| From the traditional perspective,metaphor is merely regarded as a rhetoric device or a language phenomenon.The combination of cognitive science and linguistic research in recent years promotes the thriving development of cognitive linguistics and people begin to explore metaphor from the cognitive perspective.In the book Metaphors We Live By,Lakoff & Johnson firstly propose that metaphor is not merely a language phenomenon or rhetorical device,but rather than a powerful cognitive instrument or thinking mode that people live by.The majority of poetry,rich in metaphorical language,has been closely related to metaphor.Metaphor,as the bond connecting poets and readers,is of great help to both construct the imagery and make the theme salient.Therefore,the metaphorical interpretation on metaphor has become the focus for poetry appreciation and understanding.LOVE metaphor is also being the long-standing topic of poetry.However,a majority of scholars carry out research on metaphor just from the way of meaning illustration and structure analysis or conduct various cross-cultural comparisons between different languages.Although those researches have put forward some related ideas,they fail to illustrate the metaphorical conceptualization of LOVE metaphor or disclose the dynamic meaning construction process as well as the cognitive mechanism of LOVE metaphor in poetry.Tagore's lyrics are rich in content,with love as its essence,which is the reason why his lyrics have received so much admiration and respect all around the world.Based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory,this paper attempts to study LOVE metaphor in Tagore's lyrics and manages to answer those two questions below:Firstly,how is LOVE metaphorically conceptualized in Tagore's lyrics? Secondly,what is the mechanism of online meaning construction of LOVE metaphor under the framework of Conceptual Blending Theory?At first,Conceptual Metaphor Theory is adopted to make a full discussion on LOVE Metaphor in Tagore's three collections of poems and then the conceptualization of thirteen different kinds of LOVE metaphor is generalized.Together with specific examples,the author shows the conceptual mapping process of LOVE metaphor and also analyzes how LOVE is metaphorically constructed in those lyrics.By analyzing the dynamic construction process of LOVE metaphor in simplex network,mirror network,single scope network,double scope network,it makes an interpretation on the online meaning construction of LOVE metaphor successfully.This research has testified the explanatory power of Conceptual Metaphor Theory on explaining the metaphorical conceptualization process of LOVE metaphor.What's more,network modes in Conceptual Blending Theory can present a profound explanation of the online cognitive mechanism behind metaphor,which provides a mighty power for the explanation of meaning construction and working mechanism of poetic metaphor.In addition,this research has deepened reader's understanding of Tagore's lyrics and provided a new perspective for further research of LOVE metaphor in poetry. |
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