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2.1 Studies on metaphor in the West
Shu Dingfang has pided the studies on metaphor in the west into three periods. the period of rhetorical study on metaphor, the period of semantic study on metaphor and the period of interdisciplinary study on metaphor. (Shu 7-8）
The period of rhetorical study on metaphor lasts more than 2000 years from Aristotle in 300B.C. to Richards in 1930. In this period, metaphor is researcher mainly as a rhetorical phenomenon and is often treated as an “ostentatious ornament”(M 47)of languages. Aristotle was the first person who studied metaphor systematically, who made a lot of efforts in his classical works Poetic and Rhetoric talking about metaphor. Aristotle’s interpretation of the mechanism of transference is later developed into “comparison theory”. Which dominates the traditional study of metaphor. In terms of him , every metaphor compares two aspects, one of which is designated by a word or phrase used metaphorically and the other of which is designated by a word or phrase used literally. Moreover, a metaphor is an abbreviation of a simile. In this sense, metaphors and similes are the same in essence.For a metaphor “A is B”. it is to be seemed as A is like B as regards C.(Sun 11)
In the first century, the famous Roman rhetorician Quintillian proposed his “substitution theory”. Quintillian considers that metaphor in fact is a rhetorical phenomenon of using a word or an expression to replace another word or the other communicate. The substitution view makes some mildly modification of the comparison perspective. It interprets metaphor on the basis of the following formula: For the subject A, there can be both literal and metaphorical descriptions B and C, so that a metaphorical sentence “A is B” can be decreased to “A is C” in which C has replaced B.文献综述
The book The Philosophy of Rhetoric published by Richards in 1930. He puts forth two terms, tenor and vehicle, to make a distinction between the two elements of metaphor. The earlier term refers to the real meaning, and the latter is the way of saying it. The similarity between the tenor and the vehicles is called grounding. In the view of Richards, the meaning of metaphor is produced through the interaction between the tenor and the vehicle.
Later, Black developed and perfected the “interaction theory”(Richards 124)on the basic of Richard’s theory. Black introduces the two terms frame and focus, or the primary subject and the secondary of a metaphorical expression. The former is the literal remainder of the sentence and the latter refers to the metaphorical elements, the word or words used non-literally.
Thus, in the view of Richards and Black, metaphor is actually a meaning generating process in which the two subjects interact with each other. In addition, they also identify metaphor as a cognitive actually, whose understanding requires the creative response from a competent reader.
Since the 1970s, with the interest of philosophical explorations quickly turned to linguists, and also with the latest development of studies on semiotics and cognitive psychology beginning to bear fruit,philosophers alike began to shift their attention from the study of metaphor in the confinement of philosophy and rhetoric to a wider context of interdisciplinary study. In this period, there are some outstanding scholars, such as: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson who studied metaphor from the view of cognitive semantics.(Lakoff and Johnson 19)
From the above mentioned, we can say that metaphor is often seemed as including all types of trope except simile in the west.It could be understood as being a rhetorical device or a linguistic transference in the narrowest sense, and as a psychological activity of association in the broadest sense. A metaphorical unit can be as short as a word or phrase, and as a rhetorical device in this thesis because it is of vital importance in constructing the features in the literary work of Wei Cheng.