The Four-P Model Hypothesis On Novel Metaphor Production

From the surface, metaphor is a linguistic and rhetoric phenomenon which embellishes our language and expresses meaning in an implicit way(Ji,1998). But if we explore it further, we will find it an extensive and significant cognitive phenomenon, which reflects the wisdoms of the human being in understanding and reconstructing the world. It is also the device for human being to know themselves. Metaphor bears its own inner thinking logics. It standardizes people how to understand, experience, embody and imagine this world. For this reason, the cognitive linguistic view finds that it is important to provide an account of the selection of metaphorical source concepts (and their corresponding metaphorical linguistic expressions) that can also explain those cases where no obvious preexisting similarity between two entities can be found. This is the task to which we now turn (Kovecses,2010).Among the substantial number of recent papers on metaphor study in cognitive linguistics field, the emphasis clearly has been put on the metaphor comprehension, and some isolated reasons of how metaphor is produced are proposed, which range from rhetorical, semantic, pragmatic, cognitive and psychological reasons. The literature can be found in Aristotle (1956), Ricoeur1978, Bloomfield(1933), Searle (1993), Andrew Ortony (1979:73), Grice, Kant, Shelley, Cassirer, Blumenberg, Richards, Black, Lakoff, and Johnson, Grady’s, Middleton Murry, and Rogers. Whereas a systematic and comprehensive investigation on the mechanism of NMP (novel metaphor production) is seldom found.Cognitive psychology has found that the right hemisphere plays a vital role in NMP and other creative linguistic activity. NMP are related with the factors such as double-image, imagination, and illumination. Glicksohn (2005) has found out there is a positive correlation between NMP and creativity by Symbolic Equivalence Test and Alternate Uses Test. Fine and Lockwood (1980) has also observed that those students with higher creativity can produce more novel metaphors. And those learners who have more flexible cognitive style can produce better novel metaphors, vice versa. Therefore, it is feasible in theory to construct this model under the basic framework of Wallas’s Four-stage Model of creativity. However, the following questions firstly need to be answered.1What is novel metaphor?2What is NMP (novel metaphor production)?3What is the metaphorical thinking in NMP?4What are the relationships between metaphorical thinking in NMP and creative thinking?5Can we apply the Wallas’ four-stage model to construct the model of NMP?6The key question in this Four-P model is to answer how people cognitively create the similarity between the source domain and the target domain. In other words, how people select the source domain to understand the target domain?7Can we use one piece of discourse to test the hypothesis of Four-P model of NMP?After finishing all the questions above, the Four-P model of NMP hypothesis is proposed. The Four-P stands for the four first letters of Preparation, Production, Proofing and Presentation. In each phase, it has specific processing contents and devices. Cognitively speaking, the most important phase is the second one Production. In this pase, the author believes that the remote association by shape, colour, taste, noise, function, characteristics, and the law plays a fundamental role in seeking the source domain.A case study has been conducted on MOON metaphor, taken from one piece of Tang poem named chung jiang hua yue ye 《春江花月夜》"A Moonlit Night on the Spring River" by Zhang Ruoxu, in the attempt at testifying whether the Four-P model of NMP holds true in explaining how those novel metaphors is produced. Firstly, the author gives a general introduction of the significance of this poem and its meaning. Secondly, the author classifies the fourteen moon metaphors in this poem into three kind in a semantic way. They are Imagery Moon Metaphor, Emotional Moon Metaphor, and Philosophical Moon Metaphor. Thirdly, the author gives a detailed investigation on the fourteen moon metaphors by applying the Four-P model of NMP hypothesis.In a word, this thesis has given a beginning effort in constructing the Four-P model of NMP. Some limitations could be found in this paper. Hopefully, we believe that by applying the modern cognitive research instruments, much more systematic and comprehensive model of NMP can be conducted. And we can also collect more realistic and credible on-line data to testify this Four-P model.