A Study On The Synaesthesia

Attemptting to lay an academic foundation for the coming research on synaesthesia, this thesis makes a general conclusion and comment on achievements in synaesthesia studies since the New Period in China against multidisciplinary backdrop. Taking cardinal outlook of receptive rhetoric that rhetorical activities are linguistic and aesthetic activities reacted between expressors and receptors as the theoretical basis, synaesthesia is defined as an aesthetic discourse modality that emerged when semantic meanings of basic perception and synaesthetic perception interacted. We think that synaesthesia is a three-level system of interconnections between senses, cross-modal transfer and synaesthesia,and there are differences and connections among them.In light of this new defintion and by making a comprehensive use of theoretical resources from modern linguistic, psychology, physiology and literature aesthetics, the thesis in turn probes into the discourse characteristics of synaesthesia, the poetics functions of synaesthesia in text, the function of synaesthesia in Interaction between expression and reception. As well, on the basis of comparison methodology, this thesis make a discussion on the epithet ascription of synaesthesia, its relations with other epithets,this will provide a reference for further studies in synaesthesia.Finally,we attempt to offer a case of observation and reflection with the multi-dimensional and multi-angle in the current studies of synaesthesia.