A Study Of The Affordance In Metaphor Interpretation:a Cognitive Approach

Contemporary metaphor studies focus more on the nature and mechanism of metaphor while they care only about metaphorical meanings without probing into the generation basis of metaphor. Therefore, this thesis probes into the generation mechanism of metaphor as a kind of intentional activities of the subject within the framework of the Theory of Affordances.This thesis adopts qualitative method and interdisciplinary method to study relevant issues. This thesis aims to study the generation mechanism and related meaning issues of metaphor as a kind of intentional activities within the framework of the Theory of Affordances. Through linguistic data analysis, this thesis indicates the basic role of affordance and the strong explanatory power in metaphor interpretation. Besides, this study gives good answers to some related questions in metaphor interpretation that other metaphor theories cannot do.It has been found that specific metaphorical expression reflect the intentionality of the subject, that is, the subject attaches his or her own intentional value orientation to a metaphorical expression. Therefore, metaphor use is a kind of intentional activities in essence with the intentionality of the subject being the top design. The intentionality of the subject is the core, which motivates a metaphorical expression and goes through the whole process. Affordance in context is the possibilities that enable the subject to take a speaking action. Speaking is a kind of intention ascription based on affordance in context. In a metaphorical expression, the subject ascribes his or her intentional content and intentional attitude to it based on perceived affordances in context. The listener also relies on affordances in context to recognize the subject’s intentionality. Without affordance, intention ascription and intention recognition are impossible. The two processes are the whole of metaphor use. Therefore, metaphorical expressions are intentional speaking activities of the subject based on perceived affordances in context.This thesis probes into the generation mechanism and relevant issues in metaphor interpretation by analyzing affordances in context. In addition, this study indicates that metaphors are intentional activities of the subject based on perceived affordances in context. This thesis aims to provide a new perspective for future metaphor studies.