| With the rise and development of cognitive linguistics,the nature of metaphor and metonymy has received widespread concerns and re-recognition.Metaphor and metonymy in this thesis are not traditional rhetorical devices,but instead they're cognitive concepts,powerful tools for people to understand the world,and cognitive methods for constructing people's cognitive system.The author chooses the word(or rather the concept)“oak” as the research source to explore its various metaphorical and metonymical meanings and discuss the features and functions of “oak” in the range of western popular English songs.By using the method of description and explanation,the author's findings about80 representative popular English songs indicate that as an ordinary tree,the oak stands for the concept of kinship,life and peace;because of its unique characteristics,it represents love,fortitude,righteousness,immortality,obstinacy and arrogance;besides,the metonymies between part and whole are also reflected by “oak”.The metaphorical and metonymical concepts and expressions in oak lyrics highlight that human perception and interpretation of metaphor and metonymy are closely linked to physical experiences,daily life experiences and culture.What's more,metaphors and metonymies also stimulate the audience's speculation and arouse emotional resonance.The study of “oak” reflects the decisive role of cognition and culture in metaphor and metonymy.With shared physical and psychological experiences,people will find that most metaphors and metonymies are easy to understand.Whereas,diachronic and cultural differences can also trigger divergent interpretations of metaphors and metonymies,and thus,lead to failure in communications between different communities.Therefore,it deserves language learners' attention that they should know how to correctly understand metaphor and metonymy through cognitive mechanism and cultures behind different languages so as to carry out efficient cross-cultural communication successfully. |
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