文档介绍：湘潭大学
硕士学位论文
转喻的认知研究
姓名:曹师一
申请学位级别:硕士
专业:英语语言文学
指导教师:刘宇红
20060501
English Abstract
English Abstract

Metonymy is traditionally viewed as a figure of speech that involves a process of
substituting one linguistic expression for another. The definitions to metonymy, the
classification of metonymy, and parison between metonymy and synecdoche are
main aspects of metonymy in a rhetorical treatment. With the development of cognitive
linguistics, it is generally believed that metonymy is a cognitive process much more than a
linguistic device.
This paper firstly offers a traditional view on metonymy, and points out the defects of
the rhetorical, structuralist and pragmatic approach to metonymy.
The rhetorical approach regards metonymy as a mere rhetorical device. The
structuralist approach only lays stress on the referential function of metonymy, though
some structuralist linguists has paid attention to the relationship between metonymy and
metaphor. Traditional pragmatic approaches realize pragmatic functions of metonymy and
prove the vital role of metonymy plays in pragmatic inferencing. Nevertheless, it has no
good explanation to the speed and effortlessness of metonymic inferencing, and the
cognitive nature as well. The Gricean approach and Searle’s speech act theory will be given
details to.
For the purpose of tackling these problems, the present paper studies metonymy from
the cognitive perspective. It believes that metonymy is a cognitive process in which one
conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental access to another conceptual entity, the
target, within the same idealized cognitive model. Based on this definition, a more
scientific classification of metonymy and a parison between metonymy and
metaphor is presented.
In the interpretation of metonymy, cognitive approaches bridge the gaps in traditional
approaches. This paper presents three cognitive approaches to metonymy. Panther &
Thornbur