A Cognitive Approach To Hypallage

Hypallage, as a figure of speech, is frequently used in daily expressions and literary works. Most of the traditional study of this rhetoric device focused on hypallage's pragmatic features, semantic features, psychological basis, aesthetic functions and so on. However, the cognitive process of its meaning construction is often neglected. There are three kinds of hypallage: synaesthesia, empathy and transferred epithet, and their wide application in literary works possesses great aesthetic functions and artistic effects. The motivation of hypallage's functions lies in the cognitive mechanism at work behind hypallage understanding. This thesis is mainly designed to provide a detailed account and demonstration of the cognitive process of meaning construction of hypallage.Conceptual blending theory (CBT) advanced by Fauconnier and Turner has been widely applied to meaning construction of many linguistic phenomena. Conceptual blending is a general cognitive operation, which opens up a new field for studying meaning construction at all levels. In this thesis, we intend to demonstrate that the cognitive process of meaning construction of hypallage can be explained by CBT. The demonstration of the concrete process of hypallage's meaning construction will be carried out by three forms of hypallage: synaesthesia, empathy and transferred epithet. Since there are noticeable differences in the linguistic forms among the three kinds of hypallage, there are some minute differences in the cognitive process of their respective meaning construction. The main purpose of these analyses is to provide an illustration that conceptual blending plays a crucial role in the concrete cognitive process of meaning construction of hypallage. Besides, context,textual information and the writer's intention are also essential in the understanding and interpretation of hypallage. This point will be demonstrated by a case study of hypallage in The Waste Land.