ABSTRACT

Based on the view that “The meanings that we take most for granted are those where the complexity is best hidden”, the paper attempts to describe the complex cognitive operations at work in the process of proverb understanding. The main goal is to build up a model capable of accounting for how proverbs mean and how speakers within a speech community understand them the way they do. Such a model is not a completely new one; rather, it is built out of a number of already existing models, namely Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Great Chain Metaphor Theory, Stereotype Theory and Metaphoric Integration Theory. Each of these theories reduces to an individual ingredient which fulfills a specific task within the broad model as a whole. The broad model is applied to two case studies in order to indicate how it works in the case of proverbs with simple metaphorical structures and in proverbs with complex metaphorical potential.

摘要

基于“我们认为最理所当然的含义是那些最复杂的含义”的观点，本文试图描述在谚语理解过程中起作用的复杂认知操作。主要目标是建立一个模型，该模型能够解释谚语的含义以及语音社区中的说话者如何以他们的方式理解它们。这样的模型并不是一个全新的模型。相反，它是建立在一些已有的模型之上的，即概念隐喻理论、大链隐喻理论、刻板印象理论和隐喻整合理论。这些理论中的每一个都简化为一个单独的成分，在整个广泛的模型中完成特定的任务。