隱喻側反映人類思考及認知之重要語言機制。Lakoff與Jonson（1980）提出語言中資喻的使用主要反映了我們內在概念系統的運作，並視隱喻為基本認知架構的一部分。也就是說，我們思考及推理的本質可經由檢視語言中除喻的用法而得知。以Lakoff與Johnson的觀點來解釋，隱喻的本質即是我們以本體（socurce）來了解客體（target）的過程，而這護的過程必須借助所謂的意像結構（image-scherma）之映照（mapping）來完成。 基於這樣的認知，我們以不同來源之語料，針對中文「思想為食物」（THOUGHT AS FOOD）這個概念隱喻進行研究。中文以飲食為本體，以「思想」為客體的隱喻用法比比皆是，「思想」廣泛地涵括了抽象的思想或概念，以及具體的語言或文字。以「思想為食物」所建構的中文隱喻大多依據下列之命題結構：一、食物的成分猶如思想的內容；二、食物的道猶如思想的品質；三、食物的準備猶如思想之成形；四、食物的消化猶如思想之理解。 這樣的映照關係同時也反映到語法上不同詞類的使用。第一類之映照藉名詞之完成，第二類靠形容詞，而後兩類得藉助於動詞。根據Vendler（1967）對動詞種類的分析，我們又可把第三類歸為完成動詞（accomplishment verbs），第四類則為達成動詞（achievement verbs）。 研究隱喻的映照模式可以反映出文化本質的改變。其實，「思想為食物」這樣的用法也廣見於不同的語言之中。不同語言使用不同的命題結構或意像結構來完成映照之語用情況，可用來作為研究不同文化模式之依據，進而反映出文化之間的差異性。

　　　　　Therecent studies on metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Johnson 1987; Lakoff & Turner 1989; Sweetser 1990) have proved it to be an important language device that reflects the cognitive source of human thinking. These experientialists claim that metaphors in our languages mirror our ordinary conceptual system and treat metaphors as conventionalized cognitive structure. Adopting the experientialists' view of interpreting metaphor cognitively as a mapping relation from a source domain to a target domain (Lakoff 1990), the present study explores how metaphors reflect different cultural models by investigating the conceptual metaphor of THOUGHT AS FOOD in current Chinese. With the data taken from spoken corpus as well as from the balance corpus by the Academia Sinica, we examine the metaphor THOUGHT AS FOOD. Four preposition-schemas are identified to be at work in our conceptualization: THE CONTENT OF THOUGHT IS THE INGREDIENTS OF FOOD, THE QUALITY OF THOUGHT IS THE FLAVOR OF FOOD, THE FORMATION OF THOUGHT IS THE PREPARAION OF FOOD, THE COMPREHENSION OF THOUGHT IS THE DIGESTION OF FOOD. Such conceptual mapping incidentally matches syntactic manifestation in terms of the grammatical parts of speech. The first two proposition-schemas (in terms of MATERIAL) surfaces as the linguistic category of nouns. The proposition-schema (in terms of QUANTITY) is realized as adjectives. The last two (in terms of PRDOUCTION and PROCESSING) involve on the other hand the linguistic category of verbs, i.e., verbs of achievement and verbs of accomplishment (Vendler 1967). Such findings support the theory on metaphorical mapping (Ahrens 1999). Although the conceptual metaphor of THOUGHT/LANGUAGE/IDEAS AS FOOD is not foreign to English (as evidenced in examples like half-baked ideas, or I just can's swallow that claim), there exist differences as to the prevalence of the type of proposition-schemas found in both languages. Through identifying the proposition-schemas characteristic of the conceptual metaphor examined, we further suggest in our study that metaphorical use of language be taken as a reflection of the underlying cultural differences.