A Cognitive Interpretation Of Chinese Xiehouyu-Based On Conceptual Blending Theory

Chinese Xiehouyu is created by Chinese people in their social practice. It is a kind of popular language form as it has the characteristics of being humorous, vivid and brief. It also shows the wisdom of the common people. Chinese Xiehouyu is a traditional Chinese language form and it has not been studied a lot by the west so far, so deep and theoretical studies on it are mainly done by Chinese scholars. Some fruitful research has been done in the following aspects:its origin, structure, classification, rhetoric and function and so on. However, the study of Chinese Xiehouyu from the perspective of cognitive linguistics remains relatively weak. In view of the situation, this paper attempts to approach the meaning construction process of Chinese Xiehouyu from a new perspective, namely, conceptual blending theory in the framework of cognitive linguistics. In this paper, the definition of Chinese Xiehouyu is clarified, its nature and classification of the study at home are expatiated and based on it a new kind of classification standard is put forward; the conceptual blending theory is comprehensively and systematically introduced in this paper including cross-space mappings, emergent structure, optimality principle, conceptual integration process and conceptual integration networks; the semantic construction models of the four types of Chinese Xiehouyu are analyzed and summarized; moreover, we propose some amendments to the problem of the "input space" amount; and we also put forward the different meaning construction process of Chinese Xiehouyu in "zero-context" and "real context"; furthermore, new standard of classification of Chinese Xiehouyu is also put forward in this paper. They may provide beneficial references for the future cognitive study of the meaning construction process of Chinese Xiehouyu.In this thesis, there are altogether five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction of the whole thesis. We will generally introduce the main ideas of the research and its purpose and significance. It makes readers have a general understanding of the thesis.The second chapter is a literature review of Chinese Xiehouyu. Firstly, the definition and nature of Xiehouyu is introduced. Then, some traditional classifications of Xiehouyu are listed. Because of different research purpose, in this thesis we put out with our own classification of Xiehouyu and give the reason. Next, we make a term discrimination. As Xiehouyu has some similarities with idiom(成语),proverb(谚语),slang(俚语),witticism(俏皮话),locution (惯用语),and colloquialism(俗语)and so on, we make a distinction between Xiehouyu and some of them. Finally, we introduce various approaches to the study of Xiehouyu. There have been structural, functional, semantic and cognitive studies on Xiehouyu in history. In this chapter we will analyze the present development and characteristics of each study.Chapter three is an introduction of the Conceptual Blending Theory. As the Conceptual Blending Theory is developed from the Mental Spaces Theory, we will introduce the Mental Spaces Theory first including the four mental spaces and the process of mappings. Such concepts as the emergent structure, optimality principles and types of conceptual integration networks are vital and indispensable in the process of conceptual blending. Therefore, we will introduce them one by one.Chapter four is an introduction of the conceptual blending process in the meaning construction of Chinese Xiehouyu. After the analysis of the definition and cognitive process of meaning construction, we will have a detailed study of the meaning construction process of the four types of Xiehouyu based on the Conceptual Blending Theory. We will use the Conceptual Blending Theory to analyze the meaning construction process of each type of Xiehouyu not only when they are not used in context but also used in specific context. To make our analysis clearer and easily understood, we will use mode charts to give illustration.Chapter five is the conclusion of this thesis. We will summarize some major findings of our research and some vital implications. Of course, due to limited research level and knowledge structure, there will definitely exist some limitations in this study. We will give some suggestions for further study according to our research.