低调陈述的认知视角

A Cognitive Perspective of Understatement

本文从认知语言学的角度论证低调陈述是常规语言的表达变体和视角选择,其本质属性是对立,反映了说话人的期待与现实之间的对立,是人们内心世界与外部世界相互交流的异化操作。文章还分析了低调陈述现象的标记性,语义原型范畴等方面。我们试图证明,从认知语言学角度来研究低调陈述,有助于我们进一步拓宽对低调陈述的传统研究,加深我们理解人们是如何从语言的角度对世界进行概念化以及语言和认知的深层关系。

This paper is a tentative study of understatement from a cognitive perspective. Understatement, presenting something as less significant than it is, is motivated by cognitive, linguistic, and social factors and reflects the idea of a speaker providing some contrast between expectation and reality. Therefore, understatement can be characterized by semantic reversal. The paper also analyses such aspects as the markedness and the semantic prototype. Our discussion shows that a cognitive approach to the study of understatement may broaden our understanding of the issue in question, and further our comprehension of how language conceptualizes the external world and of the underlying relationship between language and cognition.