Pragmatic Cognitive Research on Metaphorical Discourse Understanding

Author: Xu Zhanghong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: Metaphor has traditionally belonged to the domain of poetics and literary studies, but it has recently garnered widespread attention from philosophers, linguists, and psychologists, who regard it as a testing ground for various theories of meaning and language comprehension. It is worth noting that the cognitive tradition of metaphor research has experienced a resurgence, with metaphor becoming a hot topic in the humanities and social sciences over the past 25 years, leading to what is referred to as the "metaphor mania" in academia. This study offers significant insights into discourse comprehension, particularly metaphor comprehension: 1. Metaphor comprehension involves both social and cognitive factors; 2. Misunderstandings are inevitable in verbal communication; 3. Individual differences in discourse comprehension should be given attention; 4. The main views of contemporary metaphor theory should be downplayed. Additionally, this study holds certain reference value for foreign language teaching, especially in cultivating students' "metaphorical ability." This study only provides a preliminary exploration of the process of metaphor comprehension. It is undeniable that the shortcomings and flaws of this study are inevitable, such as insufficiently refined experimental design and inadequate consideration of individual differences. Nevertheless, the author believes that as our understanding of knowledge representation and knowledge processing deepens, as well as our further insights into the process of pragmatic reasoning, the comprehension of metaphorical discourse will become increasingly closer to the cognitive psychological reality.