Analysis of Grammatical metaphor in popular words英语论文.doc

Analysis of Grammatical metaphor in popular wordsAbstractThis paper studies the grammatical metaphor in popular words. From the popular words we know that any sentences or words are produced by grammatical metaphor. To start with, the thesis introduces the concept of grammatical metaphor, the concept of metaphorical meaning, and the concept of congruent meaning. Then it shows that grammatical metaphor is a cognitive phenomenon through the popular word “雷” By study the popular word “打酱油” ，we find that grammatical metaphor is a kind of semantic generalization.Key words：：grammatical metaphor; cognitive phenomenon; semantic generalization; popular wordsI. IntroductionThe thesis aims to make an analysis of grammatical metaphor in popular words, intending to find out how the popular words popularity exploit grammatical metaphor is a cognitive phenomenon. Through the analysis of grammatical metaphor in popular words, the thesis also illustrates that one function of grammatical metaphor is a kind of semantic generalization. Then we find that grammatical metaphor is the expression of a meaning through a lexico-grammatical form that originally evolved to express a different kind of meaning. The expression of the meaning is metaphorical in relation to a different way of expressing the ‘same’ meaning, which would be more congruent.II. Literature Review2.1 The Concept of grammatical metaphorGrammatical metaphor has a long history, which dated back as early as the classical Greek and Roman period in Europe and the Spring and Autumn Period in China in the sense that the naming of grammatical terminology was inspired by the metaphorisation of the real world. It was widely practiced in the medieval period by metaphorizing grammatical categories to mean phenomena in various domains in the real world. (Hu Zhuanglin) After a silence of a thousand years or so, today grammatical metaphor plays a very important role in the linguistic. It means the possibility of re-setting the relationships between meanings and wordings, which is a central resource for expanding the meaning potential of language. Metaphor study also has a history of more than two thousand years. It can be traced back to Aristotle. The previous study can be roughly divided into two major parts: the classical views and the 20th century’s view. Aristotle’s interpretation of metaphor is a representative illustration of the classical views, in which metaphor is viewed as a device of poetic imagination and rhetorical flourish. The 20th century’s views are various and multi-dimensional, for researchers in very different academic fields have approached metaphor from their own perspectives and established a flood of metaphor theories. However, it can be easily found that most of the previous metaphor study has been focused on the metaphorical expressions at the lexical level of language while those at the grammatical level have seldom been discussed.III. Analysis of Grammatical Metaphor in popular words3.1 Grammatical Metaphor is a cognitive phenomenonGrammatical metaphor Contemporary popular words----“Thunder”(雷)，in communication，is no longer simply meaning. Its meaning is beyond the scope of dictionary definitions, and appears new metaphorical meanings. In my opinion, it is because of the grammatical metaphor. “Thunder” originally refers to a kind of natural phenomenon; its explanation is “cloud make a power voice during discharge electricity” in Modern Chinese Dictionary. “Thunder” usually makes people fear; due to this point its metaphorical meaning is something fun and awful. But before 2005 no one knows this meaning. We say that this meaning is metaphorical meaning of “Thunder”. But from 2006, more and more people know this meaning. So we say that this meaning is the congruent meaning of “Thunder”. In the following figure we can see that from 2006 more and more people know this meaning. The time from 2005 till now is a process people accept the metaphorical meaning. It is a cognitive phenomenon.词词““雷雷””的的普普及及量量0 01 10 00 00 02 20 00 00 03 30 00 00 04 40 00 00 05 50 00 00 06 60 00 00 07 70 00 00 08 80 00 00 09 90 00 00 02 20 00 05 52 20 00 06 62 20 00 07 72 20 00 08 82 20 00 09 92 20 01 10 02 20 01 11 1年年份份使使用用量量（（百百万万人人））2 20 00 05 5 2 20 00 06 6 2 20 00 07 7 2 20 00 08 8 2 20 00 09 9 2 20 01 10 0 2 20 01 11 13.2 Grammatical Metaphor is a kind of semantic generalizationHalliday said that the potential for decoupling and recombination is a basic design feature of human language. The possibility of re-setting the relationships between meanings and wordings, which is a central resource for expanding the meaning potential of language, is grammatical metaphor. Because of this, grammatical metaphor can expend the meaning of words, but it not simply expends the meaning, it’s the semantic transfer and ambiguity. Semantic generalization refers to that words keep less and less original semantic features and constantly produce new use. In this case, grammatical metaphor。