A Research On The Function Words For Rhetorical Figures In Modern Chinese

Issues and Objectives Through what kind of words and expressions is thetenor connected with the vehicle？What are the characteristics of them？Thisdissertation aims at answering the foregoing questions. Such words and expressions arecommonly referred to as “metaphorical words” in rhetoric while in lexicology thisexpression has a different meaning. In order to remove ambiguity and determine theessential characteristics of these words, the concept of “metaphorical relatives” isintroduced herein in the hope of narrowing down the scope of discussion in question andbetter defining its implication.Since “metaphorical relatives”, as a coinage for the purpose of this dissertation, hasnot been specifically elaborated in the existent studies, it is necessary in the first place todefine what can be included and named by this term. Accordingly, distinctions of theirmembers and features are made in a multidimensional way. Firstly, it is discovered thatsome metaphorical relatives are normally used more frequently than others, so thefrequency of use can be used as an indicator. Secondly, metaphorical relatives can bedivided into pure and partial ones in semantic terms：pure metaphorical relatives aremonosemes while partial ones are polysemes. For example,“rutong”(如同)and“youru”(犹如)are monosemes and imply metaphorical relations only. Therefore, theyare regarded as pure metaphorical relatives. However, most metaphorical relatives arepolysemes and can be defined and used by more than one meaning. As a result, they areregarded as partial metaphorical relatives. For example, the word “xiang”(像)canexpress metaphorical relation, but can also express comparative and speculativerelations. Thirdly, as polysemes, metaphorical relatives can be further divided intotypical and atypical ones. Fourthly, the stability of metaphorical relation can make adistinction between stable and temporary members of metaphorical relatives:“xiang”(像)and “shi”(是)are stable members while “xiangxiangcheng”(想象成)and “lianxiangdao”(联想到)are temporary ones. Syntactically, metaphorical relatives canbe divided into verbs, metaphorical auxiliaries, and metaphorical frame constructions,etc. Lastly, metaphorical relatives also differ in their adaptability to styles: theirindividual adaptability is quite corresponding to the sub-categories of styles.Approaches and Structure Based on the findings from the foregoingdiscussion of the common features of metaphorical relatives in modern Chinese, thisdissertation mainly explores the verbal metaphorical relatives; especially their semanticmeanings and their related syntactic, rhetoric, contextual and pragmatic functions.Since this research is thematic in nature, four metaphoric relative verbs are selected asobjects of extensive analysis, that is,“biyu”(比喻),“fangfu”(仿佛),“cheng”(呈),and“shu”(属). The rationale is in that on the one hand, there has been no similar researchbeing reported yet; on the other hand, the common features of other metaphoricalrelatives can be listed through analyzing some aspects of the fours above-mentionedwords, such as the polysemy of metaphorical words and the corresponding treatments indictionary definitions, metalinguistic usage of “metaphorical and synonymous wordsgroup”, polysemy of metaphorical sentences, metaphorical words in the strategy ofteaching Chinese as a foreign language, the stylistic features and distributions ofmetaphorical words, etc.Logically, this dissertation covers three parts. Part1. Theoretical background,including1) Introduction,2) Cases and classification of metaphorical relatives inmodern Chinese,3) metaphorical intensity of metaphorical relatives,4) Relationshipamong metaphorical relatives, metaphorical markers and metaphorical acts. Part2.Cases for analysis in depth, which also including four chapters:1) On “Biyu”, discussingthe meta-language usage of metaphoric groups of synonyms,2) On “Fangfu”,investigating the polysemy of metaphorical relatives,3) On “Shu”, analyzing polysemyof metaphorical construction,4) On “Cheng”, exploring stylistic features ofmetaphorical relatives. Part3. concerns applied research. It focuses on studies ofmetaphorical relatives as are approached in teaching Chinese as a foreign language; “fangfu”(仿佛)and “biyu”(比喻)will be analyzed in particular.Findings and Conclusion Two theoretical breakthroughs are expected tomake in this research:1. Introducing and applying effective theoretical tools such aslexical semantics, explanatory meta-language theory, interface theory of lexicalsemantic-syntactic structure, discourse analysis, rhetoric structure analysis, and valencytheory;2. Developing theoretical rules for the object of this research.The following aspects are regarded as innovative of this research. The first one isthe introduction and use of the concept of “metaphorical relatives”. This concept canuniformly explain those langue and parole phenomena from perspectives appearingseparately from rhetoric, lexicology and syntax. It is meaningful to treat theoretically thephenomena of metaphorical relatives in modern Chinese, to establish its word categoryin lexical-semantic system and the theoretical statue in question, to establishsyntactically the relationship between metaphorical relatives and relative verbs,analogical particles, etc., and to establish metaphorical relatives in rhetoric dimension.Such effort is conducive to discovery of new language facts and to theoretical integrationof concerned issues from lexicology, lexical-semantics, syntactic and rhetoric.It is also significant that this exploring this issue through lexical-semantic andsyntactic semantic research in pragmatic perspective will throw new light on ourunderstanding of language phenomena and rules. For example, it is found that a phrasesuch as “dagebifangshuo”(打个比方说) has the property of discourse connective; as aresult, the presentation and description of “metaphorical speech block” can contributeto the explanations of textual features of the metaphorical relatives. Accordingly, it canbe seen that a wide-covering integration of lexical-semantic, syntactic, and rhetoricconstituents is conducive to the analysis and description of the semantic items frommetaphoric relatives, and further exploring the related syntactic meaning andrevealing the rhetoric construction, textual and stylistic features of the metaphoricalsentences so constructed.It is concluded that findings are obtained in the following aspects:1. A multi-dimensional analysis of metaphorical relatives;2. Presentation and description ofmeta-language usage of metaphorical relatives;3Presentation and description ofmetaphorical markers, especially that of metaphorical speech blocks;4. Indication ofthe four levels of metaphorical intensity from metaphorical relatives;5. The treatment ofmetaphorical synonyms as a special subcategory of metaphorical words, and thediscovery of some significant phenomena and rules;6. Separation of the metaphoricalmeaning and function from the polysemoy “cheng”(呈)and comprehensive descriptionof the sentences related to it;7. Specification of the compatibility between individualmetaphorical relatives and styles, especially that arising from “cheng”(呈)and“xiang”(像)；8. Acomprehensive examination of sentences introduced by “shu”(属)andspecifications of the effect from the semantic feature and syntactic function ofmetaphorical words on metaphorical constructions;9. Examination of the differencebetween binary and ternary metaphorical relatives in terms of the number ofmetaphorical verbs and the presence of the related meaning in sentences, which lead tothe discovery that generally, sentences introduced by binary metaphorical verbs realizethe propositional functions while that introduced by ternary ones such as “cheng”(称)realize discourse function especially that implicated by subjective elements. Based onthese findings, it is further observed that there is unique significance in the sentencepattern “metaphor maker+speech act verb+the tenor+the verb of metaphoricalrelatives+the vehicle” in terms of semantic constituents, and semantic, syntactic andstylistic constructions.Implications The findings from this research can be applied or referred to inteaching Chinese as a foreign language, compiling dictionaries, teaching Chinese inprimary and secondary schools, and use of Chinese language as well as researches of it.