A Cognitive Study Of The Meaning Construction Of Spring Festival Couplets

The Spring Festival is a traditional festival of the Chinese nation.Pasting up Spring Festival couplets is an essential activity for the Lunar New Year.The Spring Festival couplet is a kind of cultural phenomenon,witnessing the historical and cultural development of the Chinese nation for thousands of years.At the same time,it is a kind of linguistic phenomenon as well,reflecting people's thoughts,feelings,ideals and aspirations and so on.As a compound of cultural values,social values and aesthetic values,the importance of Spring Festival couplets is obvious.The study of Spring Festival couplets in academic circles,however,is not proportional to its great significance and high social status.Although there are a large number of literature on Spring Festival couplets,among which exist less in-depth research achievements.They are confined to researches from perspectives of Chinese linguistic literature,sociology and folklore.The thesis is to study Chinese Spring Festival couplets on the basis of Conceptual Blending Theory,using case analysis to explain the process of meaning construction of Spring Festival couplets.The conceptual blending theory,which was put forward by Gills Fauconnier and Mark Turner,has relatively complete theoretical framework and excellent operating mechanism.It is through four basic spaces,emergent structure,mapping and projection,compression of vital relations to construct conceptual integration networks.The Spring Festival couplet is studied under the Conceptual Blending Theory,from which the author finds that:(i)The four network models of Conceptual Blending Theory,that is simplex network,mirror network,single-scope network and double-scope network,can reflect the dynamic cognitive process of Spring Festival couplets.(ii)Although Spring Festival couplets are brief,the conceptual elements used to construct Spring Festival couplets are rich.What is more,the vital relations of time and space,change and intentionality are often used to compress and blend,thus,the realization of meaning construction of Spring Festival couplets is easier to achieve.This study attempts to analyze Spring Festival couplets from a perspective of cognitive linguistics.On the one hand,it can provide a new angle of view for the study of Spring Festival couplets;on the other hand,the strong explanatory power of Conceptual Blending Theory is verified as well.