Conceptual Integration In Poetic Iconicity A Comparative Analysis Of English And Chinese Poems

In contrast to the theory of arbitrariness proposed by Saussure, iconicity emphasizes the relation between meaning and linguistic sign i.e. the motivation. Many former researches have already proved that iconicity is also an essential characteristic existing on every level of language like letters, words, syntax or even punctuation marks. Fauconnier and Turner brought out the theory of conceptual integration networks, which provides a new approach to study the generation and interpretation of iconicity.As a subtype of literature, poetry contains varied iconicity during the procedure of its creation and interpretation. Based on Peircean semiotic theory on iconicity, this thesis applies the theory of conceptual integration networks to analyzing poetry texts. The author selects19poems which are all prototypical examples of iconicity in at least one aspect. To get a more universal conclusion, the author does a comparative analysis on these Chinese and English poetry texts. The conclusion reached through this study is that iconicity is the way to show up the metaphors which exist on the level of linguistic symbols, moreover, the conceptual integration mechanism is indispensable in the generation and interpretation of iconicity. On the visual level, the same with Chinese character, English is also able to function as pictographic character in poetry text. Universal metaphor is a crucial term in the generation and interpretation of iconicity which can help people to construct the input spaces and blend the new spaces.