Metaphorical Construal On Poems From The Dreams Of Red Mansion

Metaphor, as an academic orientation in the field of cognitive linguistics, is often referred by linguists. In Aristotle's view, metaphor concentrates on the direction of rhetoric aspect, but until the 1970s the study of metaphor appears diversity on the approach of psychology, philosophy, anthropology and cognitive science. At present,cognitive linguistics generally redefines metaphor as common thinking and language phenomenon (Lakoff,1980: 35-40). These points of view disengage metaphor from rhetorical restrictions through research form, research ideas and transformation of methodology.This thesis concentrates on generation and construal of metaphors in Chinese poems; however it does not focus on a comprehensive overview of metaphorical features, but only stresses the construal and generating mechanism of metaphor in poems from The Dreams of Red Mansion. In this thesis, after reviewing a mass of relevant theories, the author reclassifies the metaphor. In terms of Chinese poetry, metaphors are mainly divided into eight categories by Yang Yun, namely: [1] clear metaphor; [2] nature metaphor; [3] relevant metaphor; [4] event metaphor; [5] metaphor with relationship; [6] the displacement-type metaphor; [7] analogy; [8] metonymy. According to the classification of metaphors in Chinese poems combining with Lakoff's classification of conceptual metaphor theory, the author tries to reclassify metaphors in poems.There is anomaly in the use of metaphor in poems; this is not only a pragmatic phenomenon, but also the production of human cognitive process. Therefore, this thesis intends to study metaphor in Chinese poems from cognition-pragmatic approach, and sets up a pragmatic-cognition model to describe cognitive process of metaphor using, namely, type-hierarchy connotation-denotation network. This model unifies the important cognitive and pragmatic factors of poems'generation and construing as a whole to explain the internal working mechanism, namely,"poem's metaphor operation working mechanism underlying the mental model".With the gradual deepening of the study, the author found a phenomenon that many homophonic words are used in metaphor as target domain which is not involved in above classification; it will be included in the author's poetic metaphor's category. It's the first innovation of this thesis. Based on whether the mapping process is directly or not, the author found that the classification of metaphor in poems from The Dreams of Red Mansions can be divided into two categories: [1] When similarity appears in metaphor, there are clear metaphor and displacement-type metaphor; [2] When the similarity appears with the metaphor mapping changes, there are analogy and relevant metaphor;If the similarity does exist but hide in metaphor, there are nature metaphor, event metaphor and homophonic metaphor. It's the second innovation of this thesis. In summary, the original intention of this thesis is that not all meaning of metaphors can be explained by Lakoff's theory. Afterwards, in this thesis, taking Lakoff's mapping theory as a framework; the author concentrates effort on working process of metaphor in poems from The Dreams of Red Mansion, including: [1] reclassification of metaphor; [2] metaphorical construal model; [3] influence factors on metaphorical construal. By means of working mechanism of pragmatic-cognition union, the author tried to get a fairly perfect metaphorical construal model and strives for theoretical innovation.This dissertation consists six parts. Part one is the introduction of the whole dissertation which explains the objectives, scope, hypothesis and data of this thesis, and states the basic features of metaphor with a brief introduction of framework, data collection and methods, in order to expound and prove the plausibility and feasibility of this thesis. In Part two, the author reviews relevant theories domestic and abroad of the past years in retrospect which provide history and academic background for this thesis. Part three describes the theoretical background and hypothesis, objectives, and methodology. Part four, on the basis of relevant theories, the author complementarily rewords the definition of metaphor, and makes a more exhaustive research on classification of metaphor. Accordingly, it provides the definition and classification of this research which is on poems from The Dreams of Red Mansion. Part five is the further discussion of what elements are needed while construing metaphor in Chinese poems. It takes poems from The Dreams of Red Mansion as data orientation. This part illustrates explicitly metaphor as a cognitive pragmatic phenomenon. Part six is the overall conclusion of this dissertation; also the limitation of this dissertation will become aims to the author to have a further study.