A Pragmatic Study Of Metaphor In The Stone Angel

This thesis applies the Relevance Theory, the Cooperative Principle, the Politeness Principle and the Face Theory to the analysis of the pragmatic functions of metaphor in a novel named The Stone Angel by a Canadian writer Margaret Laurence.According to Chapman (1983:81), metaphor could be classified into five types: synaesthetic metaphor, a non-human referent with human attributes, a non-animate referent with animate characteristics, an abstraction with animate characteristics and a human referent with animate or inanimate attributes. Twenty-eight metaphors are chosen as data and classified into the above five types for analysis. On the basis of former researches and data analysis, the author summarizes three pragmatic functions of metaphor: the cooperative functions, the polite functions and the economic functions.The research of this thesis has practical significance. The research methods of this thesis can be applied to the study of other literature works or other types of data. The analysis of pragmatic functions of metaphor can be applied into English teaching in order to help students understand metaphor better and improve their communicative competence. In daily communication, people should use metaphor properly so as to achieve better communicative effects.