A Cognitive-Pragmatic Study Of Chinese Enigmatic Folk Similes

This thesis has conducted a qualitative study of enigmatic folk similes(xie hou yu ) within a cognitive pragmatic framework aiming at unmasking the cognitive mechanisms behind the construal processes of enigmatic folk similes.Being a characteristic linguistic form exclusively possessed by Chinese, enigmatic folk similes are witty and humorous, popular and vivid as well. The former part of an enigmatic folk simile is an allusive expression which resembles the face of a riddle, whereas the latter part seems to be the answer to the riddle, which is the fundamental meaning the enigmatic folk simile wants to express. Used properly, enigmatic folk similes can help to expound profound principles in simple language and to depict figures livelily and vividly. Previous studies, however affluent they are, mainly dwell on the argumentation of the origin, denomination, categorization, structure, rhetoric functions, so on and so forth.In view of the inadequacy of the previous studies, the thesis has attempted to expose the cognitive operations behind the construal process of enigmatic folk similes on the basis of the combination of relevance theory and conceptual blending theory. We argue that the first parts of enigmatic folk similes are ostensive stimuli, which serve as prompts that interpreters use to retrieve from their memories the most relevantbackground knowledge and to blend on it creatively to arrive at the fundamental meanings of enigmatic folk similes. Given that context influences an interpreter's construal of an enigmatic folk simile, we hold that integration with context is an important part of the construal process. Consequently, we maintain that the second part of an enigmatic folk simile can be construed from its first part on condition that the interpreter is familiar with the background knowledge concerned.To sum up, the brand-new approach to the study of enigmatic folk similes adopted in the thesis can not only reveal the backstage cognition involved in the construal of enigmatic folk similes, but also may shed new light on the understanding of enigmatic folk similes and may enlighten us to study other Chinese sayings from this perspective as well.