摘要
Personification is widely acknowledged for its central role in the understanding of a nation.However,empirical evidence of its pervasiveness in authentic language data is lacking.In a selfbuilt corpus of news report,this study coded,categorized,and analyzed the metaphoric and metonymic use of two country names:China and Australia.The distribution of the use of country names shows a continuum ranging from the literal,through metonymy,to metaphor.A clear majority of the figurative use of national names in the corpus lies in the category of metonymy,and the fuzzy area between metonymy and metaphor.In contrast,metaphors only take up a minor proportion,and most of them are based on metonymic link.By examining the mundane and seemingly literate use of country names,this study exemplifies that consistent patterns of conventional metonymy and metaphor are able to incur significant cognitive impact.Thus,this study calls for more attention on metonymy and metonymy-metaphor interaction in empirical studies on metaphor.
国家拟人化被普遍认为对国家的理解有着重要影响,但是该隐喻在自然语言中的普遍性缺乏实证研究。本文对自建经济新闻语料库中"中国"和"澳大利亚"两个国名的所有隐喻性和转喻性使用进行了标注、分类和统计。结果显示国名使用的分布体现了本义到转喻再到隐喻的连续体。典型的隐喻仅占国名修辞性使用的很小比例,且大都以转喻为基础,而转喻及介于转喻和隐喻之间的国名修辞性使用占绝大多数。虽然这些转喻和隐喻大都看起来平常,甚至不被认为是修辞性表达,但本文举例说明了其在新闻报道中的大量使用所形成的语言模式可能产生显著的认知影响。因此本文认为隐喻相关实证研究应重视转喻及转喻和隐喻的互动关系。
基金
The present study is part of the Chinese MOE Key Research Project of Humanities and Social Science(Project No.16JJD740006)conducted by the Centre for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics,Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.