Semantic Study On Chinese Hyperbole

This paper aims to analyze hyperbole’s semantic component, semantic structure, semanticfeature and interpretive mechanism with the theory of structural semantics and cognitivesemantics. Hyperbole contains three semantic components: the prototype of things, the point ofhyperbole and exaggerated description. Hyperbole has deep semantic structure and surfacesemantic structure, deep semantic structure can project on the surface semantic structure. Withthe help of the context, some semantic components can be hided so that the surface semanticstructure of hyperbole becomes flexible. The point of hyperbole is key component, whichdecides the hyperbole is exaggerated or contractible. And exaggerated description is the part notto be hided, it decides the differences between hyperbole and other figures of speech in form.When listeners and readers decode hyperbole’s semantic, they compare the semantic featurebetween the prototype of things and exaggerated description at first, find several key feature,then activate similar point of these two components with the help of cognitive context andenvision, thus they can understand hyperbole’s semantic.