An Analysis Of Metaphorical Coherence Of Characterization In Carpentaria

Metaphorical coherence is one of the favored subjects in the field of linguistics.The cross of two schools of study opened up a new research direction especially for discourse analysis as to probe into the way and function of metaphors in discourse coherence.The study about metaphorical coherence at discourse level is abundant in the process of its development though,and no research can be found relating metaphorical coherence with mythological-archetypal approach in exploration of the characterization in novels.In order to fill the research gap,this thesis intends to study how metaphors cohere in a discourse and further how the metaphorical coherence functions in characterization.The discourse to be studied is a book called Carpentaria written by an Australian aboriginal writer named Alexis Wright.Among all the books in Australian literature,Carpentaria stands out as an extraordinary one.For it portrays a vivid picture of Australian aboriginal life and their entanglement with white people,the book won many prizes.It tells stories set in a town called Desperance in Carpentaria Gulf,describing the conflicts between local aborigines and white people as well as the problems amongest two aboriginal clans.In order to resist the invasion of white culture and minimize the damage that foreign mineral company brings to the local environment,different aborigines come up with respective solutions,which initiates stories in the book.Despite its brilliance,the work does not stir up enough attention and study related to it in China.This thesis intends to analyze the coherence of metaphors for typical characters aiming to deconstruct the shaping of figures and which literary prototype they probably fall into under the theoretical framework of Lakoff &Johnson's theory of conceptual metaphor and the study on coherence(1980)and Halliday & Hasan's cohesion theory(1976)as well as mythological-archetypal approach(1957).The study aims to figure out three questions as follows:1)How do metaphors of three figures form textual coherence in Carpentaria?2)How do metaphors of three figures form semantic coherence in Carpentaria?3)What are the archetypes that three figures are categorized into based on the metaphors and their coherence?The thesis selects three characters named Normal Phamtom,Mozzie Fishman and Will Phantom who are typical aborigines and then identifies the metaphors describing their words,acts and thoughts as basic materials to be studied,employing methods combining form-identification,logical semantics-identification and MIP as well as multi-dimensional identification(Zhong & Chen,2013).Next under the framework of Lakoff & Johnson's theory of conceptual metaphor and the study on coherence(1980)and Halliday & Hasan's cohesion theory(1976),the paper analyzes the textual and semantic coherence of metaphors.Specifically speaking,from the perspective of textual coherence,metaphors from Normal Phantom will be explored in the form of direct repetition,synonym or near synonym and superordinate;metaphors from Mozzie Fishman will be explored in the form of hyponym and antonym;metaphors from Will Phantom will be explored in the form of synonym or near synonym and antonym.From the perspective of semantic coherence,all the metaphors of three figures are going to be analyzed through coherence within a metaphor and across metaphors.Eventually the coherence of metaphors for different figures are used to respectively identify the archetypes they are categorized into.The thesis deciphers the metaphors and their coherence for three aborigines in Carpentaria and also makes a further step to interpret their characters and attitudes towards white culture,which hopefully could spark the subsequent study on Carpentaria from the perspective of its metaphorsand figures in the field of linguistics.Furthermore,the thesis contributes a possible insight into the function of metaphorical coherence in characterization in hopes of more relevant research could be done in the future.