论文总字数：53336字

摘 要

在认知语言学的研究中，转喻是一个强大的认知工具。它在人类语言使用中扮演着十分重要的角色， 反映了人类认知的重要形式。依照认知语言学家所言，

语言基于我们对于世界的经验感知，是我们感受世界并使之概念化的方式。人们相信，我们的思维是体验式的，即用来组成我们概念系统的结构成长于我们身体自身的体验以及对于这种体验的感知。此外，我们概念系统的核心是直接以感知、身体运动和社会角色的体验为基础的。思想是具有创造性的，这种具有创造性的能力让抽象的思想把我们带到所见和感觉以外的意识里。就像转喻通常是基于身体体验，这种创造性的能力也是体验式的。这篇论文为了阐明转喻和体验认知之间的微妙关系，对转喻的认知机制作了简要的分析。

关键词：转喻；认知机制；体验认知

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Development of Metonymy Studies 1

2.2 Definition of Embodied Cognition 2

3. Metonymy as Cognitive Instruments 3

3.1 The Cognitive View of Metonymy 3

3.2 Metonymic Mapping 5

3.3 Metonymic Thinking in Experiences 8

4. Embodied Cognition in Metonymy 9

4.1 Physiological Metonymies and Sentiments 9

4.2 The Metonymic Background of Speech Acts 11

4.3 Embodied Cognition Governing the Meonymy 12

5. Conclusion 16

Works Cited 17

1. Introduction

Metonymy is considered as a type of figure of speech in a traditional way, i.e. as a decorative device employed in rhetorical manner more or less. Today, metonymy was still prevailingly seen as a matter of language, namely, it was basically seen as a figure of speech, especially figurative or literary one. For the sake of analyzing traditional rhetoric and metonymic relationships, we need to analyze metonymy with conceptual notions, for instance, ‘container-contents’, ‘cause-effect’, etc. Classic definitions manifest this viewpoint of metonymy and they tend to explain metonymy as “a figure of speech that consists in using the name of one thing for that of something else with which it is associated” (Webster’s, 2002). Definitions like these involve the replacement of the title of one thing for another thing and the way how the two things are connected.

When we turned to a cognitive view of figurative language we somehow lost sight of the role played by metonymy in our conceptualization of the world. However, expressions like ‘talks between London and Paris’ indicate that this phenomenon also play an important part in everyday language. Besides, cognitive linguists and philosophers have indicated that metonymy is a mighty cognitive instrument for all human beings to experience and conceptualize the world.

2. Literature Review

Metonymy itself is a cognitive course, during which the inter-medium (one conceptual substance) offers mental passage to the goal (another conceptual substance) in an identical idealized cognitive model (ICM). In order to figure out the relationship between the metonymy and its corresponding embodied and cognitive facets, we can turn to some previous metonymy studies in history as well as several former definitions of embodied cognition.

2.1 Development of Metonymy Studies

Cognitive linguists have devoted their primary research to studying metaphorical hierarchy systems on different languages around the world since the publication of Lakoff and Johnson (1980)’s work “Metaphors We Live By”, but the cognitive study of metonymy has received relatively less attention.

Works on metonymy have primarily focused on building definitional and typological standard, studying the metonymic grounding of metaphor, and its role in conceptual interaction from the eighties to the nineties,. Most of this research has been concerned with the conceptual level of analysis.

In 1987, Lakoff modeled metonymy in the cognitive literature as Idealized Cognitive Models (ICMs). Then, Croft studies contiguity relations on the basis of encyclopedic knowledge characterization within a domain matrix in 1993. After that, Blank (1999) and Thornburg (1999) respectively use the notion of frame and scenario to represent the net of conceptual contiguity.

Although all of these models are relatively different in regard to a cognitive basis, it is Lakoff’s ‘Idealized cognitive models’ (ICMs) may grasp metonymic courses best of all.

