A Study On Meaning Construction Of Poetic Metaphor From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

It was the time of Aristotle when the study of metaphor comes into being. But all of thestudies at that time are limited to the field of rhetoric. For many scholars, metaphor isregarded as the decoration of language. While the contemporary study of metaphor gets rid ofthe traditional boundedness, metaphor is not a decoration of human language, but a way ofhuman thought, a cognitive method. Recently, the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and theConceptual Blending Theory are two theories of interpreting the cognitive metaphoricalmechanism effectively. Conceptual Metaphor Theory concentrates on solving theconventional metaphor, it has no persuasion of the poetic metaphor mechanism with creativefeatures; Conceptual Blending Theory has a great explanation of the poetic metaphor.This thesis regards Conceptual Blending Theory as the theoretical framework, mainlyrelies on the conceptual blending network. The poetic metaphor is the study object, based onsome scholars’ analysis, the author systematically summarizes some features of poeticmetaphor. The features of poetic metaphor determine the analysis of the meaning constructionof poetic metaphor can not rely on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The author adopts thequalitative analysis method, and does a systematic analysis of the meaning construction ofpoetic metaphor: firstly, the thesis analyzes the superiorities of CBT in interpreting poeticmetaphor, then analyzes the essential conditions of the meaning construction of the poeticmetaphor, finally, the thesis analyzes the meaning construction of poetic metaphor from theaspects of poetry, literary works, abstract matters, language humor and so on. And the analysisis on the basis of four types of conceptual networks. Through the cross-space mapping, themeaning construction of poetic metaphor displays dynamically, and readers can have avisualized understanding of the meaning construction of poetic metaphor.In the end, the verdict of the thesis: the Conceptual Blending Theory provides themeaning construction of poetic metaphor an effectively cognitive tool. Then, this thesiscombines with abundant language materials, and makes a confirmation of the possibility andinterpreting ability of Conceptual Blending Theory. Based on the Conceptual Blending Theory,the analysis of the meaning construction of poetic metaphor fully demonstrates thatintegration is human beings’ cognitive way of thought, and integration is the cognitivemechanism of producing maximal meaning.