Analysis Of Wang Zengqi's Being Initiated Into Monkhood From The Perspective Of Metaphor And Metonymy

The study of metaphor and metonymy dates back to ancient Greek. They are initially considered as rhetorical devices or figures of speech. In the traditional view metaphor involves the substitution of one thing with another based on the relation of similarity between two entities, and metonymy refers to the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another based on the neighboring relationships between the two. With the development of cognitive linguistics, the traditional view on metaphor and metonymy has changed greatly. In cognitive linguistics, metaphor and metonymy are not merely figures of speech in the traditional sense, but are regarded as important ways of thinking and fundamental tools for human beings to conceptualize the world. Metaphor is defined as understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another, and in this process exists a mapping from source domain to target domain. Metonymy is to use one entity to refer to another that is related to it within the same conceptual domain. Both of them reflect the thinking and behavior of mankind.Wang Zengqi is one of the most famous contemporary writers in China. His novels are natural and graceful, known for its plain but beautiful words. Being Initiated into Monkhood is considered as one of the most famous short novels of Wang Zengqi. It is about the pure love between a teenaged monk Ming Hai and a rural girl Xiao Yingzi. Both the language and the story in this novel are beautiful, just like a poem. And this novel has been studied by many scholars from different perspectives. This thesis is to analyze Wang Zengqi's Being Initiated into Monkhood from the perspective of cognitive metaphor and metonymy. The analysis will be conducted from the aspects of description of characters and environment, construction of the story and narration of the plot. And the thesis is at the same time to explain the beauty of the novel's language by the application of metaphor and metonymy. Metaphor and metonymy are our basic ways of conceptualizing the world and thus can also play important roles in constructing literary texts. The aim of this thesis is to promote the application of the theory of metaphor and metonymy so as to further reveal the general nature of metaphor and metonymy. And it is also to enrich and develop the theoretical contents for studying novels and inspire people to study literary texts from different perspectives.