A Cognitive Approach To Production Mechanism Of Transferred Epithet

Transferred epithet, also called hypallage is widely applied in English and Chinese. It refers to"a figure of speech, when two impressions are associated together in the mind, the author transfers the attribute which belongs to one of the impressions to the other"(Chen Wangdao, 1979). As an abnormal form, hypallage creates a collocation which is novel, concise, vivid, attractive, and impressive.Transferred epithet has been studied by scholars from the different views. Traditionally, transferred epithet is studied mainly from the rhetorical view; the research focuses on the definitions, classification, features and functions. They stress the aesthetic functions of hypallage.With development of linguistics and psychology, some scholars from home and abroad study transferred epithet from pragmatic, psychological and cognitive perspectives. Linguists study comprehension of transferred epithet from pragmatic view. In order to explore the psychological mechanism behind comprehension and production of transferred epithet, hypallage has been researched from psychological angle. Apart from pragmatic and psychological perspectives, comprehension and production of transferred epithet are studied from cognitive approach. The scholars have made some contribution to the study of transferred epithet. However, the research cannot present a satisfactory explanation to the production mechanism of its meaning construction completely.Autonomy-dependency analytical framework put forward by Xu Shenghuan (2007a,b,c,d) provides a new approach to study transferred epithet. The framework can be only"applied to those alignments whose dependent elements are deductive"(ibid). Transferred epithet belongs to the type of figure speech whose dependent elements are deductive. While it can be theoretically applied to analyze hypallage, the framework cannot explain the production mechanism of transferred epithet adequately. Therefore; it is worth further studying the production mechanism of hypallage. The dissertation attempts to amend the autonomy-dependency analytical framework with cross-space mapping theory put forward by Fauconnier (1997) to prove that production mechanism of hypallage is a process of derivation from autonomous elements to dependent elements by means of cross-space mapping on basis of proximity. By the study of the paper, on the one hand, it can be helpful to create transferred epithet which is novel, concise and attractive. On the other hand, the present study can also facilitate understanding of transferred epithet to a certain extent.The paper adopts the qualitative analysis and theory-driven. At the same time, case analysis is applied in the thesis as well. The study consists of five chapters. Chapter one concentrates on a general introduction to this study. Chapter two reviews the previous studies of transferred epithet. Chapter three introduces autonomy-dependency analytical framework. Then, the amended autonomy-dependency analytical framework with cross-space theory is proposed in order to study production mechanism of transferred epithet. Chapter four offers the application of the amended autonomy-dependency. First, transferred epithet is reclassified. Then, according to the reclassification, the cases are studied with the amended autonomy-dependency analytical framework. Chapter five is conclusion.Through the case study, it is showed that the amended autonomy-dependency framework can elucidate the production process of transferred epithet. The framework is feasible and applicable. In addition, Hypallage is a process of derivation from autonomy to dependency by means of cross-space on basis of proximity and cross-space mapping. Apart from language phenomenon, transferred epithet is a cognitive phenomenon as well. Finally, proximity reveals the nature of human cognition to some extent.