The ESM Naming Model For The Chinese Natural Landscape

Names of Chinese natural landscapes have kindled the interests of scholars due to their infinite variety and profound meanings. They have delved into the motivation, cultural background and rhetoric features of the names on the basis of the traditional philology, translatology, cross-cultural communication, but never made an in-depth analysis of its cognitive mechanism, let alone the support of database.The ESM naming model is proposed by integrating Event-domain Cognitive Model, Salience Principle with Metaphtonymy in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. E, S and M stand for ECM, Salience Principle and Metaphtonymy respectively. In the meantime, self-closed database incorporating 1,190 items of Chinese natural landscapes has been established based on exhaustive excerption from Catalog of Chinese Landscapes (Du Feibao & Du Ling, 2005) and Encyclopedia of Chinese Tourism (Lin Zhong, 2004). Qualitative and quantitative methods have been applied to analyzing all the items with the ESM naming model.This dissertation can be divided into five chapters:Chapter One focuses on the scope, the motivation, the methodology, the data collection, and the layout of this thesis.Chapter Two reviews naming theories and previous studies concerning Chinese natural landscapes at home and abroad, from which the limitations of the studies have been unveiled.Chapter Three, on the basis of the above theories, tentatively presents a new solution—the ESM naming model as a theoretical framework of this paper aiming to bridge the gap.Chapter Four includes data analysis and discussion. First of all, the process of data collection has been fully described. Then, a thorough analysis of the naming mechanism of Chinese natural landscapes has been conducted through the 1,190 items of Chinese natural landscapes with the illustration of the related data.Chapter Five copes with a conclusion and five leading contributions as follows: 1. Proving"Humanism"advocated by cognitive linguists, as all the names are humanized, reflecting the ways people construe and conceptualize the world.2. Establishing the ESM naming model on the basis of ECM, Salience and Metaphtonymy principles in Cognitive Linguistics.3. Constructing a database of Chinese natural landscape names for the first time in order to support this research.4. Proving the argument proposed by Professor Wang Yin (2007) that all the names are given by way of metonymy. Complementing the classification of source domains of conceptual metaphors and metonymies (K?vecses, 2002), and carefully elaborating the multiple metaphor and metaphtonymy.5. Proposing two primary ways of embodiment: Basic cognitive capacities and complex cognitive capacities.At the end of this chapter, limitations and shortcomings are discussed and some effective suggestions are provided for future investigation.