaphorical usage of up, this paper explores the underlying cognitive mechanism behind it, and finds that verbs affect the mapping direction of up, which makes it highlight different metaphorical meanings, and energy transfer between verb phrases. Studying the cognitive mechanism of V+up orientation metaphor helps to further understand the emotions and thoughts of the characters in Shakespeare's plays.