Ｍｅｔａｐｈｏｒ ｉｎ Ｓｅｍａｎｔｉｃ Ｃｈａｎｇｅ

[收稿日期]2009年9月8日

[作者簡介]張靜(1975～ ):女，空軍航空大學外語教研室助教，碩士，研究方向:英語教學法及翻譯理論與實踐。李姬巍(1981～ ):男，空軍航空大學外語教研室助教，研究方向:英語語言學及英語教學法。

[摘 要]Metaphor plays an important role in semantic change and it gives new senses to words.This paper mainly deals with types of semantic change，semantic motivation and metaphor，semantic depth and figures of speech.

[關鍵詞]semantic change metaphor

[中圖分類號]H059 [文獻標識碼]A [文章編號]1009-5489(2009)11-0118-02

\"Many of the most interesting facts about language have to do with the way it changes over time，both for the individual person，and for society as a whole.Many of the details of the human language processor must be understood in the context of language learning and change，just as many of the physiological and anatomical details of an organism can be understood in terms of its ontogeny and phylogeny.\"

Languages of human beings are changing all the time just like the other things in the world.Among their changes semantic change is the fastest and the most conspicuous compared with the changes of other aspects such as phonology and grammar.There are numerous forms and reasons result in semantic change.First I will talk about types of semantic change.

Ⅰ.Types of Semantic Change

1.change in range

The change in range of lexical meaning includes extension of meaning and restriction of meaning.For example，mouth originally only referred to the animals'mouths，while now it can refer to outlets of rivers and other things.Meat originally referred to all the food but now its meaning is narrowed to the meat of the animals.

2.change in evaluation

During the period of language use，some words absorb pejorative sense and others ameliorative sense.For example，gay originally meant happy，while after it contained the sense of homosexual，the sense of happy only exists in the collocation'happy and gay'.On the contrary，marshal originally referred to person in charge of horses，later on it refers to the officer of highest rank.

There are many reasons for semantic change，while I will only cover metaphor，one of the main resources of semantic motivation.

Ⅱ.Semantic Motivation and Metaphor

One of the motivations of lexical meaning is semantic motivation.Semantic motivation is referring to new or derived sense from the original sense.Metaphor is one of the main resources of semantic motivation.There are four popular metaphors in languages.

1.anthropomorhpic metaphors

Due to the limitation of their cognitive ability，the people in the ancient time took themselves as the standard to measure the universe and thought all things on the earth were the same to them.All the things were not only alive，but also they shared the same body structure with the human beings.Therefore，there are a lot of words formed with the anthropomorphic method in languages，such as the foot of a hill，tree trunk，crown of a tree，and so on.

2.animal metaphors

Since people are very familiar with common animals in daily life，there are a lot of examples with animals as metaphors in languages.Taking Chinese as an example，we can find the nouns of all the common animals have metaphorical sense.

Monkey-shrewd，nimble，slight of figure

Pig-stupid，lazy，gluttonous，dirty

Cat-softly，greedy

and so on.

3.from concrete to abstract

The most conspicuous feature of metaphor is to use certain kind of things to learn and describe the other kind of things.Due to the limitation of human's thought ability，people always need concrete things to know more abstract things.Such as in Chinese，there are cornerstone，peak，mouthpiece and so on.

4.synaesthetic metaphors

The present senses of most of the Chinese words expressing senses were formed by a shift from one sense area to another sense area.For example:pain，shabby and miserable (shifting from sense of touch to sense of taste) lively，sober (shifting from sense of touch to sense of hearing) and so on.

Ⅲ.Semantic Depth

The words have more complex structure than a naive Fregean account might lead us to believe，and this structure is revealed by the possibility of metaphorical use.Expressions may have a primary sense and a primary reference，but metaphorical use is able to activate secondary sense，and thereby generate a new extension for the expression.These subsidiary ideas and associations show that in addition to a primary sense and reference there is also a penumbra of additional associations or meanings.When the literal meaning is deactivated，because of the 1hood of the sentence，a switching happens and the secondary meanings latent in the penumbra are activated.

