Conceptual Metonymy In Meaning Construction

Conceptual metonymy has been always considered as substituting phenomenon of words in traditional researches of rhetoric, and it is the primary target of rhetoric researches. With the rising and development of linguistics, Lakoff&Johnson renewed the explanation metonymy as common language phenomenon in communication. Therefore, it is generally believed that conceptual metonymy can be researched as the means of meaning construction's cognitive mechanism. Because the meaning construction needs inferential process, and conceptual metonymy is the"natural analogical scheme"(Panther&Thornburg, 1999). The metonymy which has high conventionality doesn't need inference, for example"你能把盐递给我吗?", with the help of cultural conventional and the principle of politeness, we can easily construct the meaning of this sentence. But the indirect speech act needs metonymic inferences to construct the meaning. And this is the focus question and main destination of this dissertation.From the literature review, we can see that the present conceptual metonymy is still restricted in a narrow-sided point of metonymy view, and simply considers conceptual metonymy as a cognitive device and a psychological vehicle through which transfer from one entity to another entity within the same idealized cognitive model.(邹春玲,2010)However, the level of temporary concept metonymy theory has been advanced, it mainly concentrates on concept metonymy versus reasoning, concept metonymy versus text, concept metonymy versus structure and etc. This demonstrates that concept metonymy no longer entangles details itself, but considering as a method with common cognitive thinking model and pragmatic reasoning measures to explain the text coherence and structure. From this point of view, concept metonymy is not a cognitive tools but cognitive process. Therefore, this thesis stressed on the researches of indirect speech act. Through the visual angle of cognitive pragmatics, endeavor to get theoretical innovation.Specifically, this dissertation mainly talks about the metonymic cognitive mechanism from three aspects. And in the research, the articles will use several methods of scientific view, in order to achieve the desired outcome. It is as follows:[1] Referential metonymy of conceptual metonymy in meaning construction---the study of metonymy which generally uses to substitute in the word level;[2] Grammar metonymy of conceptual metonymy----the study of metonymy which generally uses to substitute in the sentence and paragraph level.[3] The indirect speech act in conceptual metonymy in meaning construction---the study of metonymy which is reasoning and activating in the context of complicated speech act. It is complicated inferential process of class– genera link.Through these three kinds of metonymy patterns discuss the process of conceptual metonymy in meaning construction from the simple and easy to the deeper and complicated. With plentiful example sentences both in English and in Chinese, the dissertation analysis these three different operating mechanisms play each role from different levels of conceptual metonymy. Thereby achieve the goal of constructing meaning. The discussing process of this dissertation is through the changing of metonymic mode, to discuss the three operational mechanism and process in meaning construction.The above is the details of the major researches; this dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter One is the introduction of the whole dissertation which explains the research target, the purpose, the scope and the resources of this study. The conceptual metonymy's basic feature, theoretical fundamental, data collection and methodology is also been talk about in this chapter, which are introduced to clarify necessity and feasibility of such a research. Chapter Two—literature review surveys previous researches domestically and abroad, which provides background of history and academic. Chapter Three provides research target and method. Chapter Four is the core of the dissertation, on the basis of discussing related researches; the dissertation gives a renewed additional discussion of conceptual metonymy and further research of classifications. Chapter Five describes metonymy as particular pragmatic phenomenon which influences the meaning construction. Chapter Six is the conclusion of the whole dissertation, and gives the limitations, significances and further research of the study.