Cognitive semiotics is a new field for the study of meaning in trans-disciplines, such as semiotics, cognitive linguistics, and corpus linguistics. This paper aims at studying how cognitive semiotics is employed to construe conceptual metaphors in discourse. We conducted a corpus-based study, with Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and Fauconnier and Turner’s Blending Theory (BT), to illustrate our cognitive-semiotic model for metaphors in Dragon Seed, written by Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck. The major finding is that metaphors are mental constructions involving many spaces and mappings in the cognitive-semiotic network. These integration networks are related to encoders’ cognitive, cultural, and social contexts. Additionally, cognitive semiotics can be employed to construe conceptual metaphors in discourse vividly and comprehensively and thus is helpful to reveal the ideology and the theme of the discourse.

Pavilion of Women, a vivid and interesting novel from the Nobel Prize winning author Pearl S. Buck, was selected as the corpus of the study. The goals of the research were to identify the metaphors, interpret their distributions in the novel, and construe Buck's metaphorical thoughts. To achieve these goals, the corpus tool Antconc3.2.4w was used to retrieve the keywords of the metaphors. The research results show that Buck uses many conceptual metaphors, and they are distributed in each chapter. Among them, the metaphors with the highest frequency appear in Chapter 7 and the lowest in Chapter 5, which shows that the more complicated and abstract the plot in a chapter, the more metaphors appear in it and vice versa. Meanwhile, structural metaphors appear the most frequently, followed by ontological metaphors, and finally the orientational metaphors. In addition, Pearl Buck’s cognitive context and her metaphorical thinking are found to have a close relationship with Chinese Yin-Yang semiotics and her own life experiences in China.

Conceptual Metaphor has been a prevalent theme in the linguistic field for the recent twenty years. Numerous scholars worldwide have shown interest in it and published many academic papers from various stances on this topic. However, so far, there have been few rigorous scientific mapping investigations. With the help of bibliometric analysis tool, we selected 1,257 articles on Conceptual Metaphors published from 2002 to 2022, as collected in the Web of Sciences Core Collection database, from unique cognitive perspectives. The global annual scientific output of Conceptual Metaphor, including the cited articles, sources, keywords, and research trends, will be examined in this study. The most notable findings of this study are the following. First, there has been an upward trend in Conceptual Metaphor research over the last two decades. Second, the five most prominent research groups on Conceptual Metaphors are in Spain, the United States of America, China, Great Britain, and Russia. Third, future research on Conceptual Metaphors may focus on corpus linguistics, neurolinguistics, psychology, and critical discourse analysis. The interdisciplinary study may enhance the growth of Conceptual Metaphors.