2.1 Theoretical Survey………………………………………………………..…...……3

2.1.1 English-Chinese Contrastive Linguistics (ECCL)………………………….….…3

2.1.2 Speech Act Theory……………………………………………………………..…5

2.1.3 Theories of Cognitive Linguistics……………………………………….……..…6

2.2 Overview of Related Studies on Animal Words…….…………………….…...……8

2.2.1 Animal Onomatopoeia……………………………………………….….…...……8

2.2.2 Animal Assemblage Unit Words………………………………………..………...9

2.2.3 Associative Meanings of Animal Words……………………………..…………...9

2.2.4 National Cultural Semantics and Animal Words………………………..……….10

2.2.5 Animal Words and Rhetoric Devices……………………………………...….….11

2.2.6 Animal Words and Translation…………………………………………………...11

2.2.7 A Brief Summary of the Related Studies……………………………….…….….11

Chapter Three The Reflections on Animal Words.…...……………….……...…..13

3.1 Application in Scientific Field………………………………………………..…….13

3.2 Totem of Minority Nationality…………………………………………….……….14

3.3 Features of National Culture………………………………………………..……...16

4.1 The Illocutionary Force Embodied in Animal Metaphors…………………………22

4.2 Linguistic Vagueness of Illocutionary Force Conveyed by Animal Words...……...24

5.1 Common Property of Language and Human Cognition of Animal Words…….…..29

5.1.1 The Relation Between Animal Images and Syntactical Structures……………....30

5.1.2 The Influence on Human Cognition from Animals in the External World………32

5.1.3 The Gene’s Role in Human Cognition — the Source of Cognition of Animal Words…..……………………………………………………………….….……..34

5.2 Cognitive-semantic Conceptions of Animal Words………………………….…..37

5.2.1 The Attainment of Cognitive-semantic Conceptions of Animal Words………….37

5.2.2 Linguistic Universality Embodied in Cognitive-semantic Conceptions of Animal Words...…………………………………………………………………………...40

5.2.3 The Cultural Universality Embodied in Cognitive-semantic Conceptions of Animal Words……...……………..………………………………….…………...41

Chapter Six Conclusion……………………………………………………………..43

With deep gratitude and appreciation, I wish to acknowledge all those who have offered me help in the course of writing this dissertation.

Special thanks are given to Professor Zhu Yue, my supervisor, who has instructed me with his expertise on which my dissertation is based and constructed. I am grateful to him for his thought-provoking instruction, inspiring comments and invaluable suggestions. This dissertation owes its present form to him for his detailed and critical comments.

Likewise, I express my heartfelt gratitude to all the teachers of the school of Foreign Studies of Anhui University, especially to Professor Hong Zengliu, Professor Chen Zhengfa, Professor Zhou Fangzhu, Professor Zhang Zuwu , Doctor Zhu Xiaomei, and Doctor Zou Jie, whose lectures and courses serve as an unfailing source of knowledge and inspiration in my future study.

This dissertation starts with a literature review. Then, it studies the functions of animal words from three aspects: application in scientific field, totem of minority nationality and features of national culture. After probing into the illocutionary forces of animal words, the dissertation ends with the cognitive analysis of animal words.

A relevant literature review shows that the related studies made on animal words have been confined to scopes of Contrastive Linguistics and translation in Pragmatics. Many researches into animal words merely dwell on cultural connotations of animal words in the field of cross-cultural communication.

The originalities of this dissertation lie in the exploration of animal words from the angles of the illocutionary force and the cognitive concern in linguistics. The dissertation holds that animal metaphors embody illocutionary forces as well as its linguistic vagueness. When indirect speech act is employed to reflect communication intention, metaphorical sentences with animal words create stronger illocutionary forces in communication. Owing to different “goals” in communication, an indirect speech act could produce a linear indirect illocutionary act and a lateral indirect illocutionary act respectively.

It is pointed out in the dissertation that human cognitive-semantic concern of animal words reflects the linguistic universality, human prominence view, attentional view and anthropocentricism.

