Fauconnier's Conceptual Integration Theory And Its Application In L2 Teaching

Conceptual integration theory (CIT), initiated in 1985 by Fauconnier, has been developing rapidly and is drawing more and more attention from the academic community. Motivated by ideas in cognitive semantics, CIT is rapidly emerging as a major force in cognitive science, together with Lakoff's conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), providing a unifying umbrella framework for a range of cognitive phenomena. CIT can not only provide a reasonable explanation but also provide a powerful cognitive force to unconventional metaphor, such as novel expressions, idioms, grammatical structure, counterfactual space, literary comment and so on.This dissertation is composed of five parts. Chapter 1 is a brief introduction to the study of metaphor and CIT and the arrangement of this dissertation. Then the author comes to a historical account of metaphor study in Chapter 2, including the form of traditional theory of metaphor and its philosophical basis of objectivism, Richard's and Black's development of metaphor theory in modern times and the beginning of cognitive turn in metaphor study.The third part consists of six aspects of CIT, including its theoretical motivation and basis, definition, theoretical frame, governing principles, types of conceptual integration network and a comparison with CMT.The fourth part tries to apply CIT to L2 teaching, especially in grammar, idioms and novel expressions, and literature comment. The author concludes that CIT is helpful and necessary for the students to get a better understanding of some grammatical structures, idioms, novel expressions and literary works. Meanwhile, the author points out that CIT can also account for the imagery interpretation and conceptual inference in Chinese ancient poems and history stories.The last part devotes to a comparison between CIT and traditional metaphor theory and CMT and puts forward that blending is a general cognitive operation with powerful cognitive force.At last, a further study in the application of CIT to L2 teaching and learning and its universality to other languages are suggested.