Age Onomasiology In Ancient China:A Metonymy-based Study

Age onomasiology in ancient China,as a type of referring,is a name-giving process of age,the referent via all things related to age,which cannot be realized without the subjective cognition of age.Taking conceptual metonymy as an important cognitive tool,this thesis attempts to study age onomasiology in ancient China from the perspective of metonymic thinking.According to the theory of conceptual metonymy,metonymic mapping follows the cognitive principle of prominence and contiguity.When perceiving things,humans tend to highlight different aspects of the object owing to different focuses of attention and thus adopt the prominent,easily perceivable and replaceable neighboring parts within the same cognitive domain or matrix to be mapped onto the overall target domain.In age onomasiology in ancient China,each age has its highlighted corresponding typical characteristics and thus some prominent and age-related neighboring concepts are used to refer to age.The principle of contiguity and prominence of metonymic mapping can make it possible for the author to theoretically explain age onomasiology in ancient China from the perspective of conceptual metonymy.Through research,this study comes up with the following findings:(1)As a kind of verbal thinking activity,age onomasiology is based on long-time diligent observation of prominent features of age and its essence lies in the close internal relations between age and its adjacent concepts;(2)Borrowing the principle of prominence and contiguity of metonymic mapping,those prominent and age-based neighboring concepts can be used as signifiers to refer to age,thus completing the behavior of age onomasiology;(3)According to whether the signifiers are human-related or not,the signifiers of age onomasiology can be divided into human-related signifiers and nonhuman-related signifiers.There are three principal reasons accounting for the selection of those signifiers,namely,experiential,communicative and cultural factors;(4)From the perspective of conceptual metonymy,the inner referring relations within age onomasiology can be classified into two conceptual metonymies,namely,HUMAN-RELATED SYMBOLS FOR AGE and NONHUMAN-RELATED SYMBOLS FOR AGE,with the former further divided into SYMBOLS OF GROWTH STAGES FOR AGE,SYMBOLS OF DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING STAGES FOR AGE and SYMBOLS OF MIND DEVELOPMENT STAGES FOR AGE,and the latter further assorted into FIGURE FOR AGE and DECOMPOSED FIGURE FOR AGE.Each metonymic pattern of age onomasiology can be understood and clarified via the analysis of language materials,which further verifies the explaining power of conceptual metonymy in research on age onomasiology.The research has proved that conceptual metonymy can provide a cognitive framework for explaining age onomasiology,offering a cognitive account of the motivation underlying the inner referring relations of age onomasiology.This study is an attempt to do a joint research on conceptual metonymy and age onomasiology in ancient China,serving as a tentative innovation and complement for the current study on age onomasiology.Although age onomasiology is a minor branch of lexicology,relevant research will not only shed light on lexicography,ancient Chinese teaching,and pragmatic communications,but it will also provide reference for the future study of onomasiology in a broad sense.