Abstract

English is one of the most widely-used languages around the world, and based on the large number of speakers, it is also the most widespread spoken official language throughout the world. Thus, there is no doubt that English is indisputably the major language of the International trade and commerce. And language is firstly reflected by means of sound. Besides, metaphor is popular in daily life. It is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action that it does not literally denote but in order to imply a similarity with no figurative words, but there is strong artistic expression and its appeal and widely used in daily life, namely, news, advertisements, idioms and net-speaks etc.. 

Accordingly, it is of essential significance to recognize, understand and effectively use the combination of sound and metaphor — phonetic metaphor, which first proposed by Ivan Fónagy in his Why Iconicity in 1999. But he just explained the similarity between the pronunciation and the expression of the meaning. Li Hong, the domestic scholar, firstly introduced this concept of phonetic metaphor into China in 2005. When we retrospect the related studies home and abroad, it is not difficult to find out that phonetic metaphor hasn’t been given enough attention and further exploration.

Most of the previous studies of the phonetic metaphor stay at theoretical level, and the objectives of those researches are, to some degree, too theorized to understand. Thus this thesis tries to make a tentative study on the phonetic metaphor in the daily application via providing some rules and principles. As the process of cultural diversification moves forward, learning from the classification and application of the phonetic metaphor sheds light on culture communication between China and other foreign countries and makes contribution to have a better understanding of phonetic metaphor used in daily life.

So this thesis will make a study on phonetic metaphor and its application principles. It is found through different samples analyzed in this thesis that the concept of the phonetic metaphor can be rooted in the daily life such as reading, reporting, translating and so forth. The more attention this thesis attract from others, more people benefit from its characteristics for better understanding of phonetic metaphor in news, advertisements, and idioms and net-speaks. 

Keywords: metaphor; phonetic metaphor; application principles

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-2

  2.1 Metaphor-2

    2.1.1 An overview of metaphor……-2

    2.1.2 Development of metaphor……-2

  2.2 Phonetic Metaphor……-4

    2.2.1 Definition of phonetic metaphor……-4

    2.2.2 Background and development of phonetic metaphor……-5

3. Classification and Application of Phonetic Metaphor-6

  3.1 Classification of Phoentic Metaphor-6

    3.1.1 Homophonic metaphor……-6

    3.1.2 Perfect homonym metaphor……-7

    3.1.3 Phonetic parody……-8

  3.2 Application of Phonetic Metaphor……-8

    3.2.1 Phonetic metaphor in news……-9

    3.2.2 Phonetic metaphor in advertisements……-9

    3.2.3 Phonetic metaphor in idioms……-10

    3.2.4 Phonetic metaphor in net-speaks……-11

4. Principles for Application of Phonetic Metaphor……-11

  4.1 Principles of Iconicity……-11

  4.2 Principles of Contexualization……-12

  4.3 Principles of Culture……-12

5. Concusion……-13

References-15