2.2 Definition of Embodied Cognition

In philosophy, embodied cognition holds that an agent’s cognition is strongly influenced by aspects of an agent’s body beyond the brain itself. In their proposal for an enactive approach to cognition, Varela et al. defined ‘embodied’:

“By using the term embodied we mean to highlight two points: first that cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensomotor capabilities, and second, that these individual sensomotor capabilities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context.”

The Varela’s definition is broad enough to overlap the views of extended cognition and situated cognition, and indeed, these ideas are not always carefully separated. For example, according to Michael Dawson, the relationship is tangled:

“In viewing cognition as embedded or situated, embodied cognitive science emphasizes feedback between an agent and the world. We have seen that this feedback is structured by the nature of an agent’s body…This in turn suggests that agents with different kinds of bodies can be differentiated in terms of degrees of embodiment…Embodiment can be defined as the extent to which an agent can alter its environment.”

Some authors describe the dependence of cognition upon the body and its interactions with the environment by saying cognition in real biological systems is not an end in itself but is constrained by the system’s goals and capabilities. However, Milkowski argues, such constrains do not mean cognition is set by adaptive behavior alone, but cognition requires “some kind of information processing…the transformation or communication of incoming information”, the acquiring of which involves “exploration and modification of the environment.”

George Lakoff and his collaborators have developed several lines of evidence that suggest that people use their understanding of familiar physical objects, actions and situations (such as containers, spaces, trajectories) to understand other domains. Lakoff argues that all cognition is based on knowledge that comes from the body and that other domains are mapped onto our embodied knowledge using a combination of conceptual framework, image schema and prototypes.

3. Metonymy as Cognitive Instruments

3.1 The Cognitive View of Metonymy

Metonymy is a figure of speech in which a thing or notion is called not only by its name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or notion. Metonymy possesses a referential function, which capacitates us to make use of one substance to stand for another. It also serves the function of providing understanding, i.e. cognition.

Metonymy has invariably been considered as conceptual rather than purely linguistic terms, which is totally different from metaphor. The cognitive view of metonymy put forward here makes the following three hypotheses.

3.1.1 Metonymy as a Conceptual Phenomenon

Indicated by Lakoff and Johnson, metonymy is part of our everyday way of thinking, like metaphor, is based on human’s bodily embodiment, is subordinate to systematic and general methods and principles, and it makes up our behaviors and ideology most importantly. Let’s look at Lakoff and Johnson’s example of the metonymy:

(1) She’s just a cute face.

It shows us the conceptual feature of metonymy in this case. People can derive the essential message about somebody from his or her facial expression. The conceptual metonymy ‘the face for somebody’ is part of our everyday thinking about everyone around us.

In Lakoff’s (1987) research of metonymic models, he argues that a member of a scope can stand for the whole scope, and hence explain some representative effects. In the composition of scopes, the conceptual feature of metonymy is more overtly manifested. Even though the sub-member kept unnamed, we still tend to call to mind the scope ‘mom’ according to the representative member when shown the representative sub-scope ‘housewife-mom’. We can reach a decision that mainly all scopes are composed metonymically because most scopes have representative composition.

3.1.2 Metonymy as a Cognitive Course

Metonymy is conventionally defined as a relation concerning replacement, the standpoint of which is manifested in the notion applied to account for metonymic relations, that is, A represents B. However, metonymy interconnects them to make a novel and intricate meaning rather than simply replace one substance for another. This can be illustrated by the following example proposed by Warren (1999: 128):

(2) “We do not refer to music in ‘I like Mozart’, but to music composed by Mozart; we do not refer to water in ‘The bathtub is running over’, but to the water in the bathtub.”

An additive notion ought to be used to represent metonymic relationships more adequately according to this case. We can express this relationship in a formula like ‘A B→ NEW MEANING’.

Metonymy is a cognitive course where one conceptual substance as a ‘reference point’ that offers mental passage to the purposeful goal, i.e. another conceptual substance. We will imply the reference-point substance as the ‘inter-medium’ and the purposeful substance as the ‘goal’. As in the example (1), the ‘cute face’ plays the part of the inter-medium to access the ‘person’ as the ‘goal’.

