转喻的认知视角研究

1、Metonymy: from the Perspective of Cognition【Abstract】: In this paper, three different assumptions based on the cognitive view of metonymy are discussed in detail. Different kinds of ICMs are involved in the generation of metonymies,thus we believe that metonymy operates within the sameICM. We believ

2、e that metonymy is not restricted to language but is a cognitive process which operates within the same idealized cognitive model.【Keywords】: metonymy; cognitive view; idealized cognitive model(ICM); classification.1. IntroductionMetonymy istraditionally regarded as a figureof speechthatinvolvesapro

3、cessofsubstitutingonelinguistic expressionforanother.Itwasbasicallythoughtofasamatteroflanguage,especiallyliteraryorfigurativelanguage.Thisviewofmetonymy is reflectedin standard definitions, which tend to describe metonymy as “a figure of speech thatconsists in using the name ofone thingfor thatofso

4、methingelse with which it is associated”. The best-known cases of metonymy in this traditional sense are expressions that are used for the propose of indirect referring. For example, “the White House” can be used to refer the executive branch of the American government, a spokesman of the American g

5、overnment or the American president himself, But it is notsynonymouswithanyofthese.The old substitution view of metonymy continues to shine through the cognitiveanalysisofmetaphorwhen certainpattersofmetonymy,suchas CONTAINER FOR CONTENTS are evoked. This explicit or implicit adoption of theview tha

6、t metonymy is just a substitution of one word for another had as a result that researchers mainly looked at one一to一one relations between. In recent years, with the advent of cognitive linguistics, it has been recognized that the traditional view of metonymy is too narrow and that metonymy, like meta

7、phor, has to be recognized as a fundamental cognitive and linguistic phenomenon alongside metaphor. Metonymy is a conceptual tool that operates within “idealized cognitive models” or “domain matrices”. In this view, metonymy is defined as(Radden&Kovecses,1999):A cognitive process in which one concep

8、tual entity, the vehicle, provides mental access to another conceptual entity, the target, within the same idealized cognitive model. The cognitive linguistics makes three assumptions about metonymy that is veryDifferent from traditional view:(I).Metonymy is a conceptual phenomenon:(II).Metonymyisa

9、cognitiveprocess:(III)Metonymy operates within the same idealized cognitive model.2. Metonymyis a conceptual phenomenonOne of the tenets of cognitive linguistics is the focus configurative language use as a central topic of cognitive semantics research. Structural linguists consider phenomenalikemet

10、aphorandmetonymymere rhetoricalorsemantically peripheraldevices. In contrast, cognitive linguists propose that metaphor and metonymy are essentiallyconceptual phenomenathatshowup onlysecondarilyinlinguistic expressions. So farcognitive linguistics has witnessed an overwhelming interest in the role o

11、f metaphor as a conceptual mechanism structuring large parts of our knowledge. Although the notion of metonymy was never entirely absent, it was mostlyrelegatedtotheminorstatusofbeingintroducedormentionedinanessentiallymetaphorical context.However,recently yearshaveseenanincreasing interest in the r

12、ole metonymy plays in the structuring of our conceptual system. Nowadays, metonymy is claimed to be not just a matter of names of things, but essentially a conceptual phenomenon. Like metaphor, metonymy is part of our everydaywayofthinking,it is groundedinexperienceandissubjecttogeneralandsystematic

13、 principlesandstructuresourthoughtsandactions.LakoffandJohnson give us a good example to illustrate the general conceptual nature of metonymy “shes just a pretty face”. As we all know, the basic information about a person is derived fromthe persons face.Itappliestomost cultures.The conceptualmetonym

14、yTHE FACE FOR THE PERSON is part of our everyday way of thinking about people.The conceptual nature of metonymy is even more clearly manifested in the structureof categories(Radden&Kovecses,1999).Inthediscussionofmetonymic sources of prototype effects, Rosch (1978)points out that prototype effects a

