Reference In Metaphorical Interpretation

Though study on metaphor is very heated,there are not very many works or papers on the research of metaphorical reference in China,especially from the perspective of interpretation of metaphors.Although there are a lot of similarities in the generation and interpretation of metaphors,the two are quite different from each other in the realization of metaphorical reference.This paper tries to probe in metaphorical reference in the interpretation of metaphor in daily communication.When the status quo of the study on metaphorical reference home and abroad is introduced in the first chapter,the author finds that there are two approaches on related study:theories of monistic reference and those of dualistic reference.The previous insist that there is only one reference in metaphor,which means either metaphorical reference substitutes literal reference,or there is no such metaphorical reference at all,only literal reference or conversational meaning there.The latter think since metaphor is a kind of comparison of similarity or analogy,there should be both literal and metaphorical references in a metaphor.In order to answer which one is better and why,the object,scope and methods of the research are presented.The two kinds of approaches are analyzed in the second and third chapter,and the conclusion is drawn that theories of dualistic reference can illustrate better and more clearly the process of designation in metaphorical understanding.Though theories of monistic reference deny the cognitive significance of metaphor,they admit that metaphor draws people's attention to something outside language,which is the very metaphorical reference in the terms of theories of dualistic reference.In theories of dualistic reference,there are two stages of reference in a metaphorical statement,literal reference,which can be the initial or established one,and metaphorical reference.Metaphorical reference is realized in this way:the literal meaning of metaphorical utterances is self-destroyed because literal interpretation is incompatible with context.Therefore,with the literal reference split or suspended,new semantic appropriateness should be searched from the relics of literal meaning,which causes new referential target to emerge.Metaphorical reference is a crossing from the known category of vehicle to the unknown category of tenor,which implies the vagueness and dynamics of metaphorical reference.So context and intentionality should be relied on in order to determine what the metaphorical reference designates.The process of metaphorical understanding is explored in Chapter 4.Recognition of metaphor is firstly studied.The result shows that the recognition and interpretation of metaphors can be divided,which means that interpretation does not necessarily follows recognition of metaphors,and on the other hand,one can comprehend a statement without realizing it is a metaphor.When we are understanding metaphors which are so familiar and even have become dead metaphors,the metaphorical meaning will be activated and accessed because it is so salient.The handling of metaphors is divided into two procedures:at the first stage,in accordance to the principle of“priority of salient meaning",the meaning with the highest degree of salience is processed with priority.It refers to the meaning of words which pops into minds at the first hand when an utterance is encountered,and usually is very highly familiar,conventional,and prototypical,either literal or metaphorical.If the salient meaning is decided contextually appropriate by context,the process of interpretation is done.On the other hand,if the salient meaning is incompatible with context,the second stage of interpretation begins.Guided by the principle of optimal relevance,less salient meaning of words will be chosen by the standards of familiarity,frequency and degrees of prototypicality,its appropriateness and compatibility evaluated by context.The understanding of utterance is finished when the optimal relevance of processing effort and contextual effects is achieved.The truth value of metaphor is discussed in Chapter 6,the relationship between metaphor and the physical world studied as well.Metaphor sketches the world by virtue of analogy.It is a relative and partial sketch of the actual world we live in,regulated and restrained by context.Truth doesn't have a meaning independent of context.Only context can provide the exclusively substantial ground for the judgment of the metaphorical truth.Truth value of metaphors depends on the value orientations and standards established in human practice.Metaphorical truth-condition is analyzed on the basis of Steinhart's structural theory of Metaphor.The basis of metaphor generation is analogy,and if logic space is separated into situations,truth values of metaphors in the possible world can be decided through analogical accessibility and relationship between analogical counterparts.Metaphorical analogy is that between situations,and metaphorical meaning is a function from situation to truth value.What literal meaning states is the condition which makes utterance U true in a certain world,which is a function from the world to truth value,while metaphorical meaning is a kind of counterpart correspondence in its nature,a logic statement on counterpart equivalence and thus also a function from the world to truth value.It doesn't matter that truth value is literal or metaphorical because it is just the difference in the ways to be true literally or to be true metaphorically.