Stereotypical Relations And Interpretation Of Tang-Song Poetry

The thesis is a corpus-based study of Tang-Song poetry in terms of the theory of stereotypical relations from the pragmatic and cognitive perspectives.Stereotypical relation, an important concept in the ontological study of implicatives, plays a key role within the framework of Neo-Griciean pragmatic apparatus. Guided and prescribed by the optimal thinking, economy and implicationality characterize the human linguistic activity. Linguistic expressions lose the dependence of their existence without the implicated expressions which act as complementing, expanding, restricting and elucidating the explicated expressions conveyed by the literal meaning of linguistic units. Stereotypical relation is the shared background knowledge that has been schematized into stereotype during the process of longtime using. It serves as the specific content of the linguistic expression, through which we can get the intended meaning of the speaker.With the development of human optimal thinking, implicated expressions are creatively employed in the linguistic activity, especially fully reflected in literature, such as poetry. Most poems are short in length, concise in expression, while can trigger very deep feeling beyond this seemingly simple linguistic instrument. In order to get the complete interpretation of the images underlying the succinct forms, we must take advantage of the stereotypical relations embedded in the poetic linguistic unit to fill the informative vacancy. This paper takes Tang-Song poetry as the study object by means of sample statistics to expound the significance of stereotypical relations in the understanding of poems.In order to make clear of the proportion of ideational duality in Tang-Song poetry, the author makes a census of 300 pieces of poems from the Tang-Song Poetry Appreciation Dictionary edited by Lu Jin and Fu Demin, after which some conclusions can be drawn as following:1) The expression of poetry takes on the same property of ideational duality as idioms. So we must make use the stereotypical relations in our mind to induce the poetic image.2) Economy of the expression is another trait of poetry. Poets always try to present unlimited images within the specific framework of the poem. So it is inevitable that they have to say as little as they can for the sake of making their words fit the form. It is certain that this trait will give rise to vagueness and incompleteness which will in turn lead to informative vacancy, that is , the gap between the actual and fictitious images. It is this time that the stereotypical relations must be explored to bridge the gap by complementing or elucidating the abundant images under the literal words.Stereotypical relations are crystallized into stereotypes when human being uses them repeatedly. Stereotypes are peculiar and highly abstract concepts, which take on the characteristic of prototypical effect. People will unconsciously compare things with stereotypes in their mind when employing stereotypical relations in the process of complementing and elucidation. Therefore, we can see that stereotypes are categories schematized from stereotypical relationships consisted of things and state of affairs that show family resemblance. Stereotypes leave out details and emphasize the core of stereotypical relations. To a very large extent, stereotypes are applied to poems taking the form of names, color, and things signaling images beyond images. The reader should relate stereotypes to different forms of idealized cognitive models to dig the fictitious images implied by the actual images. Therefore, the author conducts a tentative study by relating the theory of stereotypical relations with the theory of Idealized Cognitive Models proposed by Lakoff. In line with the four structures of ICMs, the author distinguishes four types of stereotypes with regard to Tang-Song poetry: basic types, metaphorical types, metonymic types and allusions, which show stereotypical relations of different forms.This paper falls into four chapters except for the introduction and conclusion parts: in Chapter Two, the author devotes to explain that the present study of Tang-Song poetry in light of the theory of stereotypical relations, by means of corpus-based sample-statistics, is plausible, through the illustration of the related characteristics of poetry and the pragmatic and cognitive studies of poetry at home; Chapter Three gives an overall introduction of the pragmatic and cognitive theories that are related to the theory of stereotypical relations; The paper demonstrates the feature of ideational duality and economy of expression in Tang-Song poetry by means of sample statistics in the Fourth Chapter. In Chapter Five, the author demonstrates the two functions of stereotypical relations within the framework of pragmatics, and classifies the stereotypes in the Tang-Song poetry into four types according to the four structures of the ICMs.