A comparative study of idioms on drunkenness in Chinese and Spanish

1.1 Theories of idiom analysis

The consumption of alcoholic drinks plays an important role in many cultures, which to a great extent is reflected in the rich lexical field of inebriation, including both single words and idioms. Although Chinese and Spanish are two languages which are linguistically and culturally very distant, the metaphors embedded in their idioms share some metaphorical iconic models, which can be explained by the Cognitive Theory of Metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). However, there are still many other idioms that cannot fit into these models. As Dobrovol’skij and Piirainen (2006: 27) assert, the instrument of conceptual metaphor, developed in the scope of the Cognitive Theory of Metaphor, can be used for idiom analysis. Yet, it is not omnipotent in explaining all the idioms, especially in the specifics of idiom semantics.

The most salient features of idioms cannot be captured without addressing cultural knowledge. Conceptual metaphors are not the only linguistically relevant type of knowledge. In order to determine the specific semantic and pragmatic features of idioms, one still needs to take into account those culturally based concepts which govern the inference from literal to figurative (Dobrovol’skij and Piirainen 2006: 27). The role of culture becomes even more obvious when we compare idioms from different languages. What language users take for granted from the perspective of their own culture may turn out to be idiosyncratic from the perspective of another culture (cf. Piirainen 2004a, Piirainen 2004b). Thus, idioms cannot be sufficiently described by metalinguistic instruments such as the Cognitive Theory of Metaphor. For this reason, Dobrovol’skij and Piirainen (2005) propose a theory specially designed to describe the irregularities of idioms, which is labelled as Conventional Figurative Language Theory.

1.2 Literature review

Pamies and Iñesta (1999, 2000) propose a hierarchical framework of recurrent mapping patterns between source domains and target domains, demonstrating their systematicity and productivity. This framework consists of three layers: from top to bottom they are iconic models (i.e. a reduced number of source domains), archi-metaphors (i.e. mappings with propositional structure that can generate many metaphors), and particular metaphors (i.e. concrete idioms with metaphorical connotations).

The consumption of alcoholic drinks plays an important role in many cultures, which is manifested in the stock of lexical and phraseological expressions referring to inebriation. These polylexical units have already been explored in various languages by many linguists. To be specific, the lexicon of drunkenness has been studied from a monolingual perspective in the following languages: Spanish (Suárez Blanco 1989), French (Giraud 1998), and English (Cortina 2005). Furthermore, contrastive studies on words and multiword constructions describing being drunk have been carried out, e.g. comparisons of such languages as: Spanish and Guarani (Pamies et al. 2004), Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish (Pamies and Tarnovska 2007), Spanish, French and English (Pamies and Cortina 2009), as well as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, Ukrainian and Russian (Pamies et al. 2008). However, the lexicon of drunkenness in Chinese has not yet been investigated systematically, and neither does there exist a comparative study of idioms on drunkenness between Chinese and Spanish.

Chinese and Spanish are two of the most spoken languages in the world. At the same time, since they are typologically and genetically very distant from each other, they are not supposed to share any etymological common ground. In a certain sense, they could be viewed as the representative linguistic and cultural systems of the eastern and western extremes of the Ancient World. According to our hypothesis, the presence of coincidences and/or similarities would be a relevant fact for cognitive and anthropological linguistics. As for drunkenness, its existence in both cultures is the essential tertium comparationis, indispensable to compare both languages. Moreover, we assume that linguistic items may reveal differences in the anthropological vision of drinking and being drunk in both cultures.

Although drunkenness is sometimes expressed by meaningless onomatopoeic words, such as sp. piripi or pilipitrusco (DVE 2018)^[1], its most common designations are metaphors. Therefore, in the present article, based on the theory of Conceptual Metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), we try to conduct a cross-linguistic comparison of the idioms on drunkenness in Chinese and Spanish, applying the analytical method proposed by Pamies and Iñesta (1999, 2000) with three hierarchical levels (iconic models > archi-metaphors > particular metaphors).

The Spanish idioms used for the analysis have been selected from articles on drunkenness, mainly the studies by Suárez Blanco (1989), Lozano (1998), Pamies et al. (2004), Pamies and Tarnovska (2007), Pamies et al. (2008), as well as Pamies and Cortina (2009), others have been excerpted from dictionaries, articles, and books on Spanish phraseology (Sbarbi 1873; Iribarren 1955; Luque et al. 1998; Seco et al. 2004; Sevilla and Cantera 2004; Cantera and Gomis 2007). As for the Chinese idioms, they have been collected from many different types of source materials, including dictionaries, books, articles, corpora and so forth. The majority of the expressions for both languages are commonly used in daily life, which attests that polylexical units constitute an important part of the lexicon.

