Cognitive Interpretation Of Plant Imagery In Tang Poems From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

The form of poetry is short and superb,many literati love using it to express their own thoughts and feelings.And when talking about poetry,the status of Tang poetry cannot be ignored.From the perspective of components of poetry,the poets always use objective image as the sustenance of subjective emotion,gradually,the imagery becomes the main component of poetry.The interpretation of imagery is not only conducive to restore what the poets have seen and felt,but also benefit for the reader’s recreation of the poetry.For this reason,the study of poetic imagery has always been a hot research subject.However,in the past researches,most scholars analyze it from the aspect of rhetoric,aesthetics and culture,while there are only a few studies from the perspective of linguistics.Faced with so many types of imageries in poetry,this paper chooses the plant imagery as the research point and applies the theory of conceptual blending in order to analyze the online construction of the meaning of poetic plant imagery from cognitive perspective,and hopes to extend the cognitive interpretation to other imageries.This thesis chooses Three Hundred Tang Poems published by CITIC in 2013 as the research object.In the thesis,the author first analyzes the characters of the plant imageries of Tang Poems,and then classifies and summarizes the plant imageries in poetry.After that,the author uses the Conceptual Blending Theory to conduct cognitive analysis towards the main plant imageries in the Tang poetry.Specifically,based on the relationship of plant imageries in poetry,they are divided into two major categories: one is the independent representation of plant imagery with connotation;the other is the non-independent presentation of plant imagery,which must constitute the meaning with other imageries.What needs to be emphasized is that according to the presentation way of the source and target domain,the former category can be divided into three groups: both source and target domain are clear presented;the source domain is presented,but the target domain is not clear;only the source domain is presented.For the emotional connotation contained in these plant imageries,through a series psychological operation mechanisms: mental spaces construction,elements integration,emergent structure generation,the writer explores the processes of constructing the dynamic meaning of plant imagery in ancient poetry.In addition,through the conceptual integration network,the article analyzes some plant imageries and reveals that the Conceptual Blending Theory is a ubiquitous cognitive mechanism,which has strong explanatory power for the plant imagery in different sceneries.At last,through this study,the author finds that the analysis of plant imagery and even poetry interpretation are susceptible to subjective factors,so three strategies that contribute to a better interpretation of poetry are proposed:(1)expand culture and relevant background knowledge,(2)pay attention to the collection of literary quotation and lexicalization and(3)accumulate physical and psychological experience.In conclusion,the significance of conceptual integration analysis of the plant imagery of Tang poetry is self-evident.On the one hand,it helps to broaden the readers’ cognitive horizon,provides a new perspective for the interpretation of plant imagery in classical Chinese poetry.On the other hand,it helps the readers have a deeper understanding of Conceptual Blending Theory.