A Cognitive Approach To English News Headlines

With the conceptual integration theory proposed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner as a guideline,this thesis is intended to demonstrate the mental cognitive meaning construction process of English news headlines.By adopting such a cognitive approach,an alternative perspective on the study of English news headlines is offered.Conceptual integration has conceptual networks,which function independently according to a set of uniform structural and dynamic principles.The basic operation comprises four mental spaces:two input spaces,one generic space and one blended space.From the aspect of cognitive linguistics,it refers to two mental spaces that are connected by cross-space mapping,and two input spaces that are projected onto a third space,which can be explained dynamically,that is,the blended space by selective projection.Thus the new conceptual categorization is built,namely,the emergent structure appears.With this theory,the hidden cognitive mechanism involved in the interpretation of news headlines can be revealed.It offers an exciting possibility for cognitive interpretation of news headlines.The whole thesis is made up of six parts.Chapter One introduces the subject of this study—English news headlines and describes the organization of this thesis together with its objectives and methodology.Chapter Two and Three are a literature review,including relevant studies on metaphors and an introduction of conceptual integration theory.Conceptual Integration Theory is exposited with examples, including the network model,four kinds of sub networks and optimality principles.In Chapter Four methodology is discussed in detail and some findings are exposed.After studying nearly 700 news headlines from the New York Times,the Times and China Daily,we finds that metaphor are frequently used in English news headlines.Chapter Five is the heart of the whole study.The analyses are demonstrated with case study from four aspects:metaphor,metonymy,allusion and picture.The analyses prove that conceptual integration theory is a mighty explanatory theory in cognitive interpretation of English news headlines.The last chapter is a conclusion of the whole thesis in which limitations of the study are pointed.