Metaphor And Metonymy In The Formation Of Neologisms

Metaphor and metonymy has been treated in the western tradition as linguistic devices used in rhetoric and literature. On the contrary, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson claim that metaphor is not just a matter of language, but that it governs our ordinary conceptual system. According to their view, human thought processes are largely metaphorical, and the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. Since then, research on metaphor and metonymy has headed towards a new direction, and the basic ideas of Lakoff and Johnson have been developed as the Conceptual Metaphor Theory.To Lakoff and Johnson, metaphors are not just matters of language, but are used extensively in reasoning and understanding. Typically, an abstract domain is understood metaphorically in terms of a more concrete domain. To a large degree, they argue, the human conceptual system is metaphorical. This is very different from the classical model of metaphor, which claims that metaphors are artifacts of language use, and have nothing to do with meaning or understanding.In Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson do not directly and precisely say what metonymy is but spare only one chapter for it. They just claim:Metonymy, on the other hand, has primarily a referential function, that is, it allows us to use one entity to stand for another, but metonymy is not merely a referential device, it also serves the function of providing understanding. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 36).Metaphor and metonymy play a central role in human's thought, understanding and reasoning in the creation of our social, cultural, and psychological reality. Metaphorical and metonymical languages arise from the basic bodily experience of human beings. This notion of embodiment clearly distinguishes the cognitive linguistic view from traditional ones. Metaphor as well as metonymy is property of concepts, and not of words. The main function of metaphor is to understand one thing in terms of another, while the main function of metonymy seems to be to provide mental, cognitive access to a target entity that is less readily or easily available. Metaphor is based on similarity, and metonymy is based on contiguity that is on elements that are parts of the same domain. Metaphor and metonymy are used effortlessly in everyday life by ordinary people, not just by specially talented people. They are far from being stylistic devices, and are inevitable processes of human thought and reasoning. In the formation of neologisms, mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy also play an important role. They are reflected in domains closely related to people's daily life: technology and science, politics and economy and internet.As the most active factor of language, lexicon is very sensitive to the changes in social life. As development of science and technology, tremendous changes have taken place in the fields ranging from science,technology, economy, politics, internet and other fields of our society. Neologisms emerge once new things and new concepts appear in social life. The lexicon of present-day English is changing rapidly and regularly, and a description and explanation of this change is necessary for both theoretical development and practical meaning. However, the definition of neologism is of controversy. Different scholars give different definitions from different perspectives. This thesis defines neologism from two main perspectives of neologism: one is from the perspective of time, and other is from the perspective of semantics. So neologism in this thesis is defined as:"neologism is a recently-coined word, and it can imply the use of old words in a new sense (i.e., giving new meanings to existing words or phrases). Neologisms are especially useful in identifying new inventions, new phenomena, or old ideas which have taken on a new cultural context."This thesis aims to explore formation of neologism from perspective of working mechanisms of metonymy and metaphor, which are basic modes of thinking and powerful and efficient tools with which people conceptualize the world. Besides, the sources of neologisms, choice of neologisms, differences of metaphor and metonymy as rhetoric devices and cognitive mechanisms and other topics related will be introduced. The author gives an elaboration of working mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy with the help of cognitive theory proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.