A Comparative And Cognitive Study Of The Interface Between Metaphor And Metonymy In Chinese And English Idioms

Idioms have peculiar features, such as integrity of meaning, stability of collocation andirregularity of grammar. These features have excited great interests of scholars at home andabroad. No matter whether their research object is Chinese idioms or English idioms, thesescholars approach idioms basically from two perspectives, namely, traditional views andcognitiveviews.The studies conducted by Chinese linguists in early days are mainly concerned with suchaspects as the characteristics, classifications, sources and translation matters of idioms, whileWestern scholars attempt to investigate idioms from the semantic, syntactic, pragmatic andpsycholinguistic angles, trying to probe into its inseparability, generativity, communicativefunctions as well as its comprehension process. It cannot be denied that the achievementsgained from the traditional perspective are of great significance for further research. On theother hand, we have to acknowledge that what these researchers pay close attention to is not thedeep aspects about idioms. They do not care about the cognitive processes, and just emphasizethat the figurative meaning of an idiom cannot be arrived at from its components. In contrast,cognitive linguists hold that idioms are separable and analyzable. They suggest that theconstituent parts, more or less, can contribute to the formation of its global idiomatic meaning.Such a view has created a new perspective for the study of idioms and cognitive processes ofidiominterpretation.This thesis aims to examine the cognitive processes of idiom interpretation by means ofinterpreting the figurative meanings of Chinese and English corresponding idioms. And it willlook into the relationships between metaphor and metonymy within the framework of the Prismatic Model proposed by Geeraerts (2002). At the same time, the thesis tries to dig into theinterface of metaphor and metonymy by virtue of the cognitive analysis of idioms. What weneed to clarify before presenting the findings is that the term “interaction” mentioned in thePrismaticModel,toa great extent,refersto“interface” that willbediscussedinthisthesis.The main findings in this thesis are presented as follows.1) Three cases of interaction,cases in which metaphor and metonymy occur consecutively, cases in which they occur inparallel, cases in which they occur interchangeably, can find their foothold in both Chinese andEnglish idioms;2) Compared with the other two cases, the third model, metaphor andmetonymy occurring interchangeably, occupies a relatively less portion;3) A high percentageof73.47%of the corresponding idioms in Chinese and English can be analyzed with the samemodel;4) A discrepancy exists between Chinese idioms and English ones. The number ofChinese idioms that can be pictured in consecutive sequences is close to that in parallelsequences, but these two numbers differ greatly in the analysis of English idioms. Apart fromcultural differences, the structural feature of idioms is another vital reason for the emergence ofthisdiscrepancy.This thesis holds that a comparative and cognitive analysis of Chinese and English idiomsfrom a new perspective can promote the change of the way of the classroom instruction ofidioms. What is more, such a way of analysis can bring about some enlightments on thetranslationofidioms.