A Comparative Study Of "Mouth/teeth/lip/tongue" Metonymy In English And Chinese From A Perspective Of Cognitive Linguistics

This thesis is an attempt to probe into the universal existence of metonymy in languages, which is deemed as one of the basic means of human cognition. To serve the purpose, "mouth/teeth/lip/tongue" metonymies in English and Chinese are selected as the study topic, so as to test whether the present theories of cognitive linguistics could provide a reasonable explanation to the existence of the selected metonymies, whether the continuum of metonymy and metaphor is reflected in these metonymies, and whether the similarities of the metonymies in the two languages could prove the cognitive universalities of human beings.The corpus for the research in the thesis is built on a collection of relevant linguistic items from dictionaries, and the statistics of the frequency of the four kinds of metonymy—"mouth/teeth/lip/tongue"—will lead to the final conclusions.Through the research, it was found that the upper metonymic relationship of the selected metonymy was established within the framework of Causation ICM (Idealized Cognitive Model). The selection of the vehicles is proved to be the result of a competition of various principles and factors. Evidence of the continuum of metonymy and metaphor is also revealed in some of the cases. A contrastive study of the inner & outer system of "mouth/teeth/lip/tongue" metonymies in the two languages results in the following findings: "mouth" and "tongue" are two dominant vehicles in both English and Chinese, which could be explained adequately with the theories of cognitive linguistics; and except "teeth", all the other three vehicles share the same dominant target domain— "speech", which indicates that the relationship between mouth organs and "speech" is recognized by people from both cultures.This thesis, with the help of its findings, demonstrates the universal existence of metonymy as a means of human cognition. Metonymies in different languages may involve the same vehicles or targets, or are governed by the same principles or factors, or even belong to the same metonymic category, which could be taken as the consequence of human cognitive universality due to the same construction of human brains.The whole thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter 1 addresses the significance of the current study, on the basis of a general review of the present researches by both...