A Study Of English Animal Idioms From The Perspective Of Conceptual Integration Theory

Idioms are fixed phrases or sentences which are under the long term use and then gradually agreed by the same cultural groups and they are essences extracted from language. English language contains a large number of idioms and these idioms not only provide Western literature with inexhaustible subject matters but also inject vigor into ordinary language.Many English idioms are related with animal, for which the main reason is that animals and human beings live on the same planet, during the long-run interaction, human beings have generated a wealth of association from animals’ appearance and their habits.Then human beings unconsciously connect the attributes of themselves with the characteristics of animals to express rich emotions. Such kind of usage could achieve vivid,concise and profound purposes.Up till now, many scholars both abroad and at home have focused on the study of English idioms. However, most of them carry out studies from the traditional linguistic perspective and their studies are mainly confined to the level of lexeme, grammar,rhetorical effects as well as translation and so on. Their studies yield fruitful results. With the introduction and rapid development of cognitive linguistics, a few scholars attempt to study English idioms from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Although this theory shows some explanatory power in the understanding of idioms, by regarding idiom as a fixed concept relation, Conceptual Metaphor Theory could not reveal the online meaning construction process of English idioms. Hence, this study attempts to apply Conceptual Integration Theory to illustrating the online meaning construction and the understanding process of English idioms.In 1997, Fauconnier formally put forward Conceptual Integration Theory(CIT for short). The theory builds integration network model by means of two input spaces, a generic space, a blended space, mapping, emergent structure and so on so as to expound the mechanism of meaning construction. In addition, conceptual integration network is the core of CIT, which includes simplex network, mirror network, single-scope network and double-scope network. CIT has been skillfully applied to the analysis and explanation of language’s various aspects. However, few people try to apply CIT to the study of English animal idioms.Taking CIT as the theoretical framework and employing quantitative analysis together with qualitative analysis as the research methodology, this thesis employs the four integration networks to analyze metaphorical animal idioms and metonymical animalidioms respectively. Through the analysis, the author puts forward to the following findings: firstly, in terms of quantity, the number of metaphorical English animal idioms is much more than metonymical English animal idioms and among the collected animal idioms, most of them belong to mirror network and single-scope network; besides, from the aspect of idiom’s meaning construction, the process of idiom’s meaning construction is dynamically presented in the four integration networks; meanwhile, four types of integration network provide a comprehensive account of the understanding process of idioms. This study finally proves that CIT has a great explanatory power in revealing the hidden cognitive mental operation on the understanding of English animal idioms and provides a new perspective for the study of English animal idioms in the future.