A Study Of Allusions In Four Tragedies Of Shakespeare From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

Figures of speech of Shakespeare plays have being the focus of attention. However, most scholars lay their emphases on oxymoron and metaphor so that studies on allusion are relatively less. They study from perspective of traditional linguistics, which focuses on comparative translation study of allusion, art feature and application of biblical allusions in Shakespeare. From perspective of cognition, there are some scholars focus on metaphor in Shakespeare plays. There are a few scholars interpreting cognitive mechanism of English allusion from conceptual blending theory as well. However, there is no scholar studying allusions in Shakespeare’s Four Great Tragedies. As a result, there is no scholar gives detailed description about meaning construction process of allusions in conceptual blending theory. Therefore, in order to enrich the conceptual blending theory, this thesis will elaborate dynamic meaning construction and cognitive mechanism in Shakespeare’s Four Great Tragedies under the frame of conceptual blending theory.This thesis mainly discuss three questions:1 Can conceptual blending theory gives a reasonable explanation to allusions in the Four Great Tragedies of Shakespeare? 2 Is there any exceptional cases which beyond the explanation in the four networks models of conceptual blending theory? 3 What the effects of allusions in in the Four Great Tragedies of Shakespeare?Hence, this thesis employs conceptual blending theory as frame and adopts qualitative analysis method to collect corpus. Corpus in Shakespeare’s Four Great Tragedies are divided into six categories in source, which respectively are proverb, the Bible, mythology, historic stories and events, literature and others. Through analysis, the author gets three finds:1 Conceptual blending theory can give reasonable explanation to allusions in Shakespeare’s Four Great Tragedies and it can present the process of dynamic meaning construction and cognitive mechanism, which perfects cognitive study of allusion.2 Some allusions need integrate more network types to give a complete presentation for cognitive process when allusions are analyzed in four types of networks.3 Allusions in Shakespeare play important role in rendering sad atmosphere, enriching the image of characters and deepening plays theme.