Cognitive Interpretation To Puns By Means Of Conceptual Integration Theory

This paper applies the conceptual integration theory to the analysis of the meaning construction of puns, aiming at explaining the cognitive mechanism of the meaning processing of them, thus offering a new research method for puns.Conceptual integration theory is put forward by Fauconnier and Turner. As an essential branch of cognitive linguistics, it possesses complete theoretical framework and sophisticated operating mechanism. Hence, it has shown great explanatory power in meaning construction of many linguistic phenomena. In recent years, more and more attention of scholars both at home and abroad has been attached to this theory.Pun, as one of the common linguistic phenomena, is a typical figure of speech that can not be ignored both in language learning and literature appreciation. However, most previous researches show their concern to its translation and pragmatic effect, while the study with regard to the meaning construction of puns is rare.This paper lays great emphasis on the study of space integration of puns by means of conceptual integration theory. With the view to facilitate the study, puns are divided into transparent puns, semitransparent puns and opaque puns according to the transparency of double meanings and the number of hinges. Input spaces of a transparent pun, with its double meanings directly triggered by two explicit hinges, are easy to construct because of the high transparency of the explicit hinges. A semitransparent pun is characterized by an explicit hinge (usually a polyseme) by which two meanings are activated. Construction of input spaces of a semitransparent pun is indirect. It should start with the formation of two domains from which relevant elements can be selected into input spaces. So compared with transparent puns, input-space construction of this kind of pun is more complex. As for an opaque pun, its double meanings are triggered by an explicit hinge and an implicit hinge respectively. The implicit hinge has low transparency; therefore input spaces of opaque puns are the most complex to construct.In addition, integration networks of puns are also covered in this paper. In conceptual integration theory, there are mainly four kinds of conceptual integration network: single-framing network, frame network, one-sided network and two-sided network. The author claims that as puns are characterized by double contexts that can provide two organizing frames, the existence of puns with single-framing networks hasn't been found yet.