The Cognitive Study Of Mencius And The Republic

This paper analyzes Mencius and the Republic from perspective of cognitive linguistics.At the very beginning, the paper provides a brief review of the linguistic and philosophicalbackground knowledge and finds the interface of those theories—‘poetic mind’. This conceptis attributed to Vico, an Italian philosopher, and is considered to the ubiquitous way ofunderstanding of primitive human nations. It is ‘mind’ that underlies analogically andmetaphorically structured thought. According to Bahkin’s dialogism, discourse is dependenton other discourse and that assumption causes the intertextuality of ‘poetic mind’. In fact,cognitive linguistics provides the means to deepen the understanding of analogy andmetaphor.Post-structuralism linguistics challenges the dichotomy of body and mind and proposesthe paradigm of ‘embodiment’ or ‘embodied mind’, an echo of Vico. The conceptualmetaphor theory and conceptual blending theory are two representative theories of cognitivelinguistic theories. The former focuses on the conventionalized metaphors of cultural modelswhile the conceptual blending theory emphasizes the on-line conceptual mechanismpresented in linguistic phenomenon. The two theories can provide synchronic and diachronicperspective for discourse studies.The first chapter makes a brief review of the theoretical knowledge. The second chapterreassesses intertextuality and body images in Mencius. Analogies and metaphors are alsounder discussion to demonstrate the cultural model in Mencius. Chapter Three makes similaranalysis in the Republic and demonstrates that like Mencius, the ‘poetic mind’ actually playsimportant role in Plato’s arguments. Chapter Four makes a comparative study of the twoclassics and shows their similarities and differences.