English Event-Structure Related Idioms: A Cognitive Perspective

This thesis is an attempt to make a study of English idioms related to event structure with a cognitive linguistic approach. Metaphor in traditional theories is only a figure of speech, or a rhetorical device, which is used to reinforce the expressive effect of linguistic expressions. In the cognitive linguistics, metaphor is regarded as a fundamental mode of cognition concerning human thought and act.The present thesis is divided into five parts. The first part is introduction and the last conclusion. And the middle parts focus on idiom interpretation with the help of cognitive methods. Chapter Two presents a literature review of the study on idioms. First pages in this chapter are devoted to the definition, sources and characteristics of idioms. Then it reviews the study of idiom from traditional and cognitive perspective. The traditional view treats idiom merely as being simply assigned with single semantic representations unrelated to the meanings of their individual components. In the cognitive view, senses of idioms are regarded as being motivated by conceptual structure that exists independently of language. And cognitive mechanism links domains of knowledge to idiomatic meanings.Chapter Three is occupied by the introduction to cognitive models for idiom motivation. It covers two cognitive models for motivating idiomatic expressions: image schema and conceptual metaphor. According to their cognitive functions, three kinds of conceptual metaphor are identified: structural, orientational, and ontological metaphors. This chapter is completed by the illustration of one of the systems formed together by kinds of conceptual metaphors: the event structure metaphor system, which is a rather rich and complex system of conceptual metaphors. The event structure metaphor system itself consists of two subsystems: one based on locations, and the other based on objects.Chapter Four goes to an analysis of event structure metaphors in idioms interpretation. A collection of idioms is analyzed with the aim of clarifying the effect of cognitive models on idiom motivation. It serves as a convincing evidence for the defiance of the noncompositional view on idioms by revealing the fact that event structure metaphor system plays a significant role in semantically motivating idiomatic expressions. In summary, this thesis reviews the studies of idioms in the past, and then applies the cognitive theory to the interpretation of idioms. A great range of English idioms related to the event structure metaphors are collected and analyzed to demonstrate in what specific way conceptual metaphors semantically motivate idioms.