15、re surface phenomena and a major source of such effects is metonymy. Lakoff(1987:79)also demonstrates that metonymy is such a situation in which some subcategory or member or submodel is used (often for some limited and immediate purpose) to comprehendthe categoryasawhole,that is tosay,these arecase

16、swherea part(a subcategory or member or submodel) stands for the whole category in reasoning, recognition, etcSince these salient members may not even have a name, thus we believe that the metonymic transfer merely operates the conceptual level. Lakoff uses the example of the stereotypical subcatego

17、ry “housewife mother” to illustrate this point: people usually think of the category “mother” in terms of this stereotypical member even if the submember remains implicitly. The clustering of cognitive models form other results in prototype effects. The source of these effect is the stereotype of th

18、e mother as housewife. Social stereotypes are cases of metonymy一where a subcategoryhasasociallyrecognized statusasstandingforthe categoryasawhole, usually for the purpose of making quick judgments about people. The housewife一mother subcategory, though unnamed, exists. It defines cultural expectation

19、s about what a mother is supposed to be. And because of this, it yields prototype effects. On the whole, housewife一mothers are taken to be better examples of mothers than nonhousewife一mothers. This is the reason why we believe that most categories have prototypical structure and have metonymic struc

20、tures.From the above, we may claim the use of metonymic expressions in language is primarilyareflectionofgeneral conceptualmetonymiesand is motivatedbygeneral cognitive principles.Allmetonymics are conceptualinnature.3. Metonymy is a cognitive processTraditionallyspeaking,metonymy is arelationship i

21、nvolvingsubstitution, namely, A STANDS FOR B. In “shes just a pretty face” is a substantial expression for “person”, and the whole sentence is assumed to mean “she is just a pretty person.” But this cannot be the whole meaning since “she is a pretty person”doesnotmeanthatshe is pretty“allover”,butit

22、suggeststhatshehasa prettyface. This can be seen in the oddity of a sentence expressing a counter一expectation “she is a pretty person but does not have a pretty face”. The two metonymies, THE FACE FOR THE PERSON and THE PERSON FOR THE FACE, thus complement each other : a persons face evokes the pers

23、on and a person evokes the persons face. Metonymy does not simply substitute one entity for another entity, but interrelates them to form a new, complex meaning. A lot of examples illustrate this point. For instance, “I read Luxun last nigh”, “The kettle is boiling”. We do not use “Luxun” to refer t

24、o the author himself but to refer to the work he wrote. By the same token, we use “kettle, to refer to the water in the kettle instead of the kettle itself. For a sentence like “the burglar was in Sallys mind all day long”, it is reasonable to suggest that the phrase“Theburglar is beingusedmetonymic

25、allytorefertosomeideaoftheburglar. It is that idea that was in Sallys mind, not the burglar him/herself. This is a typical example of the metonymy Thing FOR Idea of That Thing.According to current cognitive views, metonymy as well as metaphor is more than a linguistic device: actually, it is regarde

26、d as a fundamental reasoning and inferential process, which structure our conceptual knowledge. Langacker (1993:30) argues that metonymy is a reference一point phenomenon inwhichoneconceptual entity,thereference point,affordsmentalaccesstoanother conceptualentity,thedesiredtarget.Metonymic process con

27、sistsinmentally accessing one conceptual entity via another entity. The reference-point entity is taken as the “vehicle” and the desired target simply as the “target”. Also in the sentence “shes a pretty face”, the “pretty face” serves as the vehicle for accessing the target “person”. In the reverse

28、 description, “shes a pretty person”, the “person” serves as the vehicle for accessing the personspretty faceas the target. In either construal, both thevehicleandthetargetare conceptually present. However,oneofthem is seenasbeingmoresalientthantheotherand is thereforesingled outasthevehicle.Traditi

29、onal definition formulates that metonymy embodies a relation of substitution, in a formula of X FOR Y. Here, we suggest that using an additive notation such as X PLUSYshouldmoreadequatelyrepresentmetonymic relationshipsthanXFORY.4. Metonymy Operates within the Same Idealized Cognitive ModelThe notio