The pattern of human basic cognition of animal words in linguistics reflects people’s cognitive views and the role of human gene. The arrangement of animal words in the syntactical structure represents the prominence view of cognitive linguists. Because of different perspectives, an animal word, whether it is the salience of a sentence or not, results in a different image in different syntactical structures. According to the attentional view, animal metaphors are from people’s focus on animals’ characteristics, thus enriching human language. Since language is a physiological mechanism controlled by gene and there is an inseparable relation between language and thought cognition, human beings develop the common cognition of animals’ characteristics. In this sense, human gene becomes the source of their cognition of animal words.

As the cognitive-semantic conception of an animal word is mainly attained through the so-called “covert category”, the biological opposition is realized by covert categories of animal words in terms of meaning, coexisting and source. Since the opposition between conceptions about mankind and animals universally exists, the universality of linguistic opposition of animal words shows its “strong universals” and “weak universals” respectively within some domains. The basic universality of cognitive-semantic conceptions of animal words reflects anthropocentricism through the following two aspects: first, degradation will happen when an animal word is correlatively applied to a person; second, animal words are never mentioned along with mankind on the same base.

This dissertation is only an attempt to break through the limitations of the present studies on animal words, and it is hoped that this study will shed some light on further researches into the use of animal words.

Key Words:

animal words cultural connotation illocutionary force vagueness cognition cognitive-semantic conceptions universality

本文首先回顾了相关理论及其研究，然后从科技领域运用、少数民族图腾、民族文化特色三方面解析了动物词汇的功能。在探讨动物词汇所体现的言外功能之后，文章对动物词汇进行了认知分析。

文中对相关文献的回顾揭示了有关动物词汇的研究一直局限于英汉语言文化对比研究及语用翻译的范围之内，许多此类研究仅仅阐述了动物词汇在跨文化交际领域所体现的文化内涵。

本文的创新之处在于立足语言学中的言外行为理论并从认知关注角度对动物词汇展开研究。文章认为动物比喻体现了言外行为并具有语用模糊性。当运用间接言语行为来反映交际意图时，使用动物词汇的比喻句在交际中产生了更强的言外之力；交际中由于施行言语行为的“对象”数量不同，人们可以实施线性间接言语行为和侧向间接言语行为。

人类对动物词汇的认知关注反映了语言的共性和人类认知的突出观、注意观及以人为中心的意识形态。

人类对动物词汇的认知模式表现了人类的认知观及人类基因的作用。动物词汇在不同的句法结构中的运用体现了认知语言学的突出观。由于观察方式和角度不同，动物词汇在句中的位置不同从而产生不同的意象。注意观认为：人类关注动物的特征及其习性，由此产生的动物词汇极大地丰富了人类的语言。因为语言是一种基因作用的生理机能，并且语言和思维认知密切关联，故而导致人类对动物特性产生认知。在这种意义上，基因可以成为人类对动物词汇认知的渊源。由于隐性词义范畴是动物认知概念最为普遍的实现方式，人类与动物的对立模式主要表现在意义、共存关系和来源三方面。人类语言普遍存在人与动物之间的对立，这种对立在不同领域分别呈现了强普遍性及弱普遍性特征。这种文化普遍性所折射的语言观念即是以人为中心的意识形态：首先，动物词汇转用于人，一般引起降格；其次，动物一般不与人类同时并列指称。

本文力图突破当前对动物词汇研究的局限性；作者希望此文对深入研究动物词汇有所启发。

关键词：

动物词汇 文化内涵 言外之力 模糊性 认知 认知语义概念

Chapter One Introduction

Human beings have never been in isolation in this boundless universe. Around us are birds in the sky, beasts on the ground and fishes in the water. If you are a peasant, you will be welcomed by your dogs or mewed at by cats after your farm work. All animals are neighbors to the mankind and our ancestors have named them in our languages. In doing so, our neighbors have come into our languages and made the latter lexically colorful and semantically vivid. The expressive power of our languages is enhanced. As two of the most widely used languages, both Chinese and English are full of animal words. According to Guo (郭著章，1999:9)，animal words consist of names of animals and phrases or idioms involving animal names. It is estimated that there are as many as about 649 animal words in these two languages, according to Liao (廖光蓉，2000:3). It will be implicitly shown in this dissertation that the linguistic analysis of animal words is a multidimensional study that involves lexicology, syntax, phonology, ethnology, and rhetoric. In addition, the study also requires knowledge of zoology, botany, astronomy, and background knowledge in literature, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, and the others.

