A Study Of Chinese,English And French Euphemisms From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor And Conceptual Metonymy

Euphemism,as a common language phenomenon and language means,has been observed and studied from many aspects by scholars at home and abroad.But most of their studies focus on the perspective of semantics,pragmatics,sociolinguistics,rhetoric,etc..With the rise and development of cognitive linguistics,some cognitive theories are employed to study and analyze euphemisms.In cognitive linguistics,metaphor and metonymy are not merely rhetorical devices but human's ways of thinking.Therefore,it is reasonable for us to analyze and explain the cognitive mechanism of euphemisms from the perspective of conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy theories.This thesis takes typical Chinese,English and French euphemisms as research objects,and applies conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy theories to study them by means of qualitative analysis and contrastive analysis.The study mainly indicates that conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy are both the cognitive mechanisms of Chinese,English and French euphemisms.They both have the function of highlighting positive meaning and hiding negative meaning,and can provide reasonable and satisfactory interpretation of the meaning construction and understanding of euphemisms.The cognitive basis is the resemblance and contiguity or relevance between the source domain and target domain in human conceptual system.Analysis of typical euphemisms in Chinese,English and French have been made,and the result reveals that we cannot fully account for the cognitive mechanism of Chinese,English and French euphemisms either by means of conceptual metaphor or conceptual metonymy.Both of them are needed in order to gain a full explanation and understanding.Through analysis and comparison,the study also indicates thatChinese,English and French euphemisms share many similar cognitive motivations which results from the universality of human cognition based on the same objective world and the same physical experience.And undoubtedly,there are also differences among Chinese,English and French euphemisms,which are from the influence on cognition caused by different cultural backgrounds and different ways of thinking.This thesis is a study of cognitive mechanism of Chinese,English and French euphemisms on the basis of cognitive theories.It is hoped that the study can help us to grasp the meaning construction of euphemisms by way of conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy and play a positive role in understanding the cognitive motivations and the ways of thinking underlying Chinese,English and French euphemisms.