A Cognitive Study Of English Transferred Epithet Based On RT-CBT Model

Transferred epithet, as a special language phenomenon, transfers the property possessedby one thing to the modification of the other. It creates new semantic matches and cognitivestyle. The linguists have injected huge interest in the transferred epithet for a long time. Butmost of the studies concerning transferred epithet focus on its rhetoric features, rhetoricfunctions and psychological mechanism. What is still in need is a comprehensive andpenetrating study on its meaning construction and comprehension mechanism. Up to now, afinal verdict and model has not been formed. The Relevance Theory and ConceptualBlending Theory are two popular theories in the transferred epithet studies: RelevanceTheory provides a general cognitive principle for the transferred epithet comprehension;Conceptual Blending Theory gives a vivid demonstration of the mental construction processof transferred epithet. However, neither of the two theories is able to fully elaborate thecognitive mechanism of transferred epithet comprehension and they only have partialexplanatory power. The present study explores the integration of the two theories andconstructs an RT-CBT model for the English transferred epithet comprehension based on theanalysis of the possibilities and necessities of the integration. This model starts with thecognitive context and the cognitive inference. Based on the dynamic context, the modeltreats the transferred epithet comprehension not only as a process of cognitive inferenceexploring communicational intention, but also a process of space blending of utterancemeaning.This thesis carries out researches from cognitive perspective and points out thecognitive context is the main factor in the process of comprehending transferred epithet.Encyclopedic knowledge, logic information and lexical information consist of cognitivecontext of transferred epithet; however they should be more specific to the relations, status,gesture and expression as well as thinking habits of the participants in the transferred epithetcommunication. The cognitive context functions as meaning links, predication and meaning construction in the comprehension of transferred epithet. It leads the on-line meaningconstruction in a refining way.The cognitive mechanism is realized by cognitive inference and we can comprehendtransferred epithet by means of cognitive inference. The cognitive inference of transferredepithet is in fact a series of cognitive activities induced by “counter-expectation divergence”:the expectation exists at the very beginning of the transferred epithet communication, when itis not satisfied or negated, the cognitive orientation will be diverged, so the hearer shouldsurvey and readjust relative cognitive factors to ensure the success of communication. The“counter-expectation divergence” activates comprehension operations. The hearer or readerachieves the final communication intention of the transferred epithet communication throughcontextual transformation, space check and dynamic generation of the transferred epithetmeaning. Therefore, the cognitive inference is not only a precondition of the transferredepithet comprehension but also a process of mental blending based on the dynamic context.The present study offers a relative overall interpretation for the cognitive mechanism oftransferred epithet comprehension. All of this provides a reference for future cognitivestudies on the rhetorical device in English.