Abstract: The metaphor of“big/small”is one of spatial metaphors. In this study two theme-drawing tasks were used, namely“a cop is chasing a thief”and“a principal with a teacher”. We focused on the developmental characteristics of big/small spatial metaphoric representation of social status in the mind of children aged from 5 to 7. The results showed 1)Children tend to draw a bigger figure to the person with higher social status and a smaller one to the other, which indicates there have been the concept of the metaphor of“ big/small”on social status in 5-year-old children′s metaphorical concept system. 2)Under the two different themes, the difference of the figures between the high social status and low social status tend to change with children′s age. In the task of“a cop is chasing a thief”, the discrepancy between the size of a“cop”and a“thief”tend to decrease; while there is no such tendency in the other task, which indicates children′s spatial metaphorical concept system on social status has not been stable.

Key words: spatial metaphor, children′s drawings, social status, area ratio.

摘要： “大/小”隐喻是空间隐喻的一种。本研究设置了两项绘画主题,“警察抓小偷”和“园长和老师”,考察了5-7岁儿童在两项绘画任务中对“社会地位”这一抽象概念的“大/小”隐喻表征。结果发现：（1）儿童将社会地位较高的人物画得较大,将社会地位较低的人物画得较小,表明5-7岁儿童的概念体系中已经建立了社会地位的“大/小”隐喻;（2）不同绘画主题下,儿童绘画中的“高社会地位”与“低社会地位”人物大小差异的年龄变化趋势不同,“警察抓小偷”主题绘画中,随着年龄的增长,“警察”和“小偷”二者的大小差异逐渐缩小,但“园长和老师”主题绘画中却未发现这种差异,这一结果表明儿童的社会地位概念隐喻系统还不稳定。

关键词: 空间隐喻, 儿童绘画, 社会地位, 面积比例。