Cognitive Study On The Characteristics Of Vehicles

Traditional rhetoric holds that metaphor is a certain rhetoric mean. With the development of cognitive linguistics, people gradually realized metaphor is not only a kind of rhetoric means, but also a way of thinking and cognize, to study metaphor on the view of cognition will surely promote to a deeper level. The vehicle is a component of metaphor; it can play a very important role in achieving the ultimate pursuit of vividness, so it is necessary to study vehicles. Meanwhile, to study vehicles from the cognitive perspective can bring breakthrough of composition of metaphor.As a component of metaphor, the vehicles have many characteristics. This article elaborates characteristics of vehicles from three aspects : typicality, subjectivity, regionalism and temporality. The typicality of vehicles is the most essential feature of metaphor. It is cultural reasons that give typicality of vehicles. Therefore, the article discussed types of typical vehicles from four perspective, and using prototype theory of cognitive linguistics to explain the basis of typical vehicles.The study of subjectivity of the vehicles is from the angle of the linguistic subjectivity, three main areas have been the focus of recent studies, and they are expression of a speaker's perspective, expression of a speaker's affect, and expression of a speaker's epistemic status. Metaphor that is based on cognitive experience certainly will have highly subjectivity. So the paper discussed the subjectivity of vehicles from the three areas. Finally, it discussed the typical formality of the subjectivity of vehicles, novelty of metaphor.The regionalism and temporality of vehicles include two aspects: synchronic and diachronic. Space and time produce on vehicles together, so, in regionalism and temporality aspects, vehicles have their development form and expression features. At the same time, because of their development in time and space categories, the regionalism and temporality of vehicles influence on each other, the most important way is both fuses in together, under the action of time, some vehicles that are regional turn into national common vehicles.