| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 語言所 === 98 === Metonymy, at first, is regarded as a rhetorical device of referring to things; it is viewed traditionally as a relation in which one linguistic expression ‘stands for’ another. In terms of Cognitive Linguistics, however, metonymy is now taken as a cognitive process in which a conceptual element, reference point, provides mental access to another conceptual entity, target, within the same cognitive model (Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1993, 2000; Radden & Kövecses 1999; Panther & Radden 1999; Dirven & Pörings 2002; Kövecses 2006). This thesis aims to study referential metonymy and speech act metonymy in traditional Chinese literature with a cognitive and pragmatic perspective.
Based on the conceptual mapping mechanism, referential metonymy, in traditional Chinese literature, can be divided into two types of metonymies: source-in-target (PART FOR WHOLE) metonymy as well as target-in-source (WHOLE FOR PART) metonymy. In source-in-target metonymy, the source domain is a taken as ‘subdomain’ and the target domain is taken as ‘matrix domain.’ In this metonymy, ‘target domain’ is composed of diverse subdomains which may map to the target domain through ‘domain highlighting’ based on the human experience or world knowledge. In target-in-source metonymy, matrix domain is the source while subdomain is the target. In this type of metonymy, the target, which can be seen as ‘active zone,’ can be understood unconsciously by people.
Speech act metonymy is about the mapping between sentences, using one speech act to stand for another speech act. The study found that, in daily conversation, one speech act may active or evoke one Action Scenario which contains three different parts: the BEFORE, the CORE and RESULT, and the AFTER (Thornburg & Panther 1997; Panther & Thornburg 1998, 1999). Through BEFOR FOR WHOLE metonymy and AFTER FOR WHOLE metonymy people can indirectly express their ideas while through CORE and RESELT FOR WHOLE metonymy people can express their opinions directly. For PART FOR PART speech act metonymy, we found CAUSE FOR RESULT metonymy as well as RESULT FOR CAUSE metonymy in traditional Chinese literature.
Over all, with a cognitive and pragmatic perspective, we can not only reorganize the complicated metonymic types in traditional Chinese literature but also understand the meanings between the lines in an article or conversation. Not only metonymy is a rhetorical device. It is a cognitive strategy and process that people use one salient concept to refer to another concept in conversations.
Keyword: referential metonymy, speech act metonymy, mapping, Action Scenario.
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