The Interaction Between Metaphors And Constructions

The present study probes into the interaction between metaphors and constructions in terms of verbs by means of three cases of inject, spray and cram. Marantz believes that the internal argument of a verb remains unchanged in metaphorical use compared with that in non-metaphorical use (1984), but the present study will argue that argument constructions (Goldberg,1995) in metaphorical and literal uses behave differently and that metaphorical extension witnesses some structural changes as well as the iniluence of argument roles of a construction. The previous research has found that the formal differences in the uses occur at the levels of part of speech, collocation and syntactic structure, but the present study will investigate the differences or similarities of verbs at the level of construction grammar. Consequently, three sub-questions will be answered in the thesis:(a) what are the differences of constructions between metaphorical and non-metaphorical uses?(b) what is the cognitive process of this linguistic phenomenon?(c) why does such a linguistic phenomenon exist in terms of cognitive linguistics?To discuss the first issue, the quantitative analysis method will be employed to research the corpora of three verbs selected from the COCA. First, the metaphor identification will be made so as to find the frequency distribution of non-metaphorical and metaphorical uses. The metaphor identification will follow the MIPVU procedure in order to make sure of the reliability of identification and will conform with two necessary conditions for identification validity. Second, the frequency distributions of constructions in two uses are examined. Third, the tool of SPSSv18.0is utilized to measure the correlation between constructions and metaphors, and statistical result is2*5cross-tabulation with Pearson’s Chi-Square value and Cramer’s Value (inject:0.554; spray:0.216; cram:0.184). The result of quantitative analysis demonstrates that (1) the constructions in metaphorical uses are different from those in non-metaphorical uses in terms of inject and spray;(2) metaphors prefer caused-motion construction;(3) metaphorical uses are marked by construction restructuring which is related to three modes:restoration, substitution and imitation.The results of qualitative analysis provide the answers to the second and third questions. The introspective method is employed to research the cognitive process of the constructional changes in the theoretical framework of Levelt’s speech production blueprint (2008). The present study elaborates the process of speech production---from conceptual structuring to constructional fusion, and the finding shows that the caused-motion construction (same as verb’s frame semantics) takes the highest frequency in metaphorical uses of three verbs. Restoration of thematic roles refers to the fact that some thematic role occurs in metaphorical use compared with the missing of the same role in non-metaphorical uses and that the argument number would increase. In the process of substitution, the number of thematic roles may remain unchanged and one of them would be replaced in the same place with another different role. Imitation means some thematic role grid would be imitated from non-metaphorical use to metaphorical use.The present study further infers the reason why the constructions would change or not change in metaphorical and non-metaphorical uses. Metaphorical uses of all these verbs prefer caused-motion construction to the others in that caused-motion construction is prototypical in the idealized cognitive model of causative event and the vital relation of identity in metaphorical blending requires a prototype of causative event in terms of the three verbs in the study. The basic and vital relation of identity in metaphorical blending is consistent with the means of dynamic-force relation of these selected verbs. Different constructions occur in non-metaphorical use in terms of each individual verb because of the pragmatic requirement which would be met by the properties of verbs themselves. The verb inject denotes the motion path by its prefix "in’, and the preposition "into" in the Prepositional Phrase which plays the Goal role is an idiomatic preposition. In conventional context of medicine use or drug-taking, the Goal role is depro tiled. The verb spray emphasizes the pragmatic meaning of resultative event in non-metaphorical use and denotes the instrument itself, and therefore the instrument role is considered as the repeated information and is adjusted to a position after the roles of agent and patient in the theta grid. To the verb cram, the same construction of caused-motion is shared by non-metaphorical and metaphorical uses in that the limits of this container in the theta grid is emphasized or highlighted.