A Cognitive Approach To The Restructured Words In Chinese Idiom Variations

This thesis is intended to studies on restructured words in Chinese idiom variations under the guidance of conceptual blending theory and coercion theory in Construction Grammar in Cognitive Linguistics. Chinese idioms could be fixed after a long period of time and become the cream of this language, which, thereafter, attracts the interest of language researchers in Rhetorics, Stylistics or Semantics, etc.. In recent years, restructured words, a new language phenomenon in Chinese idiom variations are springing up. These forms are regarded as "the peripheries" and then few attentions have been paid to them in the field of the traditional grammar. The previous studies are either from formal or functional while only a little ink has been spilled over them from generative mechanisms.Cognitive Linguistics spills much ink over the backstage generative mechanisms of language. Coercion theory and conceptual blending theory in it are capable of explaining the generative mechanisms of language. The former theory makes it possible for the sufficient analysis of the "abnormal" language combinations, like the restructured words, which traditional grammar seldom spills ink over, and the latter theory can provide sufficient explanation for the language creatively used, including the restructured words. Under the framework of coercion theory and conceptual blending theory, this study is an attempt to interpret the cognitive mechanisms of restructured words in Chinese idiom variations, focusing on the following two questions:(1) What are the cognitive motivations of the meaning of the restructured words in Chinese idiom variations?(2) What are the cognitive generative processes of the meaning of them?The analysis of restructured words in Chinese idiom variations is conducted from the qualitative approach. The data are non-closed observation data, which are collected from literary works, advertisements, networks, TV and magazines etc.. It is concluded that construction coercion theory and lexical coercion theory are the cognitive motivations of the meaning of restructured words in Chinese idiom variations; the simple network, mirror network, single-scope and double-scope network in conceptual blending theory can present the cognitive generative processes of the meaning of restructured words through composition, completion and expansion.