A Cognitive Reference Point Approach To Conceptual Metaphor In The Book Of Poetry

The working mechanism of cognitive reference point (CRP) is to activate the concept of one entity in order to build mental contact with another, in other words, to pick it out for human conscious awareness. As a very basic cognitive ability, cognitive reference point works in nearly all linguistic phenomena. Therefore, it plays a crucial role in human being’s cognition. But a review of the existing relevant research indicates that cognitive reference point is mainly used to explain some micro language phenomena or applied in the aspects of rhetoric, English writing and so on. The research on cognitive reference point connecting other theories especially conceptual metaphor in cognitive linguistics is obviously lacking, so it is of the essence to explore and conduct deep research in this direction.Based upon cognitive reference point theory propounded by Langacker, the thesis adopts qualitative and quantitative methodology to demystify the conceptual metaphors in The Book of Poetry. Firstly, the implicit conceptual metaphors are discovered and their characteristics are identified by perusing and analyzing poems in The Book of Poetry. Secondly, CRP models of different conceptual metaphors are constructed, then the structured models are integrated together to make a sound and reasonable classification. Finally, according to the categorization of CRP models, some representative conceptual metaphors are taken as examples to be illustrated by cognitive reference point theory, and the relation and difference among CRP models as well as the functions of CRP are explored.The research findings are as follows:(1) the process of employing the source domain of conceptual metaphor to understand the target domain is quintessentially parallel to that of cognitive reference point in which the conceptualizer selects the source domain as the CRP to comprehend the target domain. (2) Cognitive reference point models of conceptual metaphors in The Book of Poetry primarily fall into two main categories:Langacker’s typical CRP model and extended CRP model. The extended CRP models can be further divided into one-to-one CRP model with plural mental paths, many-to-one CRP model and scope-added CRP model. Langacker’s typical CRP model underpins the revision of the rest three kinds of extended CRP models which differ in the number of reference point and target and in the necessity of scope. (3) Cognitive reference point plays a tremendous part in the cohesion and coherence of poetry discourse. By virtue of the visualized and concise CRP model, cognitive reference point is conducive to clarifying the entities in the poem, so readers can take a holistic view on the poem and grasp the theme in the poem with least difficulty.The thesis interprets the conceptual metaphors in The Book of Poetry within the framework of cognitive reference point and thus expands the research area of both cognitive reference point and conceptual metaphor. And the extended CRP models further enhance the explanatory power of cognitive reference point. This research also provides novel cognitive illumination and new perspective of literary appreciation for the Chinese classical literature work The Book of Poetry.