An Embodied Cognitive Study Of Metaphorical Utterances:from The Perspective Of Image-abstracting

Metaphorical utterances are pervasive in language and have always been one of the hottest topics in language researches.Despite the great achievements made in studies of metaphorical utterances,there still exists large space for these studies to be improved.In light of this,this thesis attempts to conduct an interdisciplinary research into metaphorical utterances.According to cognitive science,human's cognitive system consists of components such as perception,emotion,categorization,abstraction,inference etc.This thesis takes the perception-approach to study metaphorical utterances,and,to be more specific,it makes full advantages of different discipline knowledge relevant to this topic to study the production and interpretation of metaphorical utterances.These knowledge comes from theory of image-abstracting from observation in ancient Chinese philosophy and theory of duality of perceptual content and embodied cognition in cognitive science.This thesis focuses on four issues:(1)the process of the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances;(2)the mechanism governing the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances;(3)the outer factors that influence the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances;(4)the thinking mode that runs throughout the actual uses of metaphorical utterances.The main findings we derive are as follows:Firstly,the meaning construction process of metaphorical utterances is one featured by image-abstracting,which is a quantitative evaluation and general description of this meaning construction process.Different from conceptual metaphor theory which puts forwards a mapping mechanism of two conceptual domains,this thesis,based on the metaphorical implications of the theory of image-abstracting from observation in ancient Chinese philosophy,puts forward the view that metaphorical cognition is characteristics of understanding one thing by means of an image,which in turn brings forth Extracting Image Theory of Metaphorical Utterances(shortened as EITMU).According to EITMU,the essentials of metaphorical utterances are two elements,namely the target realized by the communicative intention and the source realized by an image which helps representation of this intention.EITMU describes what the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances is,and as an outlining idea it runs through the whole argumentation of this paper.Secondly,the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances is governed by the mechanism of duality of perceptual content,answering why this meaning construction is possible.According to EITMU's view that the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances is an image-abstracting process,the study of the mechanism governing this meaning construction is in fact about how images are formed.In the discussion of the mechanism which governs metaphorical utterances' meaning construction,the theory of embodied cognition is made use of.Just as this theory proposes that cognition is influenced by human's brain,body and the environment in which the body lies,it follows naturally that the study of image forming in metaphorical utterances should also be approached from two aspects,that is,the inner mental activities and the outer environment.As for the mechanism that governs the inner perceptual activities of the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances,it is studied under the theory of duality of perceptual content.Since the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances is embodied in two aspects,that is,their production and interpretation,our discussions of how the mechanism of duality of perceptual content works in these perceptual activities of image forming are also developed in two aspects.Discussions of these perceptual activities in these two aspects as well as comparisons between these perceptual activities in these two aspects are as follows:(1)Perceptual activities of image forming in the production of metaphorical utterancesGoverned by the mechanism of duality of perceptual content,the speaker's perceptual content of the communicative intention,or the target,is two –dimensional: perceptual content of the target in factual dimension and perceptual content of the target in perspectival dimension.The former is about how the target is in the world,while the latter is about how the target looks from the vantage point of speaker and exists in the speaker's mind in the form of an image.The image is called pre-source in this paper and continues to be linguistically coded.(2)Perceptual activities of image forming in the interpretation of metaphorical utterancesGoverned by the mechanism of duality of perceptual content,the hearer's perceptual content of metaphorical utterances,or the source,is two –dimensional: perceptual content of the source of metaphorical utterances in factual dimension and perceptual content of the source of metaphorical utterances in perspectival dimension.The former is about how the source of metaphorical utterances is in the world,while the latter is about how the source of metaphorical utterances looks from the vantage point of the hearer and exists in the hearer's mind in the form of an image.The image is called pre-target in this paper,and continues to be comprehended by the hearer.From discussion(1)and discussion(2),it can be seen that perceptual activities of meaning construction of metaphorical utterances cannot be accomplished without communicators' perceptual content of the world in perspectival dimension.And this is in accordance with the construal theory which emphasizes the significance of ways of seeing things in language use,that is,the production and the interpretation of language.(3)Similarities and differences in the perceptual activities of the production and interpretation of metaphorical utterancesThere are altogether three similarities.First,both the production and interpretation of metaphorical utterances are perceptual activities.Second,during these perceptual activities both the speaker and the hearer are under the constraint of the mechanism of duality of perceptual content.Third,both the speaker's and hearer's perceptual content of the world are two-dimensional,that is to say,their perceptual content of the world can vary from along the factual dimension to the perspectival dimensionAs for the differences,there are two points.First,the speaker and the hearer have different starting points in their perceptual activities of the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances.For the speaker,she or he begins with the perception of the communicative goal;for the hearer,she or he begins with the perception of the actual metaphorical utterance.Second,the speaker and the hearer are in different mental states in the perceptual activities of the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances.People's mental state includes their encyclopedic knowledge,style in behavior,personal interests and so on,and varies from person to person.Thirdly,the outer factors that influence the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances are body factor and environment factor.The body factor refers to the sensory-motor knowledge acquired through human's body,and the environment factor refers to the context in which the actual communication happens.Just as sensory-motor knowledge is essential to the forming of perception,sensory-motor knowledge is also essential to the perceptual activities of meaning construction of metaphorical utterances,and the forming of image –schema is based on sensory-motor knowledge.Our discussion of the body's role in the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances is mainly about the role sensory motor knowledge plays in this meaning construction.The contextual knowledge we make use of in this thesis comes from K?vecses' context theory in metaphor,but a slight adjustment has been made to the kinds of contexts put forward by K?vecses considering that the body factor of sensory-motor knowledge discussed in this paper is in essence the same with the body context in K?vecses' context theory.Based on this adjustment,it is proposed in this thesis that there are three kinds of contexts,namely,situational context,discourse context and conceptual-cognitive context,that take part in the meaning making of metaphorical utterances.Our analysis of the roles body and environment play in the meaning making of metaphorical utterances is actually in accordance with K?vecses' contextual analysis of metaphorical meaning making.Under the guidance of duality of perceptual content,explorations of the mechanism that governs the inner perceptual activities of metaphorical utterances' meaning construction fully highlight the role of science that cognition plays in metaphorical meaning making,while discussions of the outer environment factors that influence these inner perceptual activities demonstrates that humanity knowledge,cultural knowledge in particular,is crucial to the meaning making of metaphorical meaning making.Our analysis of metaphorical utterances' meaning construction from both the inner dimension,say,the mechanism that governs the inner perceptual activities,and outer dimension,say,body-based sensory-motor knowledge and environment-based context,is the application of the theory “embodied cognition” into language studies.What is more,several factors' participation in shaping metaphorical meaning also brings about the emergent property of the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances.Finally,the thinking mode that runs through the actual use of metaphorical utterances is image-thinking.Image-thinking can be traced back to “the book of changes” in which there are full of divinatory symbols.As one kind of metaphorical utterance in the earlier times in China,the meaning construction of divinatory symbols is characteristics of image-thinking.Under the influence of image-thinking,the production and interpretation of divinatory symbols undergoes sequences of “communicative intention?image?linguistic expression” and “linguistic expression? image ? communicative intention” respectively.By analogy,the meaning construction of metaphorical utterances also undergoes the same logical processes as that of divinatory symbols in “the book of changes” and image-thinking runs through the actual use of metaphorical utterances.Image-thinking in metaphorical utterances demonstrate itself in stages,and the dividing point of these stages is where the image is formed.According to this,there are altogether two stages in the image-thinking in metaphorical utterances: stage I and stage II.Image-thinking in Stage I is about image formation and develops in the logical sequence of “communicative intention?image” in the production and “linguistic expression?image” in the interpretation respectively.Image-thinking in Stage II is about image transformation,and develops in the logical sequence of “image ?linguistic expression” in the production and “image?communicative intention” in the interpretation respectively.The reason why we call Stage II “image transformation” is that in this stage the image formed in meaning construction continues to develop and sublime and finally achieve its value,that is,to be linguistically coded by speaker or to be comprehended by hearer.As for image-thinking in Stage I,under the guidance of the theory “embodied cognition”,discussions of image formation have been conducted in a detailed manner in both the inner dimension and outer dimension,whereas for image-thinking in Stage II less ink is spent in discussing the motivations out of which image transformation happens as well as the way image transformation happens.The motivations out of which the image continues to be comprehended by the hearer or to be linguistically coded by the speaker in the sequence of “image?communicative intention” and “image?linguistic expression” respectively come from the inherent properties of the image,that is,its potential to be comprehended and its potential to be linguistically coded.With regards to the way image transformation happens,it is proposed that there are several ways in which the image transforms in the interpretation process of “image?communicative intention”,“superimposition of image” being one of these ways,and that the way the image transforms in the production process of “image?linguistic expression” mainly refers to linguistic coding under the guidance of grammatical rules in a certain language,for example,Chinese.Anyhow,it deserves a mention here that we do not intend to subvert or totally deny western metaphor theories.Instead,Extracting Image Theory of Metaphorical Utterances put forward in this paper is no more than the enrichment and further development of these cognitive theories of metaphor,and therefore provides a new approach to the study of metaphorical utterances.Besides,the theoretical framework built in this paper can also be applied into the cognitive studies of other figurative languages,which is the significance of this thesis.