Meaning Construction Of English Megametaphor From Cognitive Perspective

Megametaphor is a special type of metaphor which is composed of a series of metaphors. The study of metaphor is the hottest topic in linguistic studies, yet without enough attention to megametaphor, the study of metaphor will be inadequate. So this thesis aims at analyzing the meaning construction of megametaphor which is a rewarding and challenging topic.According to Wei Jidong's classification, there are two types of megametaphors: extended-type megametaphor and parallel-type meagmetaphor. For the convenience of research, the author of this thesis further divides each of these two types of metametaphor into two subtypes. According to the keynote metaphor, the extended-type megametaphor is classified as extended-type megametaphor with explicit or implicit keynote metaphor. While according to the common entailment, the parallel-type megametaphor is classified as parallel-type megametaphor with explicit or implicit common entailment.Based on this classification of megametaphor, the meaning construction of megametpahor is studied from the perspectives of frame theory and conceptual integration theory, which contains the most explanatory power on metaphor. The author interprets meaning construction of different types of megametaphor and finds out differences in the constructing process of them.These two theories reveal how the cognitive mechanisms run in the process of meaning construction of megametaphor from different perspectives. The frame theory and conceptual integration theory provide an effective and dynamic model of meaning construction. However, the meaning construction of megametaphor is very complicated because the structure of both extended-type and parallel-type megametaphor is complex. In a frame theory model, how the elements in the frames are combined into the real meanings and how the frame shifting takes place are not shown clearly. But the defects can be supplemented by the conceptual integration theory. With the four mental spaces and an emergent structure, the blending process is interpreted in details. Therefore, it is more accurate than the frame theory, especially explaining the complicated structures as megamtaphor.However, much more effort is still necessary to reveal the universal laws of cognitive mechanism of megametaphor.