1.3 The consumption of alcohol in China and Spain

In both China and Spain, the use of alcohol has a long history and it is an important component of their cuisine and culture. The evidence of alcoholic drinking in China may date back to 7000 years ago (Shen and Wang 1998). From then on, alcohol has penetrated into all kinds of classes and areas, exerting a far-reaching influence on people’s political, economic and cultural life. As a Chinese saying goes, wú jiǔ bù chéng yàn xí 无酒不成宴席 “no banquet can do without liquor” ‘wine is a must for a feast’^[2] (BCC Chinese Corpus). Effectively, alcohol is part of many traditional festivals and celebrations (such as Spring Festival, weddings, birthday parties), as well as ceremonies. One of the classic examples of the ceremonial use of alcohol is described in the famous Chinese historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义). The three heroes (Liu Bei 刘备, Guan Yu 关羽 and Zhang Fei 张飞) in the epic tale become blood brothers by drinking bowls of wine into which they have mixed drops of their own blood from cuts in their fingers. This act may seem quite extreme, but it was regarded as a symbol of faithfulness during that era (Chen 1995: 357). Traditionally, a toast can extend the good wishes to another: for victory or success, good journey, good luck, good health, happiness, and so forth. Besides, alcohol is also associated with arts and poetry: the famous Chinese poet Li Bai (李白) is known as the “saint of alcohol” (酒圣) (Shen and Wang 1998). Even nowadays, alcohol is commonly used particularly by men to maintain good relations among colleagues or friends, as well as to facilitate business negotiation. It is considered that the way to enter a man’s heart is through his stomach and buying someone a drink is much better than a handshake. There is a Chinese saying, Nán rén bù hē jiǔ, jiāo bù dào hǎo péng yǒu (男人不喝酒，交不到好朋友) “a man who never drinks will not have bosom friends”,which asserts that ‘men make friends by drinking alcohol together’ (Wang 2012: 278).

Spain also has a long history of alcohol consumption, although the exact date of its origin is unknown. In Spanish culture, alcoholic drinks, due to their nature and effects, originally were linked to the Divine and associated with religious rituals. During the Roman Empire, the god of wine, Bacchus, was adored as a liberator in festivities of sexual freedom, wine intoxication and ecstasy, called Bacchanalia, which had even been forbidden, until they were officially reformed. The Bible ascribes the invention of wine to Noah, the saviour of all living species during the Great Flood. He cultivated a vineyard, where he became intoxicated by the wine he had made, discovering the effects of alcohol to human beings. For Christians, the wine symbolizes the blood of Jesus Christ, and is one of the pillars of all Southern European cultures (today, the per capita consumption of alcohol in Spain is higher than the European average alcoholic consumption, according to a recent study by the World Health Organization). From ancient times to the present, alcohol has exerted a profound influence on Spanish cuisine and social relations, as the Spanish proverb Ni mesa sin vino, ni sermón sin agustino “no table without wine, no sermon without an Augustinian” indicates, which means that ‘wine is a must in our diet’.

2.1 The iconic model [animal]

2.2 The iconic model [movement]

Kinetic metaphors of drunkenness tend to be based on spatial disorders, a metonymic representation of the cause–effect relationship between excessive alcohol consumption and lack of sensorimotor self-control (Pamies and Cortina 2009: 228). Therefore, the drunkenness is frequently represented by different kinds of movement in Chinese and Spanish idioms.

The archi-metaphor [Drunkenness is the change of body parts]

Metaphoric somatisms of drunkenness tend to associate certain body parts with a specific movement. In both Chinese and Spanish, the most common body parts involved are head, ears, eyes, arms, legs, mouth, etc. (Pamies and Cortina 2009: 231). This kind of idioms tends to be related to the symptoms of excessive drinking. For example, a drunkard may become dazzled (49, 50). Likewise, drunkenness may make one feel groggy and in this case the head is described (51, 52). In addition, the change of face colour is also one of the common symptoms of drunkenness. In Chinese, the red colour is used for this purpose (53), while in the case of Spanish, it is purple (54).

