A Study Of The Proper Nouns In The Harry Potter Series From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

The study of metaphor has a long history of more than two thousand years. Nowadays, the research on metaphor has expanded to a broader range of disciplines and become interdisciplinary, such as philosophy, semiotics, linguistics, semantics, pragmatics and cognitive psychology. The new school of linguistic—cognitive linguistics, which is based on cognitive science, reveals a brand-new explanation for metaphor: metaphor does not only serve as a decoration, it is a universal phenomenon of human language and an important way of cognition as well. It is a cognitive activity that to understand and experience one kind of thing in terms of another. Based on the theory, this thesis tries to explore proper nouns in the Harry Potter Series deeply. Not only its wide acceptance and immense popularity but also its rhetorical and linguistic meaning can be revealed. The process in turn will testify the theory itself. The research is beneficial to those who are studying a foreign language by analyzing the formation access of proper nouns in the Harry Potter series from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory. Such kind of research will prove and confirm conceptual metaphor theory, and explain how metaphor mechanism decides and retains the formation of these proper nouns. By revealing the accepting and cognitive access of these new proper nouns, the research is conductive to translation, teaching, and research of English.The popularity of the Harry Potter theory is universally recognized. The combination of the book series and conceptual metaphor theory is rarely mentioned. Using one linguistics theory to explore the secrets behind the book series'popularity is the academic and creative feature of this thesis.