On Emotional Metaphor In Kunqu Opera From The Perspective Of Windowing Of Attention

Emotion is a complex cognitive experience that individuals hold towards the physical world.Metaphor,a common psychological representation,can be viewed as an explicate carrier of emotion to construct well-formed expression in reality.Since 1980s,cognitive research on emotional metaphor has achieved remarkable progress,which primarily focuses on cognitive mechanism of emotional metaphor as well as its classification.However,the deconstruction of emotional metaphor from the attentive perspective is under satisfaction.Kunqu Opera,a pearl of Chinese traditional culture,is known as the father of Chinese opera.Based on the romantic love between protagonists,Kunqu Opera aims at illuminating the significance of the pursuit of human nature,in which the emotional variation that interweaves in the storyline is a highlight.But current research on dissecting the characters' emotion in Kunqu Opera is insufficient and needs to be probed further.In virtue of cognitive linguistics,the thesis explores the correspondence between attention and emotion in Kunqu Opera by means of retrieval tool BFSU Powerconc 1.0 and MIP.It begins with the quantitative identification of numbers and categories of emotional metaphor.Then,it depicts the distribution and features of each category of emotional metaphor.Last,it expatiates the cognitive mechanism of emotional metaphor under the guidance of windowing of attention.The research findings are as follows:(1)Eight categories of emotional metaphor are identified in closed corpus of Kunqu Opera,including sadness metaphor(33.36%),adoration metaphor(15.88%),grumble metaphor(15.51%),anger-hatred metaphor(13.18%),happiness metaphor(11.94%),envy metaphor(5.39%),shame metaphor(3.57%)and admiration metaphor(1.17%).(2)The category of sub-metaphor to construct emotional metaphor abounds in various fields,including organ sub-metaphor,plant sub-metaphor,weather sub-metaphor,abstract concept sub-metaphor,animal sub-metaphor,human sub-metaphor,landscape sub-metaphor,adornment sub-metaphor,season sub-metaphor and food sub-metaphor.It is worth mentioning that the distribution of sub-metaphor in each emotional metaphor is distinctive,for instance,the construction of sadness metaphor is largely dependent on the organ(36.14%),plant(17.43%)and weather(16.53%)sub-metaphor.,however,grumble metaphor is chiefly established via plant(24.84%),abstract concept(17.13%)and organ(15.74%)sub-metaphor.(3)The cognitive mechanism of emotional metaphor can be comprehensively expatiated on the grounds of windowing of attention:?In light of human factive and fictive motive path,path windowing unmasks the character's motive path in Kunqu Opera which directly give rise to the directional escalation and realization of character's active emotion;?Within the focus of causal and consequential chain in dynamic contexts,causal-chain windowing profiles the production and effect of negative emotional metaphor(grumble metaphor and anger&hatred metaphor)in a valid way;?Phase windowing,centering on a circulating process,expatiates the cognitive mechanism of sadness metaphor and happiness metaphor by a dynamic circulation with distinct phases(home phase,departure phase,away phase and return phase);?Upon expounding the character's interactive relationship in primary and subordinate circumstance,participant-interaction windowing not only illuminates the construction of character's grumble and sadness in Kunqu Opera but also realizes the representation of emotion accordingly;?On the basis of the correspondence between Figure and Ground,interrelationship windowing elucidates the metaphorical representation of adoration metaphor and anger&hatred metaphor by foregrounding the attentive portions in specific contexts and backgrounding the rest portions.On the grounds of cognitive linguistics,the thesis centers on the correspondence between attention and emotion,exploring the category and cognitive mechanism of emotional metaphor in Kunqu Opera.It contributes to expand the research scope of windowing of attention and shed a new light on emotional metaphor.Besides,the cognitive approach to Kunqu Opera is also conducive to promoting the transmission of brilliant Chinese culture,unveiling Chinese cultural soft power,and realizing the Chinese dream of rejuvenating Chinese nation.