The penumbra of associated secondary meanings is extremely interesting.Suppose that Mabel is a gorilla in the local zoo.When we say that Mabel is a gorilla，the associated meanings do not intrude at all.But when we apply the description to the man Richard，something interesting happens.As soon as we apprehend that the description is literally 1，which usually happens immediately and unconsciously，the expression becomes semantically charged with secondary meanings latent in the associated semantic penumbra.Metaphors work typically by activating these subsystems of associations described by Black，as a ‘system of associated commonplaces'，and by Mill as'connotations'.

These commonplaces or associations have a habit of hanging around，even after the literal meaning has changed.To be in a political wilderness is not to be in a pristine，unspoiled place of great natural beauty.Even a person who knows what gorillas are really like，may use and understand that word metaphorically in a way which respects not the actual characteristics of gorillas，but the common prejudices that are associated with them.

There are，in short，commonplaces or connotations associated with a large number of expressions，and this constellation of associated ideas provides the semantic charge which explodes when the expression is used metaphorically.

Ⅳ.Figures of Speech

Metaphor is one of a number of so-called figures or speech or tropes，the study of which has，thanks to the onslaught of Hobbes and his empiricist successors，largely dropped out of the curriculum.Simile is an important and closely related figure of speech which，it has been suggested，can help us to understand metaphor.Hobbes thought that all metaphor，not just objectionable cases such as mixed metaphor，was to be eschewed.It is a flaw，he seems to have thought，in the glass of language.There is an elaborate taxonomy of metaphorical tropes which used to be part of the subject‘rhetoric'which includes‘simile'，‘synecdoche'，‘metonymy'，‘catachresis'，‘zeugma'and more.Metaphor is the genera of which these are species and here I am principally concerned with the genera.

Simile is used to draw attention explicitly to a similarity or likeness shared by two individuals.It has been argued，for example by Richards (1936)，that metaphor can be explained in terms of simile.On Richards'view‘Richard is a gorilla'is just equivalent to'Richard is like a gorilla'.There are fatal objections to this proposal.One is that likeness or similarity is too weak a relation to explain any effective figure of speech.Everything is similar to everything else in some respect，if only in that everything has the property of being self-identical.Mere likeness is therefore unhelpful:we need to specify likeness in some particular respect.So if Richard is like a gorilla，we need to understand in what respect，or under what aspect，this likeness holds.And that is going to come from the penumbra of associated meanings.It turns out therefore that simile is on all fours with metaphor and works in a similar sort of way.But simile does have an advantage in that it is by use of explicit simile，such as‘Richard is fierce like a gorilla'，that we are able to unpack metaphor.So simile can be extremely helpful in the important task of providing a paraphrase，or homophonic translation，of metaphorical expressions.

Ⅴ.Conclusion

Metaphor is a tool of conceptual economy，but that does not exhaust its role.It is also a tool of discovery，providing a way of imposing or discovering structure within novel or unfamiliar situations.I have argued nevertheless that the fruits of such discoveries can be restated in non-metaphorical terms.Metaphor is also an important means by which language develops，but again we can provide literal paraphrases of what metaphors convey，at least insofar as we are concerned with their cognitive content.Metaphor may be an ornament to language but it is not merely an ornament and，pace Hobbes and Plato，it need not subvert communication and obfuscate meaning.There is little to be said for restricting our resources to only the drab modes of purely literal description.Language would certainly be much duller，and would more importantly have been unable to develop its complex and powerful resources of generalization and abstraction without the resources of metaphor.

[參考文獻]

[1]Lyons，John.Linguistic Semantics:An Introduction. Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press and Cambridge University Press，2000.

[2]Mao，Maochen.Linguistic Semantics:An Interdisciplinary Science.Shanghai:Xuelin Press，1988.

[3]Nerlich，Brigitte.Semantic Development and Semantic Change with Special Reference to Metaphor and Metonymy(An overview of theories from 1950 to 1990).Google article found after entering'Semantic Development and Semantic Change'.

[4]Su，Dingfang.An Introduction to Contemporary Linguistic Semantics.Shanghai:Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press，2000.

[5]Xu，Liejiong.Linguistic Semantics.Beijing:Yuwen Press，1990.