A Study Of Lexical Metaphors In Network Catchwords From The Perspective Of The Adaptation Theory

The present thesis attempts to explore lexical metaphor in cyberspace from a cognitive-pragmatic perspective. With Verschueren's adaptation theory as the general conceptual framework, the author maintains that lexical metaphor generation is a process of linguistic adaptation, involving two sub tasks: be adaptive to the mental world and be adaptive to the social world of the target readers. To testify our assumption, we conducted a two-level inquiry, based on the examples of lexical metaphor among network catchwords collected in cyberspace.The lexical metaphors, we presume, serve the attention economy in cyberspace, which regards human attention as an economic resource to make commercial benefits in the present information-exploded era. As a result, we found that first, lexical metaphors could be realized at two levels. At the micro-semantic level, they are generated by means of conceptual metaphor theory. At the macro-social level, they are generated by means of adaptation to the social-cultural norms. Secondly, the inquiry result is compatible with the prediction made by the adaptation theory about linguistic variability, negotiability and adaptability.The study reveals that the generation and interpretation of lexical metaphors are of process of reciprocal causality, and that many an lexical metaphor of network catchword with less attraction could be further refined in accordance with interactions between external sociocultural circumstance and internal psychological cognition of the target audience..In addition, the current research is not only helpful to online editors and authors with the help of characteristics and means of realization of lexical metaphors in network catchwords, but also assists them to evade generating rare lexical metaphors contrary to Chinese culture to draw the audience's attention. Besides, the research can help people have a better comprehension of changing lexical metaphors so as to make a reasonable arrangement of their own time and energy in times of information explosion.