On Conceptual Blending Theory Of Verbal Humor Explanatory Power

As a new theory emerged in the filed of western cognitive linguistics in the nineties of last century, the Conceptual Blending Theory has attracted much attention for its strong explanatory power, which has been proved from different perspectives by scholars both at home and abroad.The present paper tries to use the four-space network in Blending Theory to analyze people's cognitive process of verbal humor through examples for the sake of better understanding its strong points and limitations in explaining the cognitive process of understanding verbal humor.The analyses have proved the theory's strong explanatory power in revealing the dynamic cognitive process of the understanding of some types of verbal humor. The theory, however, can not explain all types of verbal humor. Sample analyses have demonstrated that the four-space network has its limitations in explaining verbal humor, but introduction of new elements of .space articulation, space clash, space shift, and space check, as well as relevance and reasoning into the present framework of the theory would greatly improve it, increasing its explanatory power...