Superficially, this dissertation deals with the function of animal words in the use of linguistics, but at a deep level, it discusses the problem of how to recognize the essence of animal words used in our language. The tendency to use animal words widely has affected all aspects of human society. Social development and cultural progress cannot be made without language. Any economical law and conception can exist only through linguistic texts, and any culture is hard to imagine without language being a carrier. Meanwhile human most important thinking activity is inevitably realized by language.

It is evident that language development of two meanings (morphological meaning and syntactical meaning) in communication and thinking is closely related with cultural progress. Widely used animal words in the world also strengthen exchanges and dialogues between cultures of all nations, and promote the formation of global cultural pluralism. Of course, linguistics is a universally used science in the course of communication. Further knowledge of linguistics, to be exact, of cognitive linguistics, including cognitive pragmatics and cognitive semantics, is very important to the cognition of animal words used in human communication. It is hoped that the multidimensional perspective the author takes will do good to language learners in enriching their linguistic knowledge, improving their cultural awareness and broadening their future language research field.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1. Theoretical Survey

2.1.1 English-Chinese Contrastive Linguistics (ECCL)

English-Chinese Contrastive Linguistics is a branch of Linguistics, with the characteristics of both theoretical Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, making contemporary and historical contrastive studies of both languages. It describes and explains peculiarities as well as universals of English and Chinese, thus applying achievements to fields of theoretically linguistic research and the application of languages. (杨自俭, 2000:13)

Contrastive linguistics is to compare two or more languages or dialects, and to reveal consistency and divergence of languages. In 1941, American linguist B.L. Whorf first adopted the term of contrastive linguistics in his essay Language and Logic.“ Much progress has been made in classifying the languages of the earth into genetic families, each having descent from a single precursor, and in tracing such development through time. The result is called‘comparative linguistics’. Of even greater importance for future technology of thought is what might be called ‘contrastive linguistics’. This plots the outstanding differences among tongues—in grammar, logic, and general analysis of experience. ” (from李瑞华，1996：70) Later, there exist four modes of contrastive analysis: structural semantics, transformational grammar, generative semantics and systematically functional grammar. (李瑞华，1996：13-18)

Structural semantics stresses the studies of phonology, grammar, words and phrases, semantic relation. It also lays emphasis on isolation and description of words.

Transformational grammar aims at searching ways to express surface structure of different languages out of some shared deep structure. Employing N. Chomsky’s theories of Transformational Grammar, R. J. Di Pietro and T. P. Kreszowski have attempted to construct a framework of contrastive analysis (from杨自俭, 2000:9); and C. James holds that “Pure contrastive analysis is a central concern of applied linguistics. ” (from杨自俭, 2000:10)

Generative semantics represented by Chomsky’s student, Charles F. Fillmore, this mode of contrastive analysis focuses on the logic relationship among deep structures of sentences.

Systematically functional grammar attaches more importance to the communicative function of languages and their contexts.

In China, pioneer researchers such as Zhao Yuanren and Lu Shuxiang have established the foundation for the English-Chinese contrastive linguistics. Famous scholars in Linguistics have all made great contributions: Wang Zongyan has summarized the study into pure contrastive theoretical study and the researches for teaching; Liu Miqing emphasizes the aspects of heterology (from杨自俭, 2000:11-12). According to Yang (杨自俭, 2000:15), there are three kinds of research modes: one is micro description, another is theoretical explanation, and the third is applied research. The research content consists of four aspects: micro, macro, theoretical research and applied research.

Micro research includes phonetic study, the study of words and phrases, sentences and texts study, rhetorical and stylistic study etc. The contrastive analysis studies the structures, types, functions of English and Chinese languages, and the relationship at each level will be revealed. Semantic functions and pragmatic features of each level are of importance to the study.

Macro research tries to analyze the influence of social, cultural factors and mode of thinking on the levels of language, thus demonstrating features of language in structures and functions.

Theoretical research ranges from the object of study, the nature of the subject, to the systematic theories and methodologies, or in one word, the exploration of a theoretical framework.