The archi-metaphor [Drunkenness is a fruit]

Generally speaking, phytonymic metaphors are not as common as zoonymic ones. In the case of Spanish, it is quite common to use the vegetal simile to express stupidity and it is logical to imply it in the field of drunkenness (Pamies and Cortina 2009: 231). In several examples, the drunkenness itself is viewed as a kind of fruit (55, 56) or green vegetable (57).

In Chinese phraseology, we can only find a few expressions that associate drunkenness with plants. The image of peach blossom tends to be employed, which is due to its reddish colour (58). Here, a metonymic chain is involved: the reddish drunken face is associated with the pink or light red colour which, in turn, evokes the association with the peach blossom in Chinese, or red grapes in Spanish. Other images refer to the gesture of catching a fruit (such as a chestnut, a peach or a collard cabbage) on the ground, due to the drunkard’s difficulty in standing straight (57). We could quote other fruit metaphors, such as sp. pillar una castaña (“to catch a chestnut”) (Pamies et al. 2004: 59) and sp. acastañarse (“to become chestnut-like”) (DVE 2018)^[8].

The archi-metaphor [The drunkard is an aggressor]

The archi-metaphor [Drunkenness is an aggressor]

This metaphor (idiom 64) could also refer to eating a small piece of food to appease one’s hunger, but drunkards use it to refer to the first shot they take early in the morning (pure anisette) before eating anything, just to appease their withdrawal syndrome, and to avoid tremors. The verbal image represents an alcoholic worm, living in people’s stomach, which would be the real culprit of one’s need to drink.^[10]

2.6 The iconic model [object]

3.1 Celebrities

Many Chinese idioms related to drunkenness come from historical events or characters. Thus, their etymologies are required to capture their figurative meanings. A case in point is Mr. Shan Jian (山简). During the Jin Dynasty (晋朝 266–420 A.D.), there was an official called Shan Jian (山简), known far and wide for his alcoholism. After becoming drunk, he always fell down in his carriage, with his head-covering mistakenly placed. Therefore, there is a series of idioms (72, 73, 74) referring to “being dead drunk” by narrating his drunken episodes or describing his drunken manners (Huang and Cao 2008: 191). Curiously enough, however, there is an idiom (75) resorting to a famous historic personality named Ji Kang (嵇康) in order to describe appreciatively the drunken manner of a man. Ji Kang (223–263 A.D.) was a distinguished thinker, writer and musician, and was also famed for being tall and strong, handsome and graceful. It is said that when he became drunk, his reclining figure appeared like a jade mountain about to collapse. Thus, this idiom (75) carries positive connotations: it metaphorically means ‘to be charmingly drunk’ (of a man) (Wang 2004: 405). In the case of Spanish, there are also idioms on drunkenness whose origins are related to well-known persons and characters. An idiom making reference to Noah would be a case in point, which will be mentioned later (80).

3.2 Religion

Religion is a recurring theme in the drunkenness idioms. In the case of Spanish, the Christian elements are closely embedded, while in Chinese, Taoism is involved. The Chinese generally do not find the moderate use of alcohol to be immoral or unhealthy. There is a drunken state in which one is mentally carried away from his normal preoccupations, which is not quite the same thing as the usual ‘drunk’, ‘intoxicated’, or ‘inebriated’. The term jiǔ xiān (酒仙 “alcoholic immortal”) is a good case in point in this respect. An “alcoholic immortal” is not only addicted to drinking, but also good at drinking, different from a mediocre alcoholic. Though being drunk, under this joyful and free mental state, he is able to experience a burst of creative inspiration, as if he were a real immortal as referred to in Taoism. Effectively, those with this good reputation (jiǔ xiān 酒仙) are mostly elites in literature and art, such as famous poets, writers, painters, etc. Classical Chinese poets were often associated with drinking wine (Zhu and Ji 1990: 425). In Chinese history, the famous “Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup”^[11] were the best poets in the Tang dynasty (618–907 A.D.), among whom Li Bai (李白) was the best-known and the most legendary. He produced more than 1,000 poems during his lifetime and many of them are still enjoyed today. He also called himself “Elderly Alcoholic Immortal” (酒仙翁) (Ren 2014: 314). The image of the alcoholic immortal evolved from the Chinese Taoist religion, where the concept of the “immortal” (仙) originated.

