The Meaning Construction Of Warning Bumper Stickers-from The Perspective Of Conceptual Integration Theory

In China, slogan, undertaking the role of publicity, instruction, caution and arousal,occupies a very important position in people’s daily life. The development and evolution ofslogan always attracts people’s attention. Hence, as one of the most unique type of slogan,Bumper sticker gradually steps into the research field which complies with the choice ofdemand for development of era. In this personalized society, bumper stickers with novel butsimple forms, interesting but obscure contents, and humorous but rigorous expressionsbecome the darling of the times which are pursued enthusiastically by the young. There arecertainly some reasons why small bumper stickers can play an important role in people’s life.Therefore, this study chooses bumper stickers as the research object to analyze their featuresand meaning construction processes.At present, the studies for bumper stickers are rare, among which the majority focus ondiscussing their illustrations, origins, language features, classifications and social or culturalmeanings. A few of them set foot in the field of rhetoric which emphasizes their aesthetic andrhetorical effect. These approaches are adopted to pay more attention to their static model, butfew are involved in the dynamic cognitive mechanism and on-line meaning construction ofexpression and understanding. Conceptual Integration Theory, which is put forward byFauconnier and Turner, can be used to analyze the meaning construction and reasoningmechanism of bumper stickers. This theory, regarded as the major breakthrough in cognitivelinguistics, has a complete framework and a flexible operation mechanism. Its basic operationinvolves four mental spaces—two input spaces, the generic space and blended space. In theprocess of blending, some elements from two inputs are selectively projected into the blendedspace. Then, emergent structure is generated through three processes of composition, completion and elaboration which are considered as the cognitive process of meaningoperation and production. The purpose of this theory is to reveal the on-line meaningconstruction of the language phenomenon.Therefore, on the foundation of Conceptual Integration Theory, this thesis chooses thewarning bumper sticker with concise language but rich meanings as the research object tostudy its meaning construction. It aims to uncover the unconscious and dynamic conceptualintegration phenomenon of warning bumper sticker in the process of on-line understanding.This paper further proves that Conceptual Integration Theory can explain the cognitiveoperation of warning bumper stickers which provides a new angle and analytical method tothe study of bumper stickers. At the same time, through analysis of warning bumper stickersin different types of conceptual integration networks, this paper summarizes that bumperstickers whose meaning constructions are compatible with the network with simple operationprocess take a large proportion. When the one is driving, his or her attention should not bedistracted for a long time for safety. So, stickers with simple interpretive process becomemore and more popular. This also provides people with a practical principle so that the usersand sticker designers should paste or design some stickers understood easily because of theirspecial using circumstance.In a word, this thesis attempts to conduct the beneficial study on warning bumperstickers from the perspective of Conceptual Integration Theory. It aims to reveal the meaningconstruction process of bumper sticker so that people can better understand this novellanguage form.