Applied research mainly involves the application of language theories.

The contrastive analysis of animal words in both languages largely focuses on micro research and macro research, and most of the related studies reviewed in 2.2 belong to these two categories.

2.1.2 Speech Act Theory

Austin (1962) defines speech acts as all the things we do with words when we speak. Speech act theory explains the nature of linguistic communication by analyzing the role of utterances in relation to the behavior of the speaker and hearer in interpersonal communication. According to this theory, we are performing various kinds of acts when we are speaking, thus linguistic communication is composed of a series of acts.

For Austin, while making an utterance, the speaker is in most cases performing three kinds of acts: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act.

A locutionary act is the act of uttering something or producing literal meaning by means of syntax, lexicon and phonology. An illocutionary act is performed in uttering some words; it is the speaker’s communicative intention or the function it is intended to perform. A perlocutionary act is the consequence of, or the change brought about by the utterance. A perlocutionary act can be the same as an illocutionary act when illocutionary act is recognized and satisfied or very different from it when it is not recognized, depending on social and personal factors. (胡壮麟, 1988: 273)

Of Austin’s three types of speech acts, the most discussed is illocutionary act, which attempts to account for the ways by which speakers can mean more than what they say. Therefore, the term “speech act” generally refers only to the illocutionary force of an utterance.

Austin’s theory of speech act is developed by an American linguist, John Searle, who attempts to explain the notion of the illocutionary act by stating a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the performance of a particular kind of the illocutionary acts. Searle（1979:1-29）suggests five basic categories of illocutionary act as follows:

Representatives are the sentences that commit the speaker to the truth of something. Typical cases are “I assert” or ”I guess”. Representatives represent what the speaker believes to be true.

Assertives refer to sentences the speaker uses to get the hearer to do something, expressing what the speaker wants with requests, advice, order or demands.

Commisives are sentences that the speaker uses to commit himself to a future action. Promises, offers and vows are of this group.

Expressives are sentences used to express the speaker’s such psychological state or feeling as gratitude, pity, sorrow, congratulations, etc.

Declarations are sentences that bring about immediate change in the existing state of affairs. Verbs typically for this category are “name, appoint, declare”.

The illocutionary force embodied by animal words will be further discussed in Chapter Four.

2.1.3 Theories of Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive linguistics includes cognitive pragmatics, cognitive semantics, and so on. The study of cognitive linguistics covers a wide range of subjects, and a great scope of fields. Through this study, what has been summarized is as follows: categorization, prototype theory, conceptual metaphor, image, iconicity, and grammaticalization.

Categorization ability is one of human’s most important cognitive abilities and is to judge whether or not a specific thing is within concrete category. (Jackendoff, 1983: 77) Scientific classifications may be fascinating in their complexity and rigidity, but they are not suitable for human categorization. The so-called folk taxonomies suggest that people approach hierarchies from the center, that people concentrate on basic level categories such as dogs and cars and that people’s hierarchies are anchored in these basic level categories. (Ungerer & Schmid, 1996:60) The following four factors probably explain the primacy of the basic level categories:

A: the perception of the most obvious differences

B: the notion of attributes

C: cognitive economy

D: gestalt (or holistic) perception

Cognitive Linguistics has close ties with prototype theory in methodology and nature. The prototype is defined as both a mental representation and some sort of cognitive reference point. Based on the cognitive models (the mental concepts, which depend on the cultural models eventually.) stored in people’s mind, the prototypes may vary with the categories to which they are applied.

The study of cognition of metaphor can trace back to the 18^th century. People’s daily language is full of metaphors, and there are very few sentences containing no metaphors. “Metaphors and metonymies are powerful cognitive tools for our conceptualization of abstract categories.” (Ungerer &Schmid, 1996: 114) Metaphors are structural reflections from one cognitive domain to another, i.e. from source domain to target domain. Cognitive linguists think that the cognitive base of metaphor is image schema. Directly derived from everyday bodily experiences, image schemas reflect basic experiences in conceptual domains (or cognitive domains), people use image schemas to represent important properties. Image is one of the basic components of human cognition. Rather than the conventional rich images, image is a mental representation formed by the perception of the outside objective world, thus serving as an abstract analogy in human brain.