30、n of “contiguity” is the key term in the understanding and definition of metonymy, to which both traditional rhetorician and cognitive linguists agree. However,traditionalapproacheslocatecontiguityrelationships intheworldofreality, whereas cognitive approaches locate them at the conceptual level.Jak

31、obsonbelievesthatmetonymyseemsto presupposea semantic contiguity between linguistic signs. Roudet claims that metonymy is based on contiguity between ideas, which is conceptual contiguity. Lakoff accounts for metonymic contiguity within the framework of idealized cognitive models(ICMs). Koch (1999)

32、takes contiguity as the relation that exists between elements of a frame or between the frame a whole and its elements. Croft(1993) deals with contiguity relations in terms of encyclopedic knowledge representation within a domain or domain matrix, Blank (1999) and Panther & Thornburg (1999a) describ

33、e the network of conceptual contiguity by using the notion of frame an scenario,respectively.TheICM concept is meantoincludenotonly peoples encyclopedicknowledge of a particular domain but also the cultural models they are part of. ICMs are considered products of human conceptualizing capacities: th

34、ey are composed of complex conceptsandgeneral categories,and correspondtothe conceptual structuresavailabletohumansformakingsenseoftheirexperience.Metonymic connectorsare takentooperateamongelementsbelongingtoasingleICM.Speakersaretypicallyabletolearn new connectorsaccordingtothevariousmappingsamong

35、objectsthey are encouraged to perform on experiential or cultural grounds. The idea behind Nunbergs andFauconniers accountsofmetonymy,i.e.theexistenceofassociations licensed by cultural/experiential factors, was taken up and developed by cognitive linguists. According to Lakoff(1987:84一5), metonymy

36、is not a linguistic object, but a conceptual or cognitive organization expressed by a linguistic object. This cognitive organization corresponds to a“metonymic model” and has the following characteristics.According to Lakoff (1987:68), ICM is a complex structured whole, a gestalt, which usesfourkind

37、sofstructuringprinciples: propositionalstructure,asinFillmoresframes; image一schematic structure, as in Langackers cognitive grammar; metphoric mappings, as described by Lakoff and Johnson;metonymicmappings,asdescribedbyLakoffandJohnson.Each ICM is believed to structure a mental space as proposed by

38、Fauconnier.Take the English word “Tuesday” as an example. Tuesday can be understood only when we have an ICM that includes the natural cycle defined by the movement of the sun, thestandardmeansofcharacterizingtheendofonedayandthebeginningofthenext, and a larger seven一day calendric cyclethe week. In

39、the ICM, the week is a whole with seven parts organized in a linear sequence; each part is called a day, Tuesday is thethirdday.The sign ICM units a form and one or more concepts. For instance, the word form“dollar”orthedollarsign“$” areintimately connected with the “currency denomination of dollar”

40、, “currency”, or “money” in general. As a rule, the form metonymically stands for the concept it denotes. Lakoff and Turner claim that the very nature of language is based on this metonymic principle. They describe it as WORDS STAND FOR THE CONCEPTS THEY EXPRESS. As a matter of fact, human languages

41、 as well as other communication systems are in essence metonymic. Thereasonforthis is thatwe humanbeingshavenoother choicesbutdependonlanguageformsto communicateour concept.5. Classifications of Metonymies Trying to develop taxonomies of metonymies arouses great interests inCognitive Linguistics (Dr

42、iver, 1993;Kovecses and Radden, 1998, 1999; Panther andThornburg, 1999). The main purpose for linguists to classify metonymies is to get aclearer picture of the exact nature of metonymy. Panther and Thornburg (1999) haveprovided a particularly appealing proposal. They have classified metonymiesaccor

43、ding to the scope of action of the metonymy and have distinguished three maingroups: referential, predicative and illocutionary. In referential metonymies a singleconcept is used to stand for another (e.g. Shes been dating a farm hand, where handstands for worker); in predicative metonymies a statem

