The Generating Mechanism Of Chinese Death Euphemisms:a Metonymic And Metaphorical Perspective

Euphemism is a common topic in linguistics which has attracted attention of many researchers in and abroad, and they have made a lot of achievements about it. In this thesis, the author has chosen a cognitive perspective to study one special kind of euphemism, that is, Chinese death euphemism. Death is a natural physiological phenomenon which can not be avoided. No one is immortal. The irreversibility of death made it the most painful reality in one’s life. As death means the permanent termination of the life of a person or an animal, all the nationalities in western and oriental culture are reluctant to mention death directly. Thus, various indirect, evasive and vague euphemisms are used to substitute the terms about death. Owning to the richness and diversity of Chinese culture, death euphemisms abound in Chinese. Chinese death euphemisms are more complicated due to their deep cultural connotations; for instance, Chinese death euphemisms can indicate the religious belief, social statue, identities and characteristics of the dead and disclose the speaker’s relationship with the dead. Even so, studies focused on Chinese death euphemisms are still lacking, and require further researches. The author holds that further analysis of death euphemisms from a cognitive perspective is necessary. Therefore this thesis aims to investigate the generating mechanism of Chinese death euphemisms within the framework of conceptual metonymy and metaphor, hoping that it can be helpful and supplementary to the previous studies.The major findings yielded in this study are summarized as follows:Metonymic model and metaphorical model provide cognitive basis for the generation of euphemisms.Contiguity is the base of metonymic cognitive model. Metonymy is a mapping within one conceptual domain. Due to the objectivity of contiguity, there is more restriction on metonymy than on metaphor. Thereupon Chinese death euphemisms formed through the way of metonymy are in a relatively smaller number. Generally, there are two kinds of Chinese death euphemisms:Whole and Part Metonymic Relationship; Part and Part Metonymic Relationship. Employing the physiological characteristics or changes of the deceased like "breathe one’s last" or "cardiac standstill" to substitute the terms of death is a typical example of A PART FOR THE WHOLE euphemisms formed by metonymic mechanism.Similarity is the base of metaphoric cognitive model. Metaphor is also a mapping process, but it is a mapping from source domain to target domain. As long as there is similarity between these two objects, metaphor can be realized. Since similarities are formed through our subjective imagination and association, metaphor is more subjective than metonymy. Death metaphors in Chinese mainly include DEATH IS SLEEP OR REST, DEATH IS DEPARTURE, DEATH IS THE DESTINATION OF A JOUNEY, DEATH IS THE WITHERING OF PLANTS, and so on.