Textual Metaphor Generative Mechanism and Identification in the view of Cognitive Linguistics

Abstract

Textual metaphor serves as a main feature of discourse analysis and is existed in the whole text, which can be understood and analyzed as megametaphor. Megametaphor refers to a metaphor with only one nounmenon and many metaphorical objects modifying it. Our research will analyze the generative mechanism of megametaphor in three stages including concept, root metaphor and construction process, thus revealing the formation of textual metaphor in the view of cognitive linguistics. Our research also gives some corpus-based methods that can be used in identifying textual metaphors.