Communication is in fact a process of cognition. Both parties of communication are in harmony with one another only because there is a best cognitive pattern between them — relevance. If they want to achieve relevance to the greatest extent in the linguistic communication, people have to choose the best cognitive context. Although the speaker and the listener live and communicate in the same society, just because of their different cognitive abilities, different inferring abilities, etc., they would have different responses to a particular matter. This is the major concern of cognitive linguistics. According to Ungerer and Schmid (Ungerer & Schmid, 1996: F25), as an effective way to study human language, cognitive linguistics is characterized by experiential view, prominence view and attentional view. Of course, iconicity and grammaticalization are also two important parts to be discussed in the study of cognitive linguistics. Here we are not going to discuss these two points in detail because of the limited space.

2.2 Overview of Related Studies on Animal Words

To the cries, calls or voices of many animals, special names are given: to apply these names indiscriminately is always no easy job. For example: apes gibber; asses bray; bears growl; birds twitter; dogs bark; ducks quack; cocks crow; horses neigh, lions roar; pigs grunt; sheep bleat; wolfs howl, etc.

Even the same animal of different genders or ages can utter various cries. It is known to all that a cock crows, a hen clucks, a chick cheeps and a turkey gobbles. According to Gao (高永晨，2002:8), in comparison with rather simple and vague Chinese animal onomatopoeia “叫”， the English version is vivid and specific. As the English animal onomatopoeia has a substantial content, it can be divided into primary onomatopoeia and secondary onomatopoeia. Primary onomatopoeia is the direct imitation of animals’ sounds, which may lead to, the mutual association of sound and meaning (animals). For example, “mew or miaow” conjures up the image of a cat, and “quack ” is bound to be a duck. Secondary onomatopoeia refers to sound symbolism in essence, that is to say, this kind of onomatopoeia results from the association between animal sound and some symbolic meaning. A case in point is that /m/ may indicate the moaning of doves and the murmuring of bees. A typical research in this aspect is made by Gao Yongchen (高永晨，2002:8).

2.2.2 Animal Assemblage Unit Words (or nouns)

There are five ways to express animal assemblage unit words in English: measure word, classifier, unit noun, partitives and numeratives. In Chinese, “群”may be used after nearly all the animal words, while in English, unit words fall into a great number of collocations(or partitives) such as a swarm of flies, and a brood of chickens, which make it difficult for learners to memorize. As a rule, when it comes to birds, flock is frequently used, and herd often is collocated with mammals. Furthermore, shape, movement, feature, areas, and good or bad sense would be indicated by animal assemblage unit words. For example: team and yoke refer to shape; leap and drove imply movement; charm, pride and bevy show beauty and commendation. (郭著章, 1999:9)

2.2.3 Associative Meanings of Animal Words in Chinese and English

In his Semantics, Geoffrey Leech (Leech, 1981: 23) classified the meaning of a word into seven types among which connotative meaning, stylistic meaning, affective meaning, collocative meaning and reflected meaning generally fall into one category: associative meaning. Papers published in this field of research have all discussed the loaded meanings generated by the literal meanings of animal words in two cultures. Some animals such as lamb, fox, pig, swan, snail, etc. have exactly the same or similar associative meanings in both cultures; some animals like petrel, bat, dragon, owl, so on and so forth, stand for absolutely different images; and owing to different natural surroundings, there is exclusiveness of animals existing in either the Orient or the Occident. Consequently, by the word nightingale, an Englishman means the person who not only excels at singing but also is a teller(告密或坐探 ); albatross(信天翁) indicates a heavy burden or something undesirably troublesome; oyster (牡蛎) is a reticent person or a person of few words; and a Chinese knows that a person who is called a common carp (鲤鱼) can swim or move against the tide; a yellow fish may refer to a smuggler; and halibut(比目鱼) are used to name inseparable friends or lovers. Some papers go further than the mere enumeration of matching different types, such as the associative correspondence, the associative conflict, and the associative gap. They also attempt to investigate and analyze the factors influencing associative meanings of animal words from the perspective of socio-cultural psychology. To be specific, people’s ways of living, animals’ natural temperaments and social customs all play important roles in the change of associative meanings of animal words. In the study of associative meaning of animal words, the discussion of connotative meanings occupies a dominant place. L.A. Samovar（1995：152） says: “It is more accurate to say people possess meaning and that words elicit these meanings. We have different meanings for the same word. All people, drawing on their background, decide what a word means”. The connotations of animal words in one language do not necessarily coincide with those in another, so there is much to talk about, and numerous facts of different culture-loaded animal words have been cited or just listed. The representative figure is Liao Guangrong from the Foreign Languages School, Hunan Normal University.

