"Hand" Metaphor And "Hand" Metonymy In Modern Chinese

As one of the most important organs of human body,“hand” has been studied and researched mostly based on the extension of semantics,yet researchers tend to ignore the internal motivation of semantic development.The extension of word meaning and human cognition mostly come from body experience and social experience.The interaction between human organs and the outside world establishes the cognitive schema of constructing concepts and understanding the world.Cognitive linguistics holds that human beings master and conceptualize language based on their experience and perception of the world.As a basic cognitive tool and thinking mode,metaphor and metonymy build a bridge between concrete concepts and abstract concepts to realize the conceptualization of language.Many scholars believe that the extended meaning of hand is the product of metaphor and metonymy.The cognitive mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy are different,but the boundaries between them are vague and integrated.The current research focuses on the role of conceptual metaphor,neglects the basic functions of conceptual metonymy,and rarely involves the analysis of the boundary and integration of the two.Based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Metonymy Theory,combined with the framework of metaphtonymy,this paper searches and classifies the metaphorical and metonymic expressions of “hand” in modern Chinese from the CCL corpus and Modern Chinese Dictionary,Chinese Dictionary,Xinhua Dictionary and Shuo Wen Jie Zi with qualitative methods,and summarizes the extended meaning of“hand” metaphor and metonymy.Besides,this paper tends to explore their cognitive mechanism.The research questions to be answered in this paper are as follows:(1)How to understand “hand” metaphor and “hand” metonymy in modern Chinese?(2)How to understand the phenomenon “hand” metaphtonymy in modern Chinese?(3)What arethe cognitive operating mechanisms of “hand” in sense extension?The major findings of the study are the followings:(1)“Hand” metaphor can be used as source domain and target domain and it mostly exists in the mapping between the entity domain and the abstract domain,the action domain and the psychological and emotional domain.“Hand” metonymy highlights the functional characteristics of the hand,which is related to the flexibility of the hand.(2)The boundary of metaphor and metonymy of hand are not absolute,but interactive and inseparable.Conceptual metonymy is more fundamental than conceptual metaphor.(3)The common cognitive basis of metaphor and metonymy is the empiricist view,in which metaphor enriches and extends expression by means of qualia structure and metonymy by means of prominence.This paper attempts to analyze the conceptual nature and classification of metaphor and metonymy.In addition,it will reveal the cognitive mechanism of hand metaphor and metonymy.In practice,the study of “hand” metaphor and metonymy can greatly enlighten our study of other metaphors and metonymies,and help to improve and deepen cognitive research.On the other hand,cognitive metaphor theory and cognitive metonymy theory can be extended to other problems in cognitive linguistics.In addition,the conceptualization of “hand” is not only a matter of language,but also of culture and society.Through the study of Chinese metaphor and metonymy,it is more convenient to summarize the characteristics of Chinese culture and provide richer materials for English textbooks.