A Cognitive Study On Poetic Metaphor Based On Conceptual Blending Theory

The most influential and powerful theories about interpreting the working mechanisms of metaphor are conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) and conceptual blending theory (CBT). The former focuses on the fundamental theoretical problem that metaphor is a kind of thinking rather than a common linguistic phenomenon, and it only applies to the conventional conceptual metaphor; the latter can put an explicit interpretation on the unconventional poetic metaphor. Based on the conceptual blending theory advanced by Fauconnier, and choosing poetic metaphor as its research objective, this thesis applies the theoretical framework of conceptual blending theory to the cognitive interpretation of poetic metaphor. One purpose of the study is to testify that as a basic cognitive mechanism conceptual blending theory not only has an explanatory power to linguistic phenomena such as conceptual metaphor, event blending and category extension, but also works as an effective and indispensable cognitive device for meaning construction and discourse analysis. By using abundant instances, the other focus of this thesis is to further test the feasibility and applicability of conceptual blending theory and provide a new cognitive perspective for the interpretation of the meaning construction of poetic metaphor, laying emphasis on the essential feature of integration being concerned with an emergent meaning more than the sum of the parts, and being the basic cognitive mechanism on the backstage, which suggests the basic cognitive way of thinking.This thesis includes six chapters. In the first chapter, an overview of the whole thesis is presented first. It demonstrates the reason why the subject is chosen, including the background, the purposes, and the significance of the research. And next it gives a literature review of poetic metaphor. At last it makes an introduction to the general structure of this thesis.Chapter Two mainly constructs a theoretical framework of conceptual blending theory. It is composed of introduction of mental space theory, and the framework of CBT which includes the presentation of the basic conceptual integration network; the whole integration process; three important integration principles and finally a four-type classification of integration networks. Chapter Three is an overview of poetic metaphor. In this chapter, a classification of metaphor is given. In more specific terms, metaphor is classified into conventional metaphor and poetic metaphor. The definition of poetic metaphor is given in this chapter; and the nature of poetic metaphor is introduced as well.Both Chapter Four and Chapter Five are principle parts of this whole thesis.In Chapter Four, combined with language examples, the advantages of conceptual blending theory is analyzed by comparing with conceptual metaphor theory. The advantages of conceptual blending theory are displayed from these aspects:mental spaces, projection mapping, emergent structure and process of construction.Chapter Five deals with the application of conceptual blending theory. It makes an exploration about the meaning construction and the work mechanism of poetic metaphors on the basis of conceptual blending theory. Combined with language examples, this chapter argues that semantic conflict is the fundamental condition of poetic metaphor, and it distinguishes two types of semantic conflicts. It also analyzes the cognitive mechanism of poetic metaphor relating to literature, humor, politics and poems by resorting to the four sub-frameworks of conceptual blending theory, through which the dynamic process of meaning construction is displayed and the feasibility of the cognitive explanation of poetic metaphor within the framework of CBT is demonstrated as well.