2.2.4 National Cultural Semantics and Animal Words

National Cultural Semantics(国俗语义学) is sponsored by Professor Wang Dechun from Shanghai Foreign Language Studies (吴友富，1998:1). Strictly speaking, National Cultural Semantics also specifies the connotation of the study of culturally- loaded words in Chinese and English. Represented by Wang Dechun, many other scholars probe into the national cultural meanings within a wide range from all walks of life, among which emphases have been laid on animal words. In this study, the general agreement is that many English and Chinese culture-loaded animal words differ in meaning owing to different cultural contents, tradition and psychology of the two nations (or different national color). In Wang’s two papers: National Cultural Synonymous Facts of Animal Names in Chinese and English (吴友富，1998:64)and on Discrepancy Forms of Culture-loaded Words (吴友富，1998:54), illustrations are listed from both similarities and dissimilarities of culture- loaded animal words in Chinese and English as follows:

·Identity in cultural connotations:

One animal has the same or similar cultural implication in the two languages.

Different animals have the same or similar cultural implication in the two languages.

·Dissimilarity in cultural connotations:

There are five types of different cultural-loaded animal words — exclusiveness in one culture, contradiction, divergence, overlap, and similarity in cultural connotation.

2.2.5 Animal Words and Rhetorical Devices

Animals have picturesque images and prominent features. When they are used in such rhetoric devices as simile, metaphor, metonymy & synecdoche, onomatopoeia, personification, alliteration and antithesis, concise and vivid expressions can be created. Animal metaphors are widely employed in both English and Chinese. Some animal metaphors are similar, but others quite different; some are directly opposite, while others have no equivalents

One research aspect deserving notice is the study of symbolic meanings of animal words in Chinese and English. Animals in nature have different appearances and characteristics, so that animal words in English can refer to many things such as people, features, movements and sound, hence a vivid image description of life is made true.

2.2.6 Animal Words and Translation

Whether the study is one-sided or systematic, nearly all the papers involve translation of animal words. The purpose of translation is to import all the information of the source language into the target language, and meanwhile achieve the most equivalent effect. The animal metaphors have lively images and can provoke a direct image in readers’ minds. The translation methods of animal words include adaptation, simile with additional explanation, paraphrase and annotation according to the target language’s culture and language habit

2.2.7 A Brief Summary of the Related Studies

From the above researches, it can be seen that a contrastive study of Chinese and English animal words plays a dominant role, with empirical studies taking up a small percentage.

As far as research field is concerned, translation, rhetoric devices, semantic meanings and applications in the cross- cultural communication and translation have taken priority.

Further analyses reveal that certain problems exist in contemporary researches, such as repetitious researches on some topics, inadequate attention paid to compound animal words, pragmatic function of animal words and lack of cognitive concern about culture-loaded animal words. Therefore, this dissertation is going to explore animal words from the angles of the illocutionary force and the cognitive concern in linguistics.

Chapter Three The Reflections on Animal Words

There is a great multitude of animal words on the planetary scale, which constitutes one key link of ecological system, having close ties with human life. At the very beginning of human life, people lived by hunting animals; through long-term social production and careful observation of various animals, people have accumulated an overall understanding and a profound knowledge of their temperaments, which would be embodied in human language inevitably. Thus in the human communication, abundant animal words are widely used to enrich the vocabulary of human language. The vivid images of animals enhance expressive ability of language by association with their features showed from either outside appearances or just individual temperaments. In this chapter, the application of animal words is going to be analyzed from the following three aspects: application in scientific field, totem of minority nationality and feature of national culture.

