A Cognitive Approach To Metaphor About Internet

Since the mid 1990s, computer and the Internet have been widely used in our society, which produces corresponding computer culture and Internet culture. Accompanying with this is a large amount of metaphorical language about computer or the Internet. Metaphor as a cognitive tool for human being is also applied to structuring our experience of interacting with the Internet. Many scholars begin to pay attention to our use of metaphor in the field of information technology. They publish some articles discussing the use of metaphor relative to computer and Internet. However, the previous research puts more focus on the application of visual metaphors in GUI (Graphical Users Interface) design, software development and website construction. Less attention is paid to metaphors which are used in talking about the Internet or our activity of using the Internet. In this thesis, the metaphor about the Internet is called Internet metaphor. Recently some scholars begin to consider Internet metaphor from a linguistic perspective, but their researches are insufficient in terms of collecting of samples and using of theories. In view of the above, this thesis aims to carry out a systematical and relatively complete study on metaphors used in our daily discourse about the Internet. And the study, based on contemporary cognitive linguistic theories, intends to demonstrate what metaphors are used in talking about the Internet, what kind of cognitive mechanism underlies these metaphors and how metaphor realizes its cognitive function in conceptualizing the Internet. Theories utilized in this thesis mainly include Lakoff's Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Johnson's Image Schema Theory, and Fauconnier's Conceptual Blending Theory.According to Lakoff, metaphor is not simply a matter of language, but of thinking and reasoning. Our conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. Johnson further proposes that our basic bodily experiences systematically are stored in our memory in the form of image-schematic structure. When we reason and make sense of the world, image-schematic structure as a recurring, dynamic pattern of our perceptual interaction with the world plays an important role in giving coherence and structure to our experience as well as influences our reasoning. Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Image Schema Theory are simple and easy to explain highly entrenched conventional metaphors, but its explanatory power is sufficient merely for metaphors involving uni-directional mapping, but not for some complex and novel metaphors. Later on Fauconnier proposes Conceptual Blending Theory which gives complement to Lakoff and Johnsons' theory. According to Fauconnier, Lakoff's two-domain model is only a special case of four-space model. Fauconnier uses four or more mental spaces, multiple projections and emergent structures to make dynamic and online analysis of metaphor. Thus Fauconnier's Comceptual Blending theory is more convincing in explaining novel metaphor. These three theories are complementary and can adequately explain Internet metaphors.On the basis of analyzing a large amount of metaphorical language, used in reference to the Internet, excerpted from English magazines, journals, news reports and websites, this dissertation reinforces some fundamental cognitive theories on metaphor and tries to prove that metaphor plays an important role in conceptualizing the Internet and has a profound influence on lexical change with its function in constructing our linguistic and conceptual system.