Besides, drunkenness is also associated with the Devil. A heavy drinker is called ch. jiǔ guǐ 酒鬼 (“alcoholic devil”); likewise, a drunkard is ch. zuì guǐ 醉鬼 (“drunken devil”) (Wang 2012: 2). The reason for calling such persons devils can be explained in several ways. According to Xi (2018: 18), in Chinese culture, gluttony such as wine addiction is not advocated and even disdained. Both an alcoholic and a drunkard are far too addicted to drinking; since this behaviour is rarely seen on earth, they cannot but be ranked among the group of devils.

In Spanish, we find numerous idioms on drunkenness with religious origin, mostly coming from the catholic cultural field, and often carrying an irreverent or even blasphemous sense. For example, there is a variety of ways to signify “being drunk” (76, 77, 78).

“to be more cheerful than Easter”

All these metaphors are motivated by the rituals and celebrations of Jesus Christ’s Passion during the processions of the Holy Week (Semana Santa). For example, in the representation of Jesus (El Nazareno) carrying his own cross, he wears a purple tunic. There is also a flamenco ritual song dedicated to the Virgin (called saeta “arrow”), which is sung only during the Easter processions, whose date coincides with the Jewish Festivity (sp. Pascua gr. Páskha [πάσχα] < heb. Pesakh [ח ַסֶפּ]).

3.3 Person’s name

Several idioms contain the name of a certain person, which results in peculiarities from a cross-linguistic perspective. Although the person whose name is mentioned in the idiom is not famous, for some reason, his or her name has become a symbol of a drunkard or simply serves as a fixed element of the expression. For example, in Chinese, to describe that someone is dead drunk, speakers may use idiom (79) because Ni Er is known for his drunkenness in his hometown. Whenever language users talk about drunkenness, they will take him as an example. Gradually, this expression has become popular and widely used, especially in Northeast China. In Spanish, a stereotyped comparison (80) is motivated by a biblical episode, in which Noah becomes completely drunk and falls asleep naked (Genesis 9:21).

3.4 Realia

Realia are words and expressions for culture-specific material elements. The word realia comes from Medieval Latin, in which it originally meant ‘the real things’, i.e. material things, as opposed to abstract ones. Realia are born in a certain culture and exclusively exist in this culture (Vlahov and Florin 1969). The Chinese dragon is a good example in this regard. Dragons are powerful and benevolent symbols in Chinese culture, totally different to the evil, dangerous, fire-breathing dragons of most Western stories. Chinese people proudly refer to themselves as “descendants of the dragon”. This image is well attested in language and culture, for instance in texts such as legends, as well as in festivals, astrology, art, names, and idioms. It is not surprising that the Chinese positively compare a heavy drinker to a “wine dragon” (jiǔ lóng 酒龙), since this expression praises one’s drinking ability (Zhu and Ji 1990: 426).

The social function of alcohol is also reflected in idioms. The way of drinking in given cultures differs markedly from each other. In Spain, drinking is a means of socialization; therefore, drinking wine straight from the bottle is considered as rude and ill-mannered (81), and, for the same reason, drinking alone (82) is perceived as shameful and selfish. These values have motivated some mocking names for solitary drinkers, such as tarimero, which compares a solitary drinker with someone who hides his wine bottles in the closet. On the other hand, unlike the Anglo-Saxon people, Spaniards like going out to drink together and changing bars for each round.^[13] These customs and traditions are reflected in their language (83) and are even mixed with some allusions to the Holy Week (Semana Santa) (84).

Toasting exists in many cultures, but it tends to have its cultural particularities. The spoken toasting formulas are fixed expressions, sometimes transparent, like wishing good health, as in the case of Spanish (85, 86, 87). The money used previously in Spain called peseta^[15] is obviously a kind of realia reflected in idiomatic expressions. In Mandarin, the toast formula is gān bēi (干杯), which literally means “dry the cup”, while in Cantonese, speakers tend to say yám sīng (饮胜 “drink victory”), which pragmatically also refers to ‘bottoms up’. This substitution is due to a Cantonese superstition. It is believed that water symbolizes wealth; thus, the word gān (干 “dry”) implies that the wealth dries up. To avoid this negative association, they prefer to employ the expression yám sīng (饮胜 “drink victory”), which originally comes from yám jihng (饮净 “drink completely”), making use of their similar pronunciations (He 1994: 398). Unlike in the West, in China, one is expected to empty the cup after each toast given.