3.1 Application in Scientific Field

Animal words are often used to name celestial bodies, plants, illnesses, weapons or machines in the fields of astronomy, botany, medical science, military science or scientific technology, as both are similar in appearances or forms or just alike in spirits through some associations between animal words and what has been named.

There are celestial bodies with animal words as their names such as the Crane (天鹤座), the Great Bear (大熊座), the Little Bear (小熊座), the Dog Star (天狼座), the Dolphin (海豚座), the Dragon (天龙座), the Eagle (天鹰座), the Fishes (双鱼座), the Giraffe (天鹿座), the Goat (摩羯座), the Huara (长蛇座), the Lion (狮子座), the Musca (苍蝇座), the Peacock (孔雀座), the Raven (乌鸦座), the Swan (天鹅座) and the Scorpion (天蝎座).

Botanists have named some newly discovered plants with animal words for they have found some similarities between these plants and the animals. For instance, hare bell (钓钟柳) is named in this way because this small blue flower grows in the place where hares often hound; the grass of foxtail (狗尾草) looks really like the tail of a fox. More plants are cow tree (南美乳树), goose grass (蟋蟀草), buck wheat (荞麦), phoenix tree (梧桐树), snake weed (秦参), sow bread (仙客来), ox-lip (高报春), goat-beard (合叶子属植物), cocks-comb (鸡冠), etc.

In the medical field, since some of the illnesses are caused either directly or indirectly by some animals, names of these illnesses are inevitably associated with certain animals. There are chicken pox (水痘), chick pest (鸡瘟), fishskin disease (鱼鳞癣), fowl cholera (鸡霍乱), hare lip (兔唇), mosquito fever (疟疾), mouse pox (鼠疫), ratbite fever (鼠咬热), pigeon-toe (内八字), and so on and so forth.

Many military terms involving animal words came into being partly due to the association between military science and bionics. People can imagine what these weapons and military tactics are like and function with names mentioned: bird dog (歼击机), bird farm (航空母舰), life bird (救生用的直升飞机), butterfly bomb (碟形炸弹), dogflight (机群混战), fishnet (伪装网), foxhole (单人战壕；散兵坑), mosquito (蚊式地对空导弹), mosquito fleet (轻快舰队), tortoise eater (能从空中打坦克的飞行大炮), wolf peck (狼群袭击队), cuttlefish tactics and frog (驱逐舰等用的烟幕战术).

Coupled with science advancing, there are new inventions in social life. As animals have different appearances, some of them are borrowed to refer to certain mechanic devices or equipment similar in shape to animals in scientific technology, thus achieving multidimensional meanings. For example: The uses of bug (臭虫-窃听器或双人小型登月舱), crane(鹤-长臂起重机) and frog(青蛙-铁轨的撤岔), ferret (雪貂-电磁探测飞机) are remarkably true to life.

3.2Totem of Minority Nationalities

Totem comes from the dialect of North American Indians, which can be traced back to the matriarchal society. At that time, animals, plants or objects were thought to have close relationship to the family group. Totem gradually developed into celestial being of some tribe, and the worship of totem became deep rooted and widely adored. The emergence of totem exerted an important influence on the development of human history. Scattered individuals were brought into a group with close ties. Therefore, totem developed into an essential symbol to distinguish between different tribes. Any prohibitions and regulations derived from totem stipulated basic norms of original social system, and such a great social efficacy had to be attributed to the mysterious power of totem.

The totem mythology can be classified into three types: animal totem, plant totem and object totem. Naturally, animal totem will be mainly discussed here, and indeed sometimes totem, in a narrow sense, is generally taken to indicate animal totem.

Animal totem has evolved into the ancestor of a certain clan. The totem mythology has made totem sacred and holy as well as rational and reasonable, whose far-reaching historical significance is much more than mere reproduction. The disintegration and integration of totem represent its colorful evolution. In his Ancient Society, Morgan has recorded the evolution of three clans — the wolf, the tortoise and the turkey. The wolf clan has been separated into four small clans of wolves, bears, dogs, and marmots; the tortoise has been divided into turtles, earthen tortoises, tortoises and eels, while the turkey has developed into turkeys, chickens, and cranes. When an alliance of tribes has come into being, the totem of the key tribe will be that of the alliance. Since the establishment of the United States of America, the bald eagle has begun to represent America.

