The Multi-dimensional Research On Chinese Oxymoron

This thesis studies the oxymoron of Chinese language. Based on language facts, rhetorical theory, and methodologies from relevant disciplines such as semantics, pragmatics, logic, contextual linguistics, and cognitive linguistics, this thesis conducts deep and comprehensive observations, descriptions, and explanations on the investigation of oxymoron.This thesis consists of ten chapters, which are elaborated respectively as follows:The first chapter is the preface. In this chapter, we introduce the state-of-the-art of research in oxymoron. We also discuss the research significance, methodology, and expectation of this thesis.The second chapter is devoted to the definition of oxymoron. In this chapter, we first review the previous research work over oxymoron, and then compare the "contradiction" inside oxymoron with other contradictions such as language contradiction, dialectical contradiction, and logical contradiction. After clarifying the differences of contradictions and identifying the features of contradiction inside oxymoron, we define oxymoron in an unprecedented manner. We define oxymoron as a rhetoric method that organizes syntactical units that contradict externally but coordinate internally based on the similarity of their references. This rhetorical method enhances expression effectiveness by first constructing contradictions and then dissolving them.The third chapter discusses the classification of oxymoron. Previous oxymoron classifications are usually based on its form characteristics. Due to the special semantic relationships of oxymoron as one rhetoric method, our classification is based on the different semantic constructions of contradictions. It first divides oxymoron into true contradiction-based oxymoron and false contradiction-based oxymoron, and then classifies oxymoron into more specific sub-types.The fourth chapter describes the forms of oxymoron from two different perspectives:language unit and language structure. From the language unit point of view, oxymoron forms by phrases, simple sentences, complex sentences, and sentence groups, while from the language structure point of view, oxymoron forms by three different structural types:parallel, subordinate, and subject-predicate.The fifth chapter focuses on the semantic features of oxymoron. In this chapter, we first investigate the feature of oxymoron, which is contradicting externally but coordinating internally, and then investigate the contradiction dissolving mechanism of oxymoron. In this chapter, we conclude that for different types of oxymoron, both the dissolving processes and the dissolving methods are different.The sixth chapter investigates the formation and operations of oxymoron. In this chapter, we first investigate the formation of oxymoron both subjectively and objectively, and then unveil the operational mechanism of oxymoron from the perspectives of expressing operation and accepting operation respectively. This chapter concludes that 1) concept integration and foregrounding are two important factors in the formation of oxymoron; 2) principles of cooperation, contextual information, default reasoning, and implicative negation are all critical factors for the operations of oxymoron.The seventh chapter investigates the distribution of oxymoron in corpus. This chapter concludes that oxymoron occurs more often in literary corpus than in technological corpus.The eighth chapter investigates the relations between oxymoron and other rhetorical methods. In this chapter, we first investigate the similarities between oxymoron and other relevant rhetorical methods, and then investigate their common usages. Based on these investigations, we obtain more deep understanding of the features and functions of oxymoron.The ninth chapter discusses the relation between oxymoron and language specification. In this chapter, we first give a theoretical explanation of the relation between artistic expressions and semantic fault sentences, and then analyze some debating use cases of oxymoron such as"基本上都,差不多都","全部......只有",etc. This chapter concludes that the most important three principles of oxymoron are context, speculation, and innovation. The tenth chapter is the conclusion. In this chapter, we conclude the thesis, discuss its limitations, and reveal possible future works.