The Working Mechanism of Conceptual Blending Theory in Metaphor Understanding

Abstract

Cognitive linguistics is an approach to language that is based on people's experience of the world and the way people perceive and conceptualize it. Metaphors abound in Mao Zedong's poems. These frequent and substantive metaphors play an important role in expressing the theme of the poetry. The author of this paper attempts to study the metaphors in Mao's poems from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, especially from the conceptual blending theory, on the premise of understanding metaphors comprehensively, and testifies the conceptual blending theory's explanatory power in cognitive linguistics.