A Study Of Netspeak Metaphor Based On Conceptual Blending Theory And Relevance Theory

Based on A Glossary of Netspeak and Textspeak written by Crystal, this thesis mainly focuses on metaphor’s cognitive function of meaning construction featured by Netspeak metaphor. The results of the early researches on lexical features of Netspeak demonstrate the creation of Netspeak is driven by netizens’ preference to efficiency than precision in communication. The new developmental trend of netspeak that using metaphor to construct new meanings is consistent with the early researches. According to Relevance Theory(hereafter RT), people like talking loosely with metaphoric utterance because it is the best way to achieve relevance in conversion. That’s to say people use metaphor to enrich the meaning of netspeak because it’s the most efficient way to construct new meaning. Another approach to meaning constructed by metaphor is Conceptual Blending Theory(hereafter CBT), which illustrates the process of meaning construction graphically. According to conceptual blending theory, people set up mental spaces during their thinking and talking and they will project elements in different mental spaces to form a blend in which meaning construction occurs. Metaphoric meaning are generated by cross-space mapping between source domain and target domain. In the process of cross-domain mapping, elements and structures from input spaces are selectively mapped onto the generic space to run the blend where correlated elements and structures are blended to generate the emergent structure through composition, completion, and elaboration.On the one hand, RT fails to have an explanation of a specific process of pragmatic inference and meaning construction. On the other hand, CBT fails to do justice to the contextual variable in its blending graph. Some scholars propose a solution of integration of these two theories because they are complementary to each other. In this thesis, the author tries to work out an integrated approach to metaphoric meaning interpretation. Through literature review and analyzing Crystal’s examples, the author believes that new meanings are constructed in the process of pragmatic inference of conversation and the whole process is governed by principle of relevance. Under the integrated theoretical view, in pragmatic inference, the addressee perceives the metaphor as an ostensive stimulus of the utterance and sets up informative mental space to contain the concept elements of the utterance meanwhile the addressee will also setup a reference space where the concept elements relevant to the ostensive stimulus will be dynamically retrieved from individual’s cognitive environment. The elements containing in reference space is activated from individual’s long-term memory according to the degree of relevance. The relevance is defined by RT as a notion that achieving greatest cognitive effect through least processing effort. Then elements will be mapped onto a third space. This selective projection is also governed by principle of relevance. Finally, the addressee will construct the most optimal relevant meaning in the blend which is defined as optimal blend by the author. In discussion of Netspeak, by using the term “optimal blend”, the author means the blend which can achieve most creative effect and generate innovative expression.