There are a great number of totems in ancient China, of which animal totems are bears, horses, cows, sheep, birds, snakes, tortoises, etc. Only dragon and phoenix have exerted influential power on the psychology of clans. Just like the unceasing disintegration and integration of the Indians’ totems, the images of the Chinese dragons also vary, and each is of a different origin. At last a complex image of dragon has been formed as an integrated symbol of various totems such as a horse, a dog, a deer and even a pig. The evolution of dragon represents the general law of the development of totems. Meanwhile, phoenix totem is constructed by the bird belief held by the Yinshang nationality. The paddy rice cultivation mode by ancient Chinese people living in the south of Yangtze River has resulted in their belief and cult in birds. In the Shang Dynasty, one theme of mythology was the fight between dragon and phoenix, which suggested the sharp conflicts between Xia and Shang nationalities. From the Zhou Dynasty, dragon and phoenix, which embodied the intention of the ruling classes (to promote harmonious relationship among different nationalities), began to exist side by side. The unification of the Qing Dynasty declared the overall termination of conflicts between dragon and phoenix in the end. Since the Han Dynasty, both dragon and phoenix have become symbols of good fortune, thus marking the formation of the Han nationality. And that is the reason why dragon and phoenix represent Chinese.

Besides, some other animals developing to symbolize countries can be are listed in the following chart:

3.3 Features of National Culture

The extension of language meaning is often restricted by national psychology. Whether a word extends in a commendatory direction or a derogatory is usually closely related to this nation’s sensibility and taste of the world. As is known to all, animals on the earth are people of the nature. Their features, living habits and characteristics are very much the same. However, the destiny of one animal in English might be distinctively different from that in Chinese.

Each language has its own cultural sediment. Idiom culture is the glittering point of cultural sediment in the stream of historical events. According to Longman Dictionary of English Idioms (Longman Group Limited, 1979: ⅸ), idioms consist of traditional idioms, similes, allusions, words in pairs, proverbs and mottos. Among these idioms, animal words are innumerable.

Animal words are often used in the sentence structures of “as”, “as … as”, or “ like”, for the purpose of comparison. These similes emphasize some qualities, features, characteristics, conditions, or actions. When applied in human language and used either to praise someone or to condemn someone, these similes make the conveyed images concise, comprehensive and meaningful. There are many animal similes such as:

Allusion refers to an implied reference especially when used in literature. Stories from the Bible, mythologies of ancient Greek, literary works represented by Aesop’s Fables and masterpieces of Shakespeare all offer brilliant and splendid expressions in English language. Many allusions with animal words have greatly enriched the English language. Such allusions from the Bible can be put as follows: Aaron’s serpent, Balaam’s ass, the lamb’s book of life, cocktrice, the daughter of the horse-leech, a dog returns to his vomit, dove of Noah, sparrow’s fall, go to the ant, kill the fatted calf, ewe lamb, the lamb of God, Can the leopard change his spots?, lion in the way, The lion lies down with the lamb, a little bird told, locust years, lost sheep, scapegoat, wings of a dove the golden calf. Another category of animal allusions can be traced to ancient Greek mythologies or some other fairy tales, For example: dragon’s teeth, Halcyon days, phoenix, Trojan horse, winged horse, the ugly duckling. With the spread of Aesop’s Fables, many animal allusions have become household words such as: cry wolf, a dog in the manger, aged eagle etc. Besides, it is estimated that animals cited in Aesop’s Fables amount to sixty-eight. As the culture of China is as splendid as the cultures of Britain and America, these two languages record two different kinds of culture and express different sources of civilization. A case in point is a fable taken from Aesop’s “Wrangle for an Ass’s Shadow”, while a Chinese idiom is “When the snipe and the clam grapple, the fisherman profits (鹬蚌相争，渔翁得利)”, which comes from ancient Chinese Literature — Schemes of Warring Kingdoms.

Words in pairs involving animal words have distinctive images and pregnant with meanings. The vivid and vigorous description builds up the expressiveness of the two languages. For example, birds and bees (关于两性的基本知识), cat-and-dog (吵闹的), cat