小说叙事的转喻机制

On the role of metonymy in fictional narrative

本文从事件表征、背景描写和推理的角度探讨了转喻在叙事语篇建构中的作用。研究表明,转喻是组织叙事内容、布局叙事片段的重要依据。在建构叙事语篇时,转喻主要起三个作用:1)支持设置叙事空白,为读者提供丰富的解读空间;2)隐匿某些细节或过程以凸显叙事焦点;3)确保叙事空白可及,使必要的含义推理成为可能。

This paper explores the role of metonymy in constructing narrative discourse from the angles of event representation,background description,and inference.Metonymy is found to form an important basis for organizing narrative content and narrative segments.Specifically,its role in constructing narrative discourse manifests itself chiefly in the following three aspects:Firstly,it helps to build up the narrative gaps for readers to fill;secondly,it helps to highlight the narrative focus by obscuring some details or processes;and thirdly,it contributes to the access to narrative gaps,making possible the necessary inferences in the process of reading.