| This study aims at explaining, from the cognitive and rhetoric perspectives, how people use denominal verb to communicate. Such a communication involves the production, the comprehension and the acceptance of denominal-verb structures. Evidences from cognitive science, psychology, information science, etc. are considered. Moreover, an investigation on the daily use of denominal verb is conducted to verify the theory constructed here.Before explaining how denominal verb is chosen, produced, understood and accepted, English and Chinese denominal verbs are contrasted. We choose Clark & Clark's (1979) and Dirven's (1986) criteria of classification to classify denominal verbs and to contrast English and Chinese denominal verbs. The reasons for their differences and similarities are explained. Both Clark & Clark and Dirven take semantics, syntax, and vocabulary into consideration. The former's classification is finer, while that of the latter is more general. English and Chinese denominal verbs demonstrate similar features by Dirven's criterion of classification. By Clark & Clark's criterion, however, Chinese and English denominal verbs are different in various aspects. The reasons are that verb is the center in a sentence in both English and Chinese, that verbalization is an efficient way of improving a concept's degree of salience in a sentence, and that the cognitive process which results in conceptual salience works universally. With regard to using denominal verb expressions in a certain context, the differences in English and Chinese users'way of thinking, cultural backgrounds, etc. impinge on their cognitive operation, and thus come to different consequences in their utterances.In the process of communication, the communicators depend on their cognitive capacity to choose, understand and accept denominal verbs. Such mechanisms as metonymy, metaphor, and psychological image are of significance in a cognitive process. Based on the analysis of the communicative features and linguistic characteristics of denominal verb, this study explains the operation of cognitive mechanisms in each stage of the communication, and the interaction of context, psychological factors with cognition when a person uses denominal verb to communicate.There are many reasons for language users'choice of denominal verb to express themselves. The development of a language has to follow its own rules and regulations. Vocabulary poverty could occur with the development of society. When communicating, a person is supposed to be efficient, cooperative as well as polite. Expressions with simplicity and novelty are most attractive. All these affect language users'choice of denominal verb. Besides, social factors, such as the political and economic development of the society, the change of life tempo, etc., affect language variation like denominal verb, too. To utter a denominal verb expression is to operate a cognitive process on language knowledge stored in the brain to convey specific information in a certain context to the receiver. The above-mentioned factors also have an effect on the utterance.Not all nouns could be used to perform the syntactic function of verb. There exist many restrictions from vocabulary, semantics, and pragmatics on the choice of parent nouns. Rhetoric constrains on the converse from nouns to verbs are discussed in Chapter 3.Researches from cognitive linguistics have shown that metonymy is one of the important cognitive mechanisms in producing denominal verb expressions. Evidences from psycholinguistics and construction grammar demonstrate that a relation of contiguity exists between the meaning of a verbalized word and that of the whole utterance containing the word, and that such a relation of contiguity also exists between the frame part designated by the meaning of a verbalized word and the whole frame designated by the utterance containing the word. In this way, the role of metonymy as one of the essential cognitive mechanisms is proved not only by cognitive linguistics but also by psychology and grammatical studies.The idea that metonymy and metaphor interact with each other is agreed by more and more scholars. Some people believe that metonymy could be part of metaphor, and metaphor could be part of metonymy as well. Some believe that only metonymy could be part of metaphor, while metaphor could never be part of metonymy. To find out how the two interact with each other in denominal verb expressions, this study examines more than 170 examples from Chinese. Half of them are produced by metonymy without interacting with metaphor; almost no Chinese denominal verb is produced by metaphorical mechanism without interacting with metonymy; when a denominal verb is produced by way of the interaction of metonymy and metaphor, metonymy could be part of metaphor, and metaphor could also be part of metonymy.The comprehension of denominal verb expression gives expression to the"connecting-integrating"mode, which involves information processing and storing. Fauconnier (2002) suggests that identity, integration and imagination are three necessities for meaning comprehension and expansion. Identity and imagination related cognitive operations in the brain on meaning construction are able to be generally explained by way of connectionism. But certain imaginary scenes are products of integration, which aims at finding out the identities and discrepancies between two objects so as to form reasonable matches among components and to obtain new meanings by blending. The function of integration cannot be replaced by that of connectionism. To understand the meaning of a denominal verb, a receiver not only need adjust the connections among stored knowledge, but also need carefully evaluate the degree of match between a verbalized word and its parent noun. He should acquaint himself with the two words'similarities and differences in meaning, and then blend this new knowledge with the existing network of knowledge in the brain in order to obtain new concepts and meanings to be integrated into his network of knowledge.To be specific, the input of a denominal verb tends to activate or inhibit the receiver's related knowledge and experience. The new input blends and compresses with the existing knowledge. In this way, the input of denominal verb changes the receiver's network of knowledge in the brain. Consequently, the receiver achieves better understanding or adjusts his idea to current context. Furthermore, compression and decompression both exist in the process of integration. A speaker would compress certain amount of information in a denominal-verb structure and, in turn, a receiver would decompress such a structure so as to recognize the whole event frame and the main objects in it, to recognize the relationship between the main object and other objects in the frame. In such a"connecting-integrating"mode, connection is the basis of integration and integration guarantees new connections. Category and the communicator's capacity of categorization is the basic condition for the comprehension of denominal verb. The receiver is supposed to set up new connections between knowledge and experience, and to integrate new knowledge with one's existing knowledge system. To realize this, one need convert members of different categories by practicing his capacity of categorization and recategorization.Acceptance is closely related to comprehension, for comprehension can enhance acceptance, while acceptance does not ensure comprehension but promotes it. This study explains factors that influence the acceptance of denominal verb and suggested certain ways of improving its acceptance from the cognitive and the rhetoric perspectives. Besides the important factor of context, information error is also of value. Information error results from the interaction among cognitive mechanisms, personal factors, etc. when an individual is constructing semantics. Information error is controlled by way of cognition. In order to explain how to improve the acceptance of denominal verb, the study discusses the psychological basis and the features of the acceptance of denominal verb, and then suggests that there are at least two ways to be adopted: one is to realize the balance between one's own needs and the hearer's needs; the other is to realize the identity between the speaker's background context and that of the hearer's. Both depend on the effort of the speaker to take the receiver's psychology, behavioral patterns and background into consideration and to adjust his arrangement of linguistic units.In order to provide further evidence to the theory, this study investigats the use of denominal verb in daily life. The investigation is to prove such a hypothesis: on the one hand, metonymy and metaphor are two basic cognitive mechanisms that impact upon the production of denominal verb. On the other hand, due to the influence of language, society, culture, the user's personal factors such as age, gender, and habits, different individuals show differences in choosing and using means of expression, in degrees of acceptance, ways of acceptance, and speed of comprehension. The investigation involves interviews and questionnaires. Questions are asked about reasons and conditions of using denominal verb, the comprehending process, attitudes towards denominal verb expressions, and ways of acceptance. There are over 20 interviewees of different ages working in different fields. The results of the interviews reveal the influence of age and profession on the use of denominal verb. The questionnaires are given in random to university students in two cities. These students have different majors, hobbies, genders, grades, etc. The outcome of the investigation confirms the theoretical hypothesis, and thus provides empirical support for the above theoretical study. |
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