Acognitive Study Of The Symbolic Meanings Of Animal Words In Shijing

Previous researches of animal words in Shijing(诗经)are in large part done from the perspectives like the literary images,the cultural background and translation and so on,which are pretty and make great contributions to the later studies on Shijing(诗经).However,there are still some flaws that they do not focus on the generation of the symbolic meanings of these animal words in Shijing(诗经).The thesis supplements this flaw from cognitive perspective,and through which this thesis gets the knowledge structure and cognitive operation of people in pre-Qin Dynasty.This study sorts out the animal words covering birds,beasts,insects and fish that possess symbolic meanings in Shijing(诗经)as linguistic data,which refers to some annotations on Shijing(诗经)of some scholars like Zhu Xi,Chen Zizhan,Fang Yurun,Zhou Zhenfu,Cheng Junying and so on.Based on the works of those scholars’,the thesis classifies the symbolic meanings of these animal words in Shijing(诗经)into mainly four kinds:the symbolic meanings about emotion;the symbolic meanings about ethics;symbolic meanings about politics and other symbolic meanings.Besides,the thesis concludes three main features of these symbolic meanings:embodiment,multiplicity and nationality.Embodiment indicates that the symbolic meanings of animal words are closely linked with the interaction between human beings and these animals,rather than arbitrary;multiplicity shows that the same animal word is likely to symbolize different ideas as the context or subject differs,and nationality indicates that a single animal word may have different symbolic meanings or even totally opposite symbolic meaning due to different cultural background.This thesis shows the generation of symbolic meanings of the animal words in Shijing(诗经).Apart from a few of these symbolic meanings of animal words come directly from myth and ancient totem culture,most animal words gain their symbolic meanings through people’s metaphorical way of thinking.This thesis simulates BIRD,BEAST,INSECT and FISH concept frames and analyzes the cognitive foundations of the generation of the symbolic meanings.Each concept frame contains a lot of elements,while not all of them would be activated simultaneously in a certain context,thus some elements would be highlighted and others hidden.Through people’s metaphorical thinking,the animal words gain their symbolic meanings,and are widely accepted by people due to similar experience.The pragmatic effects of these animal words in Shijing(诗经)can be mainly discussed from three aspects:replacing taboos in that period of time;vivifying the poetry language and motivating people’s imaginations.In a word,through the use of these animal words,the poets are able to express their feelings clear and the readers can understand the theme of the poems better.