硕士学位研究生

开题报告与文献总结

课题名称：A Cognitive Interpretation of Metaphor in English

News Headline Based on Conceptual Integration

Theory

概念整合理论对英语新闻标题中隐喻的认知解读

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中国石油大学硕士学位论文开题报告及文献总结

A Cognitive Interpretation of metaphor in English News Headline

Based on Conceptual Integration Theory

Thesis Proposal

Topic Sources and Theoretical Basis

Nowadays, with the development of economy and the progress of society, more and more attention is paid to culture. Actually, language itself is a kind of culture and a carrier of culture. It involves almost every aspect of the society, including international, national, political, economic, cultural, religious fields and daily communication. To analyse and explain a variety of language phenomenon, certain knowledge of linguistics is particularly significant.

Over the years, with the intersection of linguistics and other disciplines, many new disciplines have formed, such as psycholinguistics, social linguistics, communicative linguistics and so on. Since the 1970s, more and more emphasis has been placed on cognitive linguistics. Conceptual integration theory, one of the most important theory of cognitive linguistics, is proposed to interpret people's thinking modes by analysing the language they use. With strong explanatory and persuasive power, Conceptual integration theory provides a theoretical framework for a range of cognitive phenomena. At the same time, it greatly promotes the development of cognitive linguistics. Conceptual integration theory can offer a detailed description and profound explanation of the meaning construction of English news headlines, which opens up a broader prospect for studying English news headlines.

Significance and Relevant Studies

At present, we live in an information age and we are exposed to a vast variety of news reports. Recently, news headlines, the very first part of the news, have received more and more attention. News headlines have a unique role in news reports because they can provide readers a great deal of information at first sight. And a number of experts and scholars have placed much emphasis on this topic. They have described and analysed news headlines from 2

中国石油大学硕士学位论文开题报告及文献总结

many perspectives, including their language features, functions, translation and figures of speech and so on. Nevertheless, all these researches were on the basis of traditional linguistics, rhetoric, translation rather than modern linguistics, cognition and thinking. Consequently, studies on the meaning construction of news headlines are scant.

Conceptual integration theory, a crucial part of cognitive linguistics, has a great explanatory power on the process of meaning construction. News headline reading is very representative of on-line reading. Hence, conceptual integration theory is especially ponderable for the meaning construction process of news headlines. The previous scholars make few researches on meaning construction of news headlines in the framework of conceptual integration theory. To investigate the process of meaning construction of news headlines from the perspective of conceptual integration theory will enrich the study of news headlines, offer an alternative perspective of news headlines study, and lead to a better understanding of news headlines.

Objectives, Contents and Key Problems

According to the fundamental principle of the research, objectives of this study can be summarized as follows:

(1)To provide an alternative perspective on news headlines by analysing news headlines based on conceptual integration theory.

(2)To interpret the meaning construction process of news headlines.

(3)To specify the abstract cognitive integration by examining metaphor in news headlines, to work out the back mechanism in news headlines, and then to help people expand studies on news headlines.

This study mainly explore nearly 300 news headlines from the New York Times, the Times and China Daily to interpret the meaning construction process of English news headlines from the perspective of conceptual integration theory.

To achieve these objectives, this study aims to answer these following questions:

(1)Why are metaphors so frequently used in news headlines?

(2)How do metaphors in news headlines realize the process of meaning construction? 3

中国石油大学硕士学位论文开题报告及文献总结

(3)What are the implications of the present study?

Methodology and Feasibility

The thesis is going to do a cognitive study on the metaphors in English news headlines. Two methods are employed in this thesis, which are quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. It is quantitative because the thesis is date-based analysis. It is qualitative because it is an application in the field of cognitive linguistics. The primary sources for the corpus are about 300 pieces of news headlines from the New York Times, the Times and China Daily. Such a corpus can help the author acquire a more objective conclusion after adequate quantitative analysis.

Findings from a corpus-based research are more reliable than what is gained from intuition or case studies on individual tests. The corpus can present some information about the frequency of certain phenomena. Hence, the corpus-oriented research on news headlines can show the frequency of metaphor and other rhetorical methods, which may not be available for other research methods. Nowadays, a particular corpus for news headlines is not yet realized. However, the feasibility of setting up such a corpus has been confirmed in many cases. Deignan (2005) states in her book the feasibility of building a corpus for certain field studies has been verified in many cases. Rohrer's work on the metaphors of the Gulf War (1995), Patthey Chavezetal's discussion of metaphors in women's erotic fiction (1996) and Block's work on SLA research. (Deignan, 2005, p. 110)

Originality

Numerous scholars and experts have made many researches on news headlines from the perspective of their language features, functions, translation and figures of speech and so on. But there are few researches on meaning construction of news headlines in the framework of conceptual integration theory. Since conceptual integration theory is an indispensable part of cognitive linguistics, my tentative efforts in the thesis lie in:

Firstly, the study concentrates on news headlines from cognitive linguistic perspective, and enriches the news headline studies, and offers an alternative perspective on news headline 4

中国石油大学硕士学位论文开题报告及文献总结

studies.

Secondly, the study focuses on metaphor in news headlines and to explain the potential working mechanism of metaphor under conceptual integration networks.

Outline:

Introduction

Chapter One Literature review and theoretical basis

1.1 Previous studies on news headline

1.1.1 From stylistics perspective

1.1.2 From rhetorics perspective

1.1.3 From mass communication perspective

1.2 Conceptual integration networks

1.2.1 Key terms of conceptual integration network model

1.2.2 Optimality principle

1.2.3 Types of conceptual integration networks

1.2.4 Studies of conceptual integration theory at home and abroad

1.3 Relevant studies on metaphor

1.3.1 Traditional studies on metaphor

1.3.2 Explanatory power of conceptual integration networks for metaphor

Chapter Two Corpus construction

2.1 An evaluation of corpus-based approach

2.2 Date collection process

2.3 Date description and analysis

2.4 Major findings

Chapter Three CIT-based analysis of metaphor in English news headline

3.1 From simplex networks perspective

3.2 From mirror networks perspective

3.3 From single-scope networks

3.4 From double-scope networks

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix: English News Headlines

Schedule of Development and Prospective Achievements

The time arrangement of the thesis is as follows:

2012.03-2012.06 Collecting materials and browsing the relevant literature

2012.06

Finishing thesis proposal and literature review 5

中国石油大学硕士学位论文开题报告及文献总结

2012.06-2012.12 Writing the first draft of the thesis

2013.01-2013.03 Revising the thesis and consulting my tutor

2013.04 Reexamining and perfecting the thesis

Thesis defending 2013. 05

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