A Study Of Chinese Metaphors From A Cognitive-semeotic Perspctive

Metaphor is one of the most important ways to understand the world. It is also a very common phenomenon in natural language. Thus the study of metaphor understanding is of great significance for the thorough understanding and effective use of this cognitive tool and for the all-round promotion of language understanding study.This dissertation addresses problems in the existing metaphor cognition studies on the basis of a comprehensive review of extant metaphor cognition theories. It probes into the cognitive-semiotic nature of metaphor, proposes a corresponding definition, and sets up the criteria for metaphor identification. In line with the view of direct metaphor understanding, the dissertation undertakes a thorough analysis of the factors in metaphor understanding, including the explicitness of metaphorical elements and the constraints of the context, and accordingly puts forward a new model of metaphor cognition. Finally, it tests the feasibility of the model by applying it to the analysis of metaphors in Sina’s micro-blogs.Metaphor is cognitive and semiotic in nature. From the perspective of cognitive science, metaphor is a way of cognition in which one thing or event is understood through the understanding of the attributes of another thing or event, and is realized as metaphorical expression in language. Metaphorical cognition is intended to acquire the attributes of one object (the Topic) base on the subject’s embodied experience of the attributes of another object (the Vehicle). The attributes of the Vehicle mapped to the Topic fall into three types, traits, function & structure, and relation, thus metaphors can also accordingly be divided into these three types. From the perspective of Pearcian semiotics, metaphor involves not only the Topic and the Vehicle, and but also the semiotic medium, that is, a sign. Thus, semiotically a metaphor is a sign, and has the basic elements of a sign, including a representaman (the metaphorical expression), an object (the Topic), and an interpretant (the Vehicle). As the fundamental relation between the representman and the object of a metaphor is that of resemblance, metaohor is actually an icon. In sum, from a cognitive-semiotic perspective, metaphor can be defined as a hypoicon which uses the concept of one thing or event to represent the concept of another thing or event in a given context. Thus, a linguistic expressession must meet three requirements for it to become a metaphor:first, it must involves two things or events; second, the two things or events must corresponding to two different concepts, that is, they are of different types; third, the expression is intended to understand one thing or event through the attributes of the concept of another thing or event.Metaphor cognition is a process whereby the attributes of the Vehicle are mapped to the Topic and the meaning of the metaphorical expression is understood. Metaphor can be understood directly rather than indirecly on the basis of the negation of its literal meaning, which is in line with the cognitive-semiotic nature of metaphor, the economincal principle of language and empirical research work on metaphor understanding. The degree of the explicitness of metaphorical elements (the direct, indirect or covert appearance of Topic, Vehicle and Ground) constrains the understanding of metaphorical expression. To facilitate the modeling of metaphor cognition, metaphors can accordingly be divided into five types:Type 1 with three elements explicitly realized, Type 2 with explicit Topic and Vehicle but no Ground, Type 3 with explicit Topic/Vehicle and indirect Vehicle/Topic but no ground, Type 4 with both indirect Topic and indirect Vehicle and no ground, and Type 5 with only direct Vehicle. The strategies for metaphor understanding vary with types of explicitness of metaphorical elements. Contextual factors also condition metaphor understanding. Specifically, co-text (linguistic context) has significance for the judgment of metaphoricity of a linguistic expression, and the identification of metaphorical elements and mapped attributes. Situational context set restrictions to the topic of communication, situates the interlocutors’ intention and helps avoid misinterpretation, and thus help the interlocutors make judgements of the metaphoricity and the metaphorical interpretation of a linguistic expression. Cultural context conditions the selection of the attributes of the Vehicle, foregrounds the connotation of the Vehicle concepts in a given culture, and provides semantic parameters to the rational and attitudinal meaning of the Topic. The degree of the simplicity of the cognitive process of a metaphor varies in a direct ratio with the degree of the explicitness of its metaphorical elements, as the covert elements and their relevant attributes must be identified with extra effort. On the basis of this principle, the specific process of metaphor understanding can be summarized as including the following steps:first, decide the type of the metaphor based on the explicitness of its metaphorical elements; second, directly interprete the metaphor according to the expilict, or otherwise identify the Topic and Vehicle according to the contex; third, decide the cognitive content that is mapped from the Vehicle to Topic in a specific context; fourth, identify the attributes that are mapped and interpret the metaphor.The the scientificalness and feasibility of the above metaphor cognition model has been validated through the analysis of real metaphors in Sina Micro-Blog Metaphor Corpus. The analysis of the explicitness of metaphorical elements in the Corpus indicates a high degree of explicitness of the metaphorical elements, as is manifested by the high percentertage of the metaphors of Type 1 (metaphor with direct appearance of Topic, Vehicle and Ground) and Type 2 (metaphor with direct appearance of Topic and Vehicle). This can be explained by the the novelty and shortage of contextual information in Micro-Blogs, which increase the amount of cognitive effort required for the reader to understand the metaphors. Consequently the Blog owner raises the explicitness of metaphorical elements to balance the cognitive efforts of the reader and writer to facilitate smooth communication. The distribution of the cognitive contents of Type 1 metaphors and that of the Micro-Blog metaphors all a whole shows that the attribute mapping between Vehicle and Topic mainly includes traits, functions & structure, and relations, which is consistent with the conceptual attributes involved in metaphorical cognition. The interpretation of the five types of Micro-blog metaphors proves the rationality and feasibility of the basic steps of metaphor understanding proposed in this dissertation based on the significance of metaphorical elements and contextual factors. In sum, then, the corpus analysis proves the applicability and feasibility of the metaphor cognition model to in real data analysis.