A Directory Role Of Context In Metaphorical Comprehension

Our life is filled with creative and novel metaphors. Traditional theories deem metaphor first as a philosophical behavior, an ornamental figure of speech, and then as a language or poetic action. In essence, although manifested as a figure of speech, metaphor indicates a unique perspective to conceive one thing by means of another. Ever since 1960's, particularly after the publishing of classic Metaphors We Live By complied by Lakoff and Johnson, the research on metaphor has become prevailing and flourishing. Western views towards metaphors can be generally classified into four categories: Rhetorics regards 'metaphor' as a figure of speech by modes of replacement and comparison. Semantics deems 'metaphor' an indispensable instrument to familiarize the world, to acquire the novel information without super-language factors like context and subjective intention. Pragmatics maintains the creation of 'metaphor' depends on subjective factors. Cognitive views assert metaphor, a unique thinking approach, is a mapping by means of schemata. Although these viewpoints, in divergent degrees, are constructive in discovering the comprehension mechanism of metaphor, they are not adequately integral. Based on the merits and weaknesses of all schools, the author first tentatively gives a definition to 'metaphor'. The dissertation sequentially provides an integrated theory for the comprehension of metaphor. From the outlook of context, taking cognitive factors into account, it is attempted to explore the core comprehension process with an illustrating table as a summary. It can be justified that both language contexts and non-language contexts, especially cognitive ones, play a decisive role in interpreting vague and novel metaphorical ideas, both in metaphorical recognition and calculation processes. The demonstration is then diverted to a multi-dimensional way by dividing context into six categories. Upon quoting a large number of classic and latest metaphorical illustrations, the prevalence of context's role in metaphorical comprehension can be proven. Accordingly, meaningful and vivid context can be introduced in recognizing and interpreting metaphors in the hope of granting some hints on second language acquisition, especially that of reading comprehension.