Metaphor Or Irony: Forming Interpretation From Stereotypes And Traits

Metaphor is pervasive in every day life and a powerful tool used by people to convey some connotation.In this study, the focus is put on the interpretation of the metaphor. Because of the nature of the metaphor- indirectness and the semantic flexibility, a set of different interpretations of the same target sentence are often produced by different individuals.In detail, the indirectness of metaphor activates human reasoning to find out the similarity from the dissimilarities which is the base of understanding metaphor.The semantic flexibility offers the diversity of the similarity-choosing. This phenomenon suggests the possibility of different interpretations of the same sentence even a set of extremely different interpretations are produced: metaphoric and ironic interpretations.So, in other words, metaphoric and ironic interpretations of the same sentence are produced through the same processing mechanism (in Chinese:隐喻动作机制).This study takes the perceivers' understanding of the speakers into consideration, therefore more dynamic and social picture of interpreting the statement is obtained.The variable of this study is the speaker and the dependent variable is the interpretation of the statement. The same sentence said by speakers with the different social statuses may lead to the different interpretations because the stereotypes of social status have long established which influence people's interpretation of human statements and behaviors. In order to give the study clearer presentation, the Parallel-Constraint-Satisfaction theory is introduced.An idea has been got by the study that the Constraint-Satisfaction theory applies to the analysis of how people deal with some statements inviting both ironic and metaphorical interpretations. The stereotype effect does exist in people's mind and are activated in the context with ambiguity during the course of understanding the target sentence people face and need make a choice between the ironic or metaphorical interpretations. And the stereotypes and the traits work together to influence the interpretation.All the above also gives the caption of the question: Metaphor or Irony (allegory)?...