Why Metametonymic Argot in the Publicity Texts of China’s National College Entrance Examination Scores?

Abstract

After China’s National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in recent years, some high schools tend to publicize their NCEE scores by QQ groups, WeChat groups, or posters in an implicit manner due to the inconformity of NCEE-score publicity with the present educational policy in China. NCEE-score publicity texts are now presented like a discussion of harvest events such as a harvest of a type of plant or animal. This paper studies how and why such texts occur. It has been found that: 1) each text is a metaphorical one, mapping plants, animals or other things onto NCEE testees, 2) each text is a textual configuration by metaphor chains of a harvest of plants, animals or other things, 3) the metaphors in each text are also metonymies, hence metametonymies, 4) all expressions in such a text make a metametonymic argot, and 5) each text is rich in pragma-rhetorical values. Be that as it may, in the context of maintaining NCEE fairness, NCEE-score publicity texts, however implicit, should not be encouraged despite their cleverness in evading official punishment.