A Cultural Semiotic Analysis Of The Mechanism Of Metaphor

Regarded as the nexus of mind and language, metaphor is pervasive in everyday life. In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have attached much importance to metaphor, such as linguists, philosophers, as well as psychologists who are inclined to approach this interesting topic from different aspects. In terms of semiotic studies of metaphor, theories applied are confined to Saussure’s and Pierce’s semiotics. Therefore, this thesis attempts to apply this theory to the analysis of metaphor in order to provide a new view on the study of metaphor and acquire a better understanding of metaphor.In a broad sense, in terms of the relationship between metaphor and semiosphere, semiosphere is, to some degree, regarded as the culture ground of metaphor and metaphor exists in the semiosphere which is considered as the semiotic space to some extent. Within this semiotic space, texts are elements. In terms of the relationship between metaphor and text, text is regarded as the bearer of metaphor. Further, metaphor can also be regarded as text. In a narrow sense, metaphor is under the influence of semiosphere with various characteristics. Besides, because of the boundary and asymmetry of semiosphere, metaphor unavoidably goes through the process of translation which exists at different levels. From the perspective of the existence of boundary, metaphor is divided into signs or regarded as text when going through the boundary, that is, the process of translation. By analyzing the communication act in the semiosphere, some types of translation are proposed and then applied to analyzing the problem of metaphor translation, such as the literal translation and non-literal translation. By applying Lotman’s theory of semiosphere to studying metaphor, one can acquire a better understanding of metaphor and a brand-new view point on the study of metaphor.