概念隐喻理论视界下“鼠”之认知解读——以《汉语大词典》为考察对象

Cognitive Interpretation of"Mouse"from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory——A case study of the Great Chinese Dictionary

鼠乃体小尾长的“微末之物”,却在中国影响最为深远的十二生肖排行榜内名列榜首,成为民俗文化的代表性符号,引发饶有意味的生肖“斯芬克斯之谜”。隐喻是中国传统修辞重要语言手段,作为一种关键的认知工具,对认识客观世界、解密人类心智具有突出作用。以《汉语大词典》为考察对象,从概念隐喻理论视界出发,对华夏民族鼠文化进行系统论证后发现国人于鼠之隐喻认知历经三大阶段:从粮仓硕鼠到财神瑞兽,从腥膻腐鼠到情义礼鼠,从毛虫微物到生育图腾,最终逆袭而成生肖之首。系列概念隐喻映射出炎黄子孙与鼠的生态关系、心灵对话与哲学沉思,为认知语言学增添了全新的隐喻鲜活语料史料,有助于从中国语言学的角度佐证与修正概念隐喻的解释力。简而言之通过对“鼠”之语义发展、词语演变历程的透视,可观中华民族“近取诸身、远取诸物”的动物隐喻史、生态文明史与人类命运史。

As a small animal with a small body and a long tail,mouse ranks first in China's most far-reaching list of 12 zodiac animals,becoming a representative symbol of folk culture and triggering some questions and mysteries of the Chinese zodiacs.Metaphor is an important linguistic means of traditional Chinese rhetoric.As a key cognitive tool,metaphor plays a prominent role in understanding the objective world and decrypting human mind.Taking the Great Chinese Dictionary as the object of investigation,starting from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory,this paper makes a systematic demonstration of the mouse culture of the Chinese nation and finds that the metaphorical cognition of mouse in the Chinese people has gone through three stages:from the granary fat mouse to the god of wealth and the auspicious beast;From smelly rotten mouse to a symbol of ritual mouse;From a small animal to a fertility totems for Chinese,they eventually became the lead of the zodiacs.The series of conceptual metaphors reflect the ecological relationship between Chinese people and the mouse,spiritual dialogue and philosophical meditation,adding brand-new vivid metaphorical historical materials to cognitive linguistics,and helping to prove and correct the explanatory power of conceptual metaphors from the perspective of Chinese linguistics.In short,through the perspective of the semantic development and the evolution of the character"mouse",we can observe the history of animal metaphor,ecological civilization and human destiny of the Chinese nation.