Generic Space Of Blending Theory Revised By Attribute Model

Panther&Thornburg (1998:756) once pointed out two inadequacies of the traditional inference:(1) traditional theories have not satisfactorily interpreted why hearers could perform variouskinds of pragmatic inferences easily;(2) traditional theories have not systematically explainedthe relevant inference models and their cognitive basis. Therefore, they advance the scenariotheory with the purpose of describing illocutionary categories, and take indirect speeches asillocutionary metonymies (IM). IM proposes to regard cognitive domains concerned inmetonymies as scenarios, thus it makes revolutionary contributions to inferential studies fromthe perspective of cognitive pragmatics, specifically in expounding the cognitive mechanismrepresenting by attributes of indirect speeches in the process of inference.As a fundamental cognitive linguistics studying method, the position of the conceptual blendingtheory plays an important role. Fauconnier believed that language studying should be focusedon the processing of the construction of meaning (Fauconnier:1997,2), so the key issues ofconceptual blending theory (CBT) are the establishment of psychological space, mapping andsynthesis mechanism.Though no doubt has been cast on its achievements，conceptual blending theory is not as perfectas its founders have expected. One of the principal defects is the theory doesn’t concern thefunction of context. And CBT fails to illustrate the specific dynamic generation mechanism inits generic space, resulting in its too strong inclusiveness.The present research takes as its study subject the core claims of IM—the basic idea is that anattribute of speech act not only represent itself but could stand for the speech act (Panther, 2004:103-104). The main subject of this paper is to improve the reasonable existence of“attribute enforcement association” and raise the macro-level metonymy operation, throughblending theory, mental models theory and other linguistic theories for the sake ofdemonstrating the necessity of attribute operation. Thus, it comes to a conclusion that theattribute enforcement association is based on the revision of IM theory and Blending Theory.The form of the attribute model is established by the following three parts:(1) revised theoriginal attribute hypothesis to make sure it could be a sub-principle of attribute model;(2)revised Blending Theory to make sure the whole theory can explain generic space operationmore clearly;(3) revised the second generics operation process of Blending Theory and addestimation&output space. At this point of time, IM inference conducts the final cause-effectprocess which was defined as hearer-oriented attributes-induction-enforcement-association cause.After all these steps, a more simplified diagram is represented in front of view to display theintegrated functioning of interpreter-centered inferential process.Chapter one makes a brief introduction of blending theory concerning its definition and function.At the same time, the author claims that the main subject of this paper and the expected goal ofthis paper. Chapter two claims my research’s theoretical information: Mental Models, GestaltTheory and category-attribute alignment. Chapter three restates the main methods which used inthis paper in more detailed way. Chapter four, explain the finding results of the paper: blendingtheory is not include everything, it is limited by the context and language environment. Chapterfive applies the new model to analyze the specific examples. At the finish part, I made a finalconclusion about my research which is Chapter six. Also in this part, I state the limitation andmake a prospect of the future study.