A Cognitive Approach To Metaphor Clusters In Tao Te Ching

As one of the representation forms of conceptual metaphor,metaphor cluster refers to the phenomenon of metaphors that occur in close textual adjacency.As a fundamental way of cognition,cognitive reference point has strong explanatory power to the cognitive mechanism of metaphor clusters.Ancient Chinese philosophy classic Tao Te Ching distinguishes itself by choosing metaphor as the core mechanism of discourse,and therefore contains abundant metaphor clusters.Current research on Tao Te Ching mainly focuses on philosophy,translation,and language,yet there are few studies on metaphor clusters in it from a cognitive perspective.Through the lens of cognitive reference point,this thesis combines the methods of quantitative research and qualitative research to explore metaphor clusters in Tao Te Ching.A closed corpus of Tao Te Ching is first built to investigate the distribution and classification of metaphor clusters by dint of UAM Corpus Tool.Then the meaning construction of metaphor clusters is elucidated based on the theory of cognitive reference point.Finally,the role that metaphor clusters play in the theme construction of Tao Te Ching is presented.The research findings are as follows:(1)68 metaphor clusters are identified in the self-built corpus of Tao Te Ching,accounting for 80.8% of all metaphorical language.According to the number of basic metaphors contained,they are divided into three categories: binomial metaphor cluster(61.8%),trinomial metaphor cluster(23.5%),and polynomial metaphor cluster(14.7%).Moreover,there are twelve basic metaphors distributed in metaphor clusters in Tao Te Ching,namely,mother metaphor,water metaphor,entity metaphor,abstract concept metaphor,event metaphor,plant metaphor,road metaphor,human metaphor,valley metaphor,nature metaphor,space metaphor,etc.(2)The theory of cognitive reference point enjoys strong explanatory power for the cognitive mechanism of metaphor clusters.Based on the CRP model,metaphor clusters in Tao Te Ching present five patterns of meaning construction and can be categorized as the extended metaphor cluster,the convergent metaphor cluster,the parallel metaphor cluster,the containment metaphor cluster,and the complementary metaphor cluster.The CRP model can elucidate the cognitive mechanism of the above five categories of metaphor clusters in an intuitive way and promote the understanding of important philosophical concepts in Tao Te Ching.(3)Metaphor clusters play a significant role in the theme construction of Tao Te Ching.Philosophical themes including Non-contention,Weakness,Voidness,Inaction,Low Profile,Tranquility,etc.,are mainly constructed by metaphor clusters,which can be further summarized as three kinds of philosophical thoughts,namely,the Tao of universe,the Tao of life,and the Tao of social politics.This research on metaphor clusters in Tao Te Ching from the perspective of cognitive reference point,firstly contributes to extending the application of cognitive reference point by enhancing its explanatory power to Chinese philosophical classics and metaphor clusters.Secondly,it deepens the theoretical and practical study of metaphor clusters,providing an empirical reference for the research on the meaning construction of and theme construction by metaphor clusters.Finally,a new perspective is proposed for the cognitive study of philosophical classics,assisting in the understanding and international dissemination of traditional Chinese culture.