3.1.3 Metonymy Operating within an ICM

‘Contiguity’ is the core conception of the most definitions of metonymy. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) call to mind contiguity linked to an expression as the full extent of conceptual connections. Lakoff (1987) makes clear contiguity of metonymy under the frame of idealized cognitive models (ICMs). The ICM notion is purposeful to cover our encyclopedic knowledge of a specific field as well as the idealized cultural models grounded in human life.

3.2 Metonymic Mapping

It is believed by cognitive linguists that metonymy is conceptual in nature and can be understood as mapping course. It means that metonymy can be analyzed as the set-up chosen: source notion, goal notion and mapping scope. The source notion is equivalent to the goal notion in terms of cognitive substance connected by means of certain contiguity relation: whole-part, part-whole, place for person, material for object, etc.

3.2.1 Suitability

In order to see how the notion of mapping scope, we can analyze the metonymies consider the following sentence pairs which illustrate how certain mapping scope by means of providing an appropriate context for explanation may control the suitability of its metonymic mapping.

(3) (a) The academic institution requires more bright heads.

(b) The academic institution requires more hands.

In this situation, the mapping scope ‘academic institution’ invites a relation between head and person/body, which concentrates on the intellectual capacity of human beings, but the relation based on hand and its physical strength would carry little conviction.

Let’s look at another sentence pair:

(4) (a) All hands on farm.

(b) All heads on farm.

In sentence (4)(a) this is due to the fact that the context of physical work suggested by the hinge word ‘farm’ is contextually related. Since it includes the idea of physical work required on a farm, ‘farm’ provides a suitable mapping scope for a part-whole relation between hand and person/body. It seems natural that the notion ‘hand’ is used to represent physical labor. A metonymic relation between head and person, however, does not fit the shipping context equally well.

The representative part-whole relationship of body parts versus whole body or person exercised in the above-mentioned two pairs, but it is in the (a) sentences only that the metonymic mapping is appropriate. This analysis can also be transformed to other types of metonymy, as illustrated by example (5):

(5) (a) The White House has initiated a tax-cutting campaign.

(b) The greenhouse has initiated a tax-cutting campaign.

In this example, only (a) is a suitable mapping scope to ‘US administration’. Within this mapping scope, which also includes the notion of tax-cutting, the place ‘white house’ quite naturally suggests a spatial relation with president. The name ‘greenhouse’ would probably be seen in the context of gardening, which does not really correspond with the notion of tax-cutting, and this would make it unlikely to establish a convincing mapping scope supporting the metonymic link.

Reviewing what has been offered as mapping scope for the metonymies expressed by the (a) version of (3)-(5), it is evident that the number of accordance between source and goal notion over here is not that crucial, as a matter of fact, this relation is with one accord cut down to a part-whole relation or some essential relation else, e.g. cause for effect, place for institution. In the above cases, three facets of the metonymy (source notion, goal notion and mapping scope) are hence portion of single cognitive model, and this makes clear the reason why metonymies are representatively confined to an individual cognitive model. What is more variable and at the same time more significant is the magnitude of encyclopedic knowledge adopted as suitable mapping scope by the community of speakers.

3.2.2 Flexibility

The notion of mapping scope is very flexible. Instead of being tied to a single clearly delineated cognitive model, the mapping scope can be composed as a collection of encyclopedic presentations as well that can be bound up with various cognitive models. For example, when the notion ‘table’ is the source notion for the goal notion ‘people seated around the table’, as in the whole table was roaring with laughter, the mapping scope can oscillate the fairly concrete cognitive model ‘dinner party’ and the more general model ‘social event’. The reason is that both models supply the necessary cues about the convivial companionship that may develop among people sitting around a table. Similarly, the metonymic use of the source notion ‘house’ in ‘the house of Windsor’ based on mapping scopes related to a range of cognitive models such as ‘royal family’, ‘monarchy’ or even ‘English history’.

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：53336字