| Cantopop music,making a large number of famous singers like Faye Wong, Eason Chan, etc., has great influence all over China and even in Southeast Asia. Among all the super stars, a large proportion have sung at least a song written by Lin Xi or Wyman Wong—two lyricists who are representative in Hong Kong music industry due to their mastery of language and skills in writing lyrics. Among the reasons of their great reputation, their ability to construct meaning with metaphors counts a lot.It is found that researches on Cantopop lyrics mainly focus on their linguistic features, rhyming and grammatical deviations, and few on metaphors in them. This thesis then tries to analyze the meaning construction of metaphors in Cantopop lyrics within the theoretical framework of Conceptual Integration Theory.Conceptual Integration Theory is proposed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Mental Space Theory, and it has sophisticated operating system as well as complete theoretical framework. In the process of conceptual integration, elements of two input spaces are selectively projected into blended space, which leads to the formation of emergent structure. And Conceptual Integration Theory mainly reveals the dynamic formation process of emergent structure in blended space.This paper is a tentative study which concentrates on the analysis of the meaning construction process of lyric metaphors within the framework of Conceptual Integration Theory. The author makes an selection of song lyric metaphors on the basis of the four basic integration networks of CIT—Simplex Network, Mirror Network, Single-scope Network and Double-scope Network, and exemplifies them respectively. Through analysis, the author points out that all the four networks can analyze different types of song lyric metaphors and can reveal the meaning construction process thereof. It demonstrates the strong explanatory power of Conceptual Integration Theory, and enriches researches on Cantopop song lyrics. In addition, the author also attempts to help Cantopop lovers understand the metaphors in the song lyrics, thus maximizing their enjoyment from the music. |
