Frozen Fire: Production And Interpretation Of Oxymora

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms. As an effective tool,it plays an important role in writing and speaking, performing the effects of humor, irony, emphasis and novelty. So oxymora have attracted many scholars'attention for the sake of their distinctive charm. They violate the semantic congruity, seemingly illogical. However, they can be construed to achieve the communicative goal. Although previous researches on oxymora have been done from different perspectives and have made great achievements, they are mainly from the perspective of rhetoric effects, their classifications, construction forms, semantic categories and semantic relationships. As a special expressive device, oxymora always make utterances full of wisdom. Therefore, facing such kind of charming rhetoric device we may wonder how it is formed; why can an utterance be spoken in an oxymoronic way and how is it construed by the hearer/reader? In other words, what cognitive mechanism underlies oxymora? Some studies hit upon this issue with inspiring ideas, but none of which, however, have accounted for it satisfactorily and got wide recognition up till now.This paper, in the light of cognitive linguistics, attempts to work out an inner mechanism of the production and interpretation of oxymora and intends to make some tentative explorations. The key theoretical goal is to find a workable account for the reason why this seemingly abnormal way of speaking can convey so complex but charming meaning. We adopt a qualitative and retrospective method in our study supported by a considerable quantity of data selected from English and Chinese literary works as well as daily conversations. Guided by the principle of"the continuum of cognition", our study emerges from the theoretical framework of MM (Mental Models)-Based Pragmatic Reasoning Hypothesis proposed by Xu Shenghuan, a dynamic and open system, which consists of two organic parts, namely, the Autonomy-Dependency Analytical Framework and the MM-Based Explicature-Implicature Reasoning Framework, which provide intentionality explanation for the production and interpretation of utterances respectively. In a nutshell, this paper explores the mechanisms of the production and interpretations of oxymora from the cognitive perspective. This thesis covers five chapters:Chapter 1 is an introduction to the whole study, delineating a rough picture of our subject, raises the questions to be solved, describes the methodology of the study, and exhibits the arrangement of the thesis.Chapter 2 begins with a literature review of the researches on oxymora, which includes its definition, classification, functions, pragmatic and cognitive researches. As for these researches, the author also expresses her own ideas and raises some questions to be discussed in the thesis.Chapter 3 shows the theoretical framework of the study. The author first gives a brief introduction to Autonomy-Dependence Analysis Framework which is used in this thesis. The next to be briefly considered is the reason why the framework is applicable to the research on oxymora. Then, in line with Xu Shenghuan's Autonomy-Dependence Analysis Framework, the author attempts to establish the framework of oxymora's production and interpretation; at the same time gestalt theory, Mental Models are shown to us.Chapter 4 is the building of a dynamic flow chart of the production and interpretation of oxymora within the MM-Based Pragmatic Reasoning Hypothesis, whose key procedure is to seek a relevant category's positive-negative continuum of proximity in the Mental Models.Chapter 5 is the conclusion, which summarizes the findings of the study, as well as pointing out its advantages, limitations and prospect for further study. Consequently, through the analyses of the cognitive mechanisms of oxymora, under so many theoretical inspirations given by the Autonomous-Dependence Analysis Framework proposed by Xu Shenghuan, several findings about the mechanisms of oxymora's production and interpretation are drawn as follows:(1) The production of oxymoronic expressions is mostly motivated by speaker's intentionality of expressing contradictory feelings, humorous and satirical effects, emphasis, the succinctness of the language and the creativity of the structure. and interpretation of the oxymoronic utterances is a positive-negative continuum of proximity with the two extremes as the explicit expression (oxymoronic expression) and the implicit expression (source, the autonomous part directly showing the intentionality of speaker). The explicit expression derives from the source, which serves as the implicit expression. The explicit expression, that is to say, the oxymoronic expression, is the dependent part of an utterance. The underlying motivation for such a projection is the speaker's intentionality.(3) An oxymoron is only an"apparent"contradiction, seemingly illogical. Besides the obviously contradictory interpretation, it does yield a logical semantic reading, which is construed by the hearer/reader as a result of the mechanism of mental models. To be exact, it is the understanding of positive-negative continuum of proximity and the intentionality concerned that help arriving at communicative goal.(4) The production and interpretation of oxymora are two sequential processes which can be construed as an organic whole in a certain context. On the one hand, the speaker chooses oxymora to realize their intention of expressing complex and contradictory feelings by means of the projection of the autonomy-dependency on the basis of proximity. On the other hand, the hearer understands the oxymoronic expression in certain context by knowing the intentionality of the speaker, and, after finding the unusual expressions the hearer searches the appropriate positive-negative continuum of proximity in the Mental Models. Thus the implicit autonomous expression is worked out; this implicit expression will be interpreted together with the explicit expression for the overall understanding of the whole utterance.