An Investigation Of The Characteristics Of The Interface Between Metaphor And Metonymy In English And Chinese

Generally speaking, influenced by some conditions, two entities may undergo mutualconversion if they gain the characteristics of their opposites. The mutual conversion can lead to theformation of the interface. In the same vein, metaphor and metonymy, under the influence ofcertain conditions, obtain distinctive features of their opposites and therefore incur mutualtransformation. Such mutual transformation can bring about the development of the interfacebetween metaphor and metonymy. This thesis, from the perspective of the Embodied Philosophy,makes a cognitive analysis of metaphor and metonymy in both English and Chinese politicalspeeches, and respectively probes into their distinctive features, interface and continuum. Andimplications forlexicology, translationand pedagogy arepresentedin thelastchapter.Thefollowingconclusionsarearrived at basedonthe currentstudy:(1) In the Embodied Philosophy, humans’ thinking mode is the interaction of subjectivity andobjectivity. As an important part of the mode, the subjectivity mainly refers to human subjectiveexperience. Human subjective experience is of rich content and contains human cognitiveperspectives. Owing to human subjective experience varying from person to person, humancognitive perspectives always make changes. Due to the variation of cognitive perspective,human’s cognition of a same entity is bound to be relative. As a result, every boundary divided bypeople in the world is of cognitive relativity, and so is family resemblance in cognitivecategorization. Therefore, categorization formedbythefamilyresemblanceisalso relative.(2) Both metaphor and metonymy own five distinctive features: cognitive domain, cognitivefoundation, cognitive function, prominent feature and semantic expression. Affected by someconditions, these five distinctive features can respectively make mutual conversion betweenmetaphor and metonymy, which can drive the mutual transformation between metaphor andmetonymy. The very conditions mentioned above include the variations of the perspective, the re- categorization of cognitive object and the relativity of categorization. It is noteworthy that theboundarybetween metaphorandmetonymy isofrelativityratherthan absoluteness.(3) Through the preceded analysis, it can be found that the following three conditions arecrucial for the mutual conversion between metaphor and metonymy: the variation of theperspective, the re-categorization of the cognitive object and the relativity of the categorization.Influenced by these three conditions, distinctive features can respectively undergo mutualconversion between metaphor and metonymy, which can give rise to the mutual transformationbetween metaphor and metonymy. Such transformation can finally lead to a compatible form ofmetaphor and metonymy. In terms of the definition of interface between metaphor and metonymyin this thesis, the interface is the compatible form of metaphor and metonymy produced by theirmutual transformation. Moreover, the interface can connect metaphor with metonymy, which canbuild a relationship of continuum between metaphor and metonymy. In the continuum, metaphorand metonymy is situated respectively on each end and the interface rests between metaphor andmetonymy. Furthermore, the continuum is bidirectional, which implies that metaphor andmetonymy can conduct mutual conversion through the interface. The key to forming the interfaceis the three conditions mentioned above. What should be emphasized here is that cognitiveperspective, categorization and relativity of cognition arise from the thinking mode of subjectivityinteracting with objectivity. Therefore, both the interface and the continuum result from thethinkingmodeofsubjectivity interactingwithobjectivity.