On English Textual Megametaphor

Megametaphor is a major means to go beyond lexical-sentential level and into textual metaphor. The complete theory on textual megametaphor should contain both semantic metaphor and grammatical metaphor, and attend to their generative basis as well.Firstly, the semantic construction for textual megametaphor can be investigated from several main perspectives. In megametaphoric metafunctions, the syndromes produced by its ideational function in syntagmaxis form the basis of signifying chains, with its registral elements co-occuring and extending regularly in the same text so as to form the extensive and gestalt semantic framework of a metaphorical text; meanwhile, the metaphoric degrees can be shown in the rankshifts produced in parataxis.A megametaphoric event is an experiential gestalt embodying both propositional and metaphoric actions. When a sequence of related micrometaphors as sub-events is used to elaborate its root metaphor, this expression is cumulative, and is realized through textual but not sentential processes. The identity of megametaphoric event engenders gestalt perception and forms the event-frames of a text; its cluster models produce prototype effects by means of which the developing dimensions of propositions are controlled in a text. The function-advancing scope of a propositional rhetoric is restrained at a suitable reference point selected between the maximal defamiliarizing and the maximal objectifying.In the framework of megametaphoric texts, a megametaphor is formed when these hierarchical atomic vehicles are filled into their corresponding logic slots and get narrative expressions by time order in the script. Accordingly, a textual metaphor is created when its megametaphor has experienced textualization and obtained the gestalt textuality such as cohesion and coherence. As for its formed metaphoric systems, the semantic basis of megametaphoric text is constructed owing to the unitary or criss-cross extension of the great chain of being metaphor and the event structure metaphor.The coherence of textual megametaphor covers internal and external conditions. The former mainly involves the coherence between basic metaphor and its topic, between tenor and vehicle, between basic metaphor and its micrometaphors, the mutual coherence among micrometaphors themselves, as well as the coherence between metaphoric parts and nonmetaphoric ones; the latter includes sociocultural situation, situational context, cognitive schemata, mental factors and so on. In the logic construction of textual metaphor, for a compound proposition made up of atomic propositions in a megametaphoric event, its logic depiction must resort to the extended predicate calculus. In an ICM, the degree of its...