A Metaphorical Study Of Internet Catchwords Based On Cognitive Linguistics

In the Internet era, more and more people choose to communicate through the network, and the Internet language has prevailed among netizens. New Internet words are created continuously, some of which become the Internet catchwords. The Internet catchwords are closely related to our life.From the point of conceptual metaphor theory in cognitive linguistics, metaphor is a way of thinking to perceive and experience this world, and it is abstract, conceptual but pervades in people's daily life. Metaphorical mode of thinking is embodied in plenty of aspects in life, and among of them is language, here the Internet catchwords. Metaphor has huge and everlasting effects on the development of Internet catchwords. Metaphor is regarded as a cognitive approach which is completed through the mapping among cognitive domains.This thesis chooses Internet catchwords as the objectives of research, based on cognitive linguistics, deeply analyzing metaphors in Internet catchwords from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory, prototype theory and cognitive context. This thesis applies conceptual metaphor theory to reveal that the essence of metaphor is to understand and experience one kind of thing in terms of another. According to the classification of metaphor in conceptual metaphor theory, the oriental metaphor, ontological metaphor and structural metaphor in Internet catchwords are studied. Furthermore, the working mechanism, which is metaphorical mapping from source domains to target domains, of generating metaphors in Internet catchwords is specifically analyzed. The metaphorical mapping is divided into five kinds: metaphorical mapping between plants, animals and people, metaphorical mapping from animation behaviors to daily behaviors, metaphorical mapping from daily behaviors to Internet behaviors, metaphorical mapping from daily activities to social issues, metaphorical mapping between different fields. Besides, under prototype theory, source domains and target domains in metaphor can be regarded as two categories, similar attributes of which and the fuzziness, openness of whose boundaries provide the basis for cross-domains mapping. Therefore, the mapping structure, object and basis of metaphors can be deeply understood, which proves that prototype theory has certain advantages on the understanding of cognitive metaphor. Metaphorical Internet catchwords will be studied from three kinds of prototypes: objects as prototypes, people as prototypes, behaviors as prototypes. Moreover, the effects of cognitive context in the process of understanding Internet catchwords will be studied from three aspects: the language knowledge, encyclopedic knowledge and situational context. At last, cognitive function of metaphors in Internet catchwords will be elaborated, which is the basis of organizing concepts, the means of organizing experience and the new angle of recognizing objects. The social function of metaphors in Internet catchwords mainly includes demonstration of social trends and features, achievement of social effects and increase of achievement of intimacy.As a language variety on the Internet, the Internet catchwords have attracted more attention from people. Metaphor helps catchwords be easily understood and accepted in order to make communication go smoothly. Studying metaphors in Internet catchwords from the angle of cognition is helpful to know the cognitive process of people perceiving objects. What's more, studying metaphors in Internet catchwords not only helps us further understand the generation and development of Internet catchwords, but also helps the public know more about connotation of metaphors in Internet catchwords, and use them correctly.