| Anaphora is a phenomenon in which a linguistic expression is used to refer to another linguistic expression that appears in the preceding text and occasionally occurring in the proceeding text in the same text. The former linguistic expression is named "anaphor" and the latter "antecedent". Anaphora can be divided into direct anaphora and indirect anaphora. And for the present study merely focuses on the study of the indirect anaphora in English text. Metonymy is more original because language is metonymic in nature according to Radden and Kovecses. Metonymy is regarded as a partial mental reflection, namely, people speak and think metonymically in our daily life. Metonymy enables us to have more specifically more attention on the prominent aspects of what is being referred to. Metonymic concepts have been part of our ordinary way of thinking and act as well as talk.The present thesis is a cognitive study of indirect anaphora. In this paper, it is the cognitive metonymy theory that we accept as our theoretical framework. First the advantages of metonymy in the analysis of indirect anaphora and the reasons for the combination of metonymy and textual model of metonymy are discussed. Based on the framework of metonymic theories by Radden and Kovecses, and Al-sharafi's viewpoint of textual model of metonymy, we try to analyze the effect of metonymy on constructing anaphora and the power to interpret the indirect anaphora. Further study explains and interprets three kinds of indirect anaphora in great detail respectively to justify the effects and significances of metonymy in the analysis of indirect anaphora.Through the study, the following conclusions can be drawn:There is a correlation between cognitive metonymy and indirect anaphora. The metonymy-producing relationships are correspondent with the indirect anaphoric phenomenon. Cognitive metonymy offers a better ground for the analysis of indirect anaphora. The combination of cognitive metonymy and textual model of metonymy is based on the fact that they are inner correlated and can explain the anaphoric phenomenon in a better way. So metonymy theory is a better choice for the study of indirect anaphora. The metonymic model in the Idealized Cognitive Model and the salience principle can explain the nominal indirect anaphora and that the metonymic relationships in the textual model of metonymy have a strong power in the explanation and interpretation of pronominal indirect anaphora and zero anaphora. The study will function as a complement to the anaphoric researches, and it also will be helpful to obtain a better understanding of textual cohesion and coherence in the text interpretation. So it will have some significance in the English teaching, especially in the listening and wring teachings.At last, as regards to the future prospects of this research, metonymic theory can be used into more researches. And on the basis of the analysis of the these three types of anaphora, we can widen our research scope by way of analyzing more linguistic phenomenon in English form this perspective to further the study of metonymy. |
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