44、ent is used to refer to adifferent statement (e.g. Ill be brief stands for I will speak briefly); and inillocutionary metonymies one illocutionary type stands for another (e.g. the assertion Idont know where the bus stop is stands for the question Where is the bus stop?).Panther and Thornburg (I998)

45、 have enlarged the traditional scope of metonymy, thesignificant contribution of their classification is that for them metonymy is notrestricted to the referential type and research on metonymy needs to be carried outfrom a broader perspective. But we have to admit that there must be certaindeficien

46、cies in every theory and theirs is no exception. The biggest deficiency is thatthey can not explain why some metonymies have an impact on grammaticalorganization while others do not. Besides, their account does not encompass all kindsof metonymy as evidenced in(1): (1)The poor dog left with its tail

47、 between its legs. Suppose that this is uttered in a specific context in which the speaker is talkingto a friend about the punishment his dog has received. It is easy for us to find ametonymic mapping in his utterance. The actual leaving of the dog with its tailbetween its legs metonymically stands

48、for the whole situation in while the dog afterbeing punished runs away in that manner. Since this metonymy is not in accord withany of the three types already mentioned, it seems that the scope of Panther andThornburgs typology can not account for it. Kovecses and Radden(199$, 1999) put forward anot

49、her classification. Basedon the previous research, they have pointed out the existence of a set ofmetonymy-producing relationships or generic principles in their influential paperTowards a theory of metonymy (Radden&Kovecses, 1999). They think that one ofthe most basic problems typologies pose is to

50、 describe metonymy on different levelsof abstraction. Borrowing the ideas from Kovecses and Raddens (1998, 1999), Ruizde Mendoza (2444) tries to suggest that it is possible to refine Panther andThornburgs(1999) typology by making a distinction between low-level metonymiesand high-level metonymies. L

51、ow-level metonymies are those which make use ofnon-generic idealized cognitive models in their activation. Non-generic ICMs areconventional representations based on experience which specify elements and theirproperties and relations. Within this group, two further subtypes can be distinguished:propo

52、sitional and situational. Propositional metonymies correspond to typical casesof metonymy where a concept stands for another in a domain-internal relationship.Look at the following examples:(2)(a) Tired faces all of them, some old, some young. (b) Blufton smiled with pleasure and kept searching for

53、their faces. These sentences are typically generated by the concept metonymy FACE FORPERSON instantiate the mapping between the source domain face and the targetdomain (subdomain) person.Regarding (2a), faces is used to stand for people.This is possible on the basis of our experience that a persons

54、tiredness is particularlyevident in his face. Similarly, (2b) is based on the fact that the face, over other body parts, provides the easiest way to recognize a person. Lakoff (1987) notes that this metonymy works actively in our culture as the tradition of portrait shows. Panther andThornburg(1998)

55、 also observe that passport photos, which have a clear identifyfunction, only include this body part. In a situational metonymy, a highly striking or otherwise most salient elementof a specific situation is used to stand for the larger event of which it forms part.Sentence(1)above is a typical case

56、of this metonymy, we believe that the partialscene of the dog leaving with its tail between its legs activates the full picture of thedog being punished and leaving in the form described. As we have discussed in the first part of this chapter, ICM plays a central rolein the understanding and generat

57、ion of metonymy. Without doubt, the understandingand generation of high-level metonymies are no exception. We assume that they makedirect use of generic ICMs, which are in turn abstractions over a number ofnon-generic ICMs. It is this generic character that allows them to operate atnon-lexical level

58、s and to underlie several grammatical phenomena (Ruin de Mendoza2000). As is the case with low-level metonymies, this group can also be furthersubdivided into two kinds of metonymies: propositional and situational. The formeroperates in most cases of what may be called grammatical metronymic, i.e.,

59、ametonymy which has consequences in terms of linguistic structure. For example, (3)contains the metonymy INSTRUMENT FOR ACTIN. As a consequence of themetonymy, a shift of category takes place from noun to verb, which, in turn, bringsabout the reorganization of the clause:(3)He hammered the nail into the wall. The latter group subsumes Panther and Thomburgs (1998, 1999) illocutionarymetonymies, which we will