A Study Of Conceptual Metaphor In The Bluest Eye

Conceptual metaphor theory has been greatly developed and deepened over the years.More and more evidence has proven that conceptual metaphor does exist and lies everywhere,which provides a clearer prospect for using conceptual metaphor to analyze literary works.The study on conceptual metaphor in the West originated from Aristotle.By1980,Lakoff and Johnson had made a breakthrough in conceptual metaphor theory in their epoch-making work Metaphors We Live by.They define the essence of metaphor as a cognitive process.Conceptual metaphor is not only a linguistic and cognitive phenomenon,but also a mode of cognition and thinking tool.After that,the study of metaphor has grown into a new phase.Scholars believe that conceptual metaphor should be included in cognitive linguistics.Conceptual metaphor theory holds the view that metaphor is conceptual and cognitive,and is a cross-domain mapping from one specific conceptual domain to another abstract conceptual domain.(Lakoff & Johnson,1980)That is,people make use of concrete and familiar concepts to explain the unfamiliar and abstract concept.Therefore,further study on conceptual metaphor contributes to the development of cognitive linguisticsIn recent years,the research on Morrison's masterpiece The Bluest Eye and the analyses of the novel are conducted mostly from the perspective of feminism.Although some scholars have attempted to analyze it from the perspective of conceptual metaphor,the study of its metaphor significance is not comprehensive and systematic.More importantly,with the development of cognitive linguistics and the progress of overall cognition of human society,a more delicate,profound,concrete and vivid analysis of the conceptual metaphor in The Bluest Eye contributes to both a further understanding of the novel and how conceptual metaphor affects the cognition of the outside world as a mode of cognition and thinking.This thesis takes The Bluest Eye as an example to analyze conceptual metaphor based on cognitive linguistics and analyzes the application of these conceptual metaphors in the text by elaborating on the phenomena of conceptual metaphor.On the basis of Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory,this thesis mainly analyzes three types of conceptual metaphor,namely,structural metaphor,ontological metaphor and orientational metaphor,as well as the specific examples of the types of conceptual metaphor in the novel.The writer of the thesis hopes to deepen people's understanding of conceptual metaphor by analyzing the examples of conceptual metaphor and further studying the personality of the characters,social significance and theme in the novelThrough analysis,the following conclusions are drawn: a.As is widely accepted by scholars like Lakoff and Johnson,conceptual metaphor exists widely in life.It is not only a linguistic and cognitive phenomenon,but also a basic cognitive and thinking mode of human beings,which makes people realize that conceptual metaphor is an indispensable cognitive mode of human beings.With the development of cognitive linguistics and the progress of human thoughts,it can be seen that conceptual metaphor plays an important role in the characterization of the novel and the expression of themes in literary works when it is used to analyze them,which helps people to understand the personalities of characters,the themes of novels and the social situation reflected in literary works.b.The Bluest Eye contains many conceptual metaphors.Firstly,Morrison makes use of conceptual metaphor to make such characters as Pecola,Cholly,Jimmy,M' Dear more vivid,expressing their inner emotional desire;secondly,through combining the social background,Morrison analyzes the influence of the white values on the black people's life and their inner deformity and distortion by their blind identification with these values;thirdly,she presents the value and historical significance of the excellent tradition of the black nation;and lastly,she also demonstrates that the blacks suffer the discrimination and unequal treatment and admonishes them to be friendly to each other,united,independent and confident.There exist some incompleteness of the corpus and limitations of the analysis in this paper,which remains to be corrected and perfected in the future.It is hoped that a more comprehensive and profound study of the novel and conceptual metaphor from a more scientific perspective and a more systematic theoretical framework can be made in the future.