英汉委婉语修辞效果以及语义构建的认知研究

发布时间：2019-02-20 18:22

【摘要】：本文从认知语言学视角对英汉委婉语进行了研究。作为一个显著的语言和文化现象，委婉语得到了广泛的关注。英汉语中都有大量对委婉语的研究。这些研究有的详细考察了其修辞效果和语义特征，对它与其它修辞格进行了区分；也有对委婉语的演化历史进行了考察；有的对委婉语的构成方式进行了较为详细的研究；有的对委婉语的种类进行了划分；有的对委婉语的语体差异进行了研究等等。但是从认知语言学的视角对英汉委婉语进行研究的还较少，包括对其修辞效果实现的认知机制和语义构建的认知动因的研究。这也正是本文以委婉语认知研究为题的原因。鉴于此，本研究在前人研究的基础上，采用认知语言学中的范畴化理论和概念隐喻理论，探究英汉委婉语的修辞效果的实现机制，及其语义构建的认知理据。本文首先考察并归纳了委婉语的主要特征，然后根据这些特征对上述问题进行了研究。根据研究的需要，，本文首先考察了英汉委婉语的特点，归纳如下：首先，英汉委婉语中都存在语义冲突。它指的是在语言意义组合中违反了语义选择限制和常理的现象。其次，英汉委婉语的理解需要外在语境的辅助。因为委婉语表达中存在语义冲突，所以必须借助外在的语境来对委婉语的意义进行正确的解读。最后，英汉委婉语表达中，委婉语和避免使用的词汇之间存在着对应关系。这种对应关系可以保证两者的关联性。根据这些特点，本文从两个层面展开了对英汉委婉语的认知机制的研究，主要发现归纳如下：在第一层面，本文研究了委婉语修辞效果的实现机制。就像范畴化系统是从垂直和水平两个层面展开的一样，委婉语的修辞效果也是从这两个方向展开的。禁忌语和委婉语都是同一语义范畴中的成员，禁忌语处于基本层面或原型层面，当它的语义沿垂直轴线向上位移动，或沿水平轴线向边缘移动时，对禁忌语意义的解读需要耗费更多认知精力。从而避免了直接表达，实现了委婉语的间接和婉转效果。在第二层面，本文根据前述基于范畴化系统的修辞效果机制研究，采用概念隐喻理论分析，发现委婉语语义构建是从通过从源域到目标域的概念投射或激活实现的。委婉语作为源域，将其概念结构投射到禁忌语的目标域。从而掩盖禁忌语的不利联想并凸显有利联想，以此来完成委婉语的语义实现。根据上述研究，本文得出如下结论：委婉语的修辞效果是通过范畴语义延伸实现的；委婉语的语义构建是通过认知域之间的投射或激活来实现的。
[Abstract]:This paper makes a study of English and Chinese euphemisms from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. As a significant linguistic and cultural phenomenon, euphemism has received wide attention. There is a lot of research on euphemism in English and Chinese. Some of these studies have investigated the rhetorical effects and semantic features of euphemisms, distinguished them from other rhetorical devices, examined the evolutionary history of euphemism, and studied in detail the formation of euphemism. Some have divided the types of euphemism, some have studied the differences of euphemism style and so on. However, there are few researches on English and Chinese euphemism from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, including the cognitive mechanism of its rhetorical effect realization and the cognitive motivation of semantic construction. This is the reason why this thesis focuses on the cognitive research of euphemism. In view of this, the present study, on the basis of previous studies, adopts categorization theory and conceptual metaphor theory in cognitive linguistics to explore the realization mechanism of rhetorical effects of English and Chinese euphemisms and their cognitive motivation for semantic construction. In this paper, the main features of euphemism are first investigated and summarized, and then the above problems are studied according to these characteristics. According to the needs of the research, this paper first investigates the characteristics of English and Chinese euphemisms, and summarizes them as follows: first, there are semantic conflicts in English and Chinese euphemisms. It refers to the phenomenon of violating the semantic choice restriction and common sense in the linguistic meaning combination. Secondly, the understanding of English and Chinese euphemism needs the help of external context. Because there is semantic conflict in euphemism, the meaning of euphemism must be correctly interpreted with the help of external context. Finally, there is a correspondence between euphemism and avoided words in English and Chinese euphemism. This correspondence can guarantee the correlation between the two. According to these characteristics, this paper studies the cognitive mechanism of euphemism in English and Chinese from two aspects. The main findings are as follows: at the first level, this paper studies the realization mechanism of rhetorical effect of euphemism. Just as the categorization system is developed from vertical and horizontal levels, the rhetorical effects of euphemism are also developed from these two directions. Taboos and euphemisms are members of the same semantic category. Taboos are at the basic or archetypal level when their semantics move upward along the vertical axis or along the horizontal axis to the edge. Understanding the meaning of taboo language requires more cognitive energy. Thus avoiding direct expression and realizing the indirect and tactful effect of euphemism. At the second level, according to the study of rhetoric effect mechanism based on categorization system mentioned above, and the analysis of conceptual metaphor theory, it is found that semantic construction of euphemism is realized through conceptual projection or activation from source domain to target domain. As a source domain, euphemism projects its conceptual structure to the target domain of taboos. Therefore, the semantic realization of euphemism can be accomplished by hiding the unfavorable association of taboo words and highlighting favorable associations. According to the above research, this paper draws the following conclusions: the rhetorical effect of euphemism is realized through the extension of category semantics, and the semantic construction of euphemism is realized by projection or activation between cognitive domains.
【学位授予单位】：河南大学
【学位级别】：硕士
【学位授予年份】：2012
【分类号】：H313;H136

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