Metonymy In Li Bai's Poetry:A Perspective Of Cognitive Linguistics

In modern times,with the advocacy of “Cultural Confidence” and “Going Global”,the appreciation and translation of Tang Poems plays a vital role in the spreading of Chinese culture to the world.Li Bai,one of the celebrated poets in the flourishing period of the Tang Dynasty(AD 618-907)of China,was endowed with the title of Poetic Immortal for his brilliant talent in writing poems.His poems represent the new peak of romanticism in post-Qu Yuan times of ancient China.There are a lot of metonymic expressions and the interaction of metonymy and metaphor in Li Bai's poetry.Metonymy,as an important poetic device,enriches and enhances the connotation,charm and tension in Li Bai's poetry and at the same time inspires readers' imagination.Therefore,the grasp of metonymy is beneficial to our interpretation and appreciation of Li Bai's poetry,and in the meanwhile facilitates the quality of translation of his poetry.Yet the previous research on Li Bai's poetry focuses on exploring rhetorical devices,imagery,and thoughts from the literary perspective.The cognitive approach to Li Bai's poetry remains as an under-explored area.In addition,the traditional research on metonymy has been carried out from the perspective of rhetorics and semantics.The cognitive approach to metonymy has offered a new dimension to the exploration of metonymy in poetry.However,from the review of relevant literature,few studies have taken the cognitive approach to examine metonymy as a poetic device in poetry.The current research intends to find out metonymic patterns in Li Bai's poetry,analyze social and cultural cognition underlying metonymic patterns as well as the role that these metonymic patterns play in the construction of Li Bai's poetic style,so as to further explore Li Bai's poetry from a new dimension and offer implications for the appreciation,translation and teaching of Li Bai's poetry.The current research aims to answer the following three questions:(1)What are the metonymic patterns in Li Bai's poetry?(2)How can these metonymic patterns be explained from the perspective of social and cultural cognition?(3)What are the functions of these metonymic patterns in Li Bai's poetry?In order to find answers to the research questions,we adopt corpus-based approach and introspection method.The four-volume book,Annotations to the Annals of the Complete Collection of Li Bai compiled by An Qi is the main source of the corpus data.As for metonymy identification procedure,we adopt and refine Biernacka's four-step procedure,which is the combination of Pragglejaz Group's(2007)Metaphor Identification Procedure(MIP)and Cameron's(2003)“Metaphor Identification through the Vehicle”(MIV).Considering the stylistic characteristics of Tang poetry and the specific cultural context that shapes the metonymic expressions,we create a five-step metonymy identification procedure.Then through detailed examination of the whole corpus,instances of metonymic expressions are identified.The findings are as follows:1.Metonymic expressions are pervasive in Li Bai's poetry.In all,1329 metonymic expressions are collected from the corpus.Among them,7 instances of complex metonymy and 94 instances of interplay between metonymy and metaphor are identified.The total of1228 metonymic instances is classified into four categories in the light of Peirsman and Geeraerts' prototype-based categorization.In total,329 metonymic expressions are categorized into the spatial and material domain,44 cases into the temporal domain,659 cases into the spatial-temporal domain of actions,events and processes,and 196 cases into domain of the functional assemblies and collections.In each domain,metonymic patterns of high frequency are identified and then the specific metonymic vehicles and targets are pinned down.2.The social and cultural cognition underlying metonymic patterns in Li Bai's poetry can be analyzed from cognitive principles,interactive principles and social and cultural elements.The cognitive principles that promote metonymic patterns of high frequency in Li Bai's poetry are mainly CONCRETE OVER ABSTRACT,IMMEDIATE OVER NON-IMMEDIATE,INITIAL OR FINAL OVER MIDDLE and SUBJECTIVE OVER OBJECTIVE.The interactive principles that motivate metonymic patterns of high frequency in Li Bai's poetry are CLEAR OVER OBSCURE and RELEVANT OVER IRRELEVANT.However,metonymy,a fundamentally cognitive mechanism,is not entirely determined by the universal bodily experience.Beyond the governing force of cognitive and interactive principles,a number of social and cultural elements also have an effect on the choice of metonymic vehicle.The current research reveals the important role of wine culture,apparel culture,residential culture,hierarchical structure,paragon culture and agricultural culture in the creation of the metonymic patterns in Li Bai's poetry.3.The functions of metonymic patterns in Li Bai's poetry can be illustrated from two aspects,general functions and their contribution to the construction and transformation of Li Bai's poetic style from romanticism to realism.We sort out six general functions that metonymic expressions perform in Li Bai's poetry,incorporating imageability into referring function,highlighting prominent characteristics,achieving rhetorical effects,functioning as a cohesive force,constructing imagery,and speaking the unspeakable.In addition,metonymic expressions also play a very important role in the construction of Li Bai's different poetic style in three different periods of his life,etherealness and unconstrainedness in the early period,indignation and worry in the intermediate period,and solemnity and heaviness in the last period,and the transformation of Li Bai's poetic style from romanticism and realism.It is concluded that metonymy is pervasive in Li Bai's poetry.This is another good evidence for universality of metonymy,which is a fundamental cognitive mode to approach the complicated world.In addition,thanks to the social and cultural attributes of metonymic expressions,they also act as a lens through which readers can learn a lot about wine culture,apparel culture,residential culture,paragon culture,hierarchical structure and agricultural culture in the Tang Dynasty(618-907 AD).Appropriate handling of the metonymic expressions in poetry can guarantee and improve the quality of the translated text,and help transmit accurate meaning and rich cultural connotations.Readers of the target language,thus,gain the opportunity to appreciate the charm of metonymic expressions in ancient Chinese poetry and learn the profound and extensive traditional Chinese culture.Therefore,the introduction of cognitive approach into the exploration of metonymic expressions can promote the appreciation,translation and teaching of Tang poetry in the world.