A Constructional Study Of Transferred Epithet

This thesis attempts to interpret transferred epithet within the framework of Construction Grammar.As a supernormal language phenomenon, as well as a literary rhetorical device that can not be ignored, transferred epithet is widely used not only in literary works, but also in daily life. It has attracted the attentions of linguists and rhetoricians and gained plentiful and substantial research achievements. Most of the traditional studies of transferred epithet focused on its pragmatic features, semantic features, psychological basis, aesthetic functions, etc. However, the cognitive process of its meaning construction is rarely concerned. The advent of cognitive linguistics expands the research fields of linguists on rhetoric. With the development of cognitive linguistics, we should realize that transferred epithet is more than just a linguistic device, it is a reasoning and inferential process.Construction Grammar is an important component of cognitive linguistics, it is a construction-based cognitive approach which claims that construction is a form-meaning or form-function pairing. It focuses on the nature of the sentence patterns, and the relationship between words, syntax and the interaction between different parts of the sentence. The integrity, productivity and brevity of Construction Grammar introduce a new view to the study of transferred epithet. Although many scholars have intensively studied Construction Grammar from different perspectives, but few of them use Construction Grammar to explore rhetoric devices. Based on this point, the author tries to explore transferred epithet with the application of Construction Grammar.The study finds that:1) transferred epithet is constrained by Construction Grammar. The realization of its meaning depends on the integral meaning of construction.2) Coercion is one of the core concepts of Construction Grammar, transferred epithet construction is the result of lexical and constructional coercion.3) Transferred epithet construction is unpredictable, it is the deviation of zero-construction from the syntax, discourse and modal levels.4) Transferred epithet has the attribute of productivity, it offers a sound explanation to various new linguistic facts, such as network catchwords.5) Transferred epithet occurs not only in lexical level but also in syntactic level, and it not only has the modification relationship between adjectives and nouns, it has several other presentations, like "passive voice"The study holds certain implications. For one thing, transferred epithet is an important component of rhetorical devices, the application of construction grammar makes us recognize that it is an inexorable trend to combine cognitive linguistics with rhetoric. At the same time, the cognitive study of rhetorical device will be renewed. For another, any supernatural language constructions, especially syntactic construction, are not arbitrary, they have certain rules and motivations, illogical mortification is one attributes of natural language, and transferred epithet construction has fully explained this relationship. That is, Construction Grammar has some natural bond with human experience.