Embodied-Cognitive Mechanism in the Formation of Oxymoron Construction and Its Constraints
Based on the Embodied-Cognitive Reference Point and the Principle of Perspectivization,this paper proposes the ECRP-based Perspective Opposition-Fusion Model to investigate the embodied-cognitive mechanism of the formation of oxymoron construction and its general constraints.The study reveals that oxymoron construction is not just a rhetoric device,but a reflection of embodied-cognitive processing of the complex and changing world.In the process of embodied interaction,the conceptualizer highlights the binary features of a reference point in the first activated dominion.Opposite perspectives are thus formed to make access to two opposite targets that bear referential identity.However,through embodied-cognitive accommodation,the opposite perspectives are fused on an ad hoc basis,triggering a dominion shift from the first to the second.In this new dominion,the two targets opposing to each other in the first dominion are unified as a new reference point to reach a new target,thus bringing a brand-new understanding of the conceptualized.Such embodied-cognitive mechanism raises two general constraints for oxymoron construction and makes it a unique one:a seemingly acceptable grammatical form which bears semantic oppositeness and pragmatic unification.