Study On Functions Of Metaphor In Discourse Construction

1980s has witnessed an explosion in the study of metaphor, where linguists, philosophers and psychologists have offered a variety of proposals on metaphorical thought and language. Particularly in cognitive field, metaphor has been considered as a kind of mechanism for thought. Lakoff (1980) points out that metaphor are not only a linguistic phenomenon but pervasive in our thought and metaphor in language reflects metaphor in thought, which consists in human being's thought and action.Although cognitive linguistics has regarded metaphor as a mechanism for human being's thought, metaphor study mainly focus on lexical and rhetorical level as one of the most significant topics in contemporary cognitive linguistics even functional linguistics. Currently, a relevantly independent system of metaphor study in discourse hasn't come into being. Hence, the present thesis attempts to illustrate metaphor in different genres of discourse. To further study metaphor in discourse, the present study will attach more importance to the literary discourse, where it introduces metaphorical creativity in literature and how to understand metaphor in literature. Then it will briefly introduce metaphor in political, scientific and educational discourse. On the basis of the above analysis, this thesis proposes the functions of metaphor in discourse construction at length, which consists in three major functions:cohesive, coherent and discourse-organizing functions. Based upon the relevant theories of metaphor, especially cognitive metaphor theory, the present research analyzes the above three functions one by one and detail by detail supported by different genres of literary discourse.In the end, the present study summarizes the major findings and puts forward some relevant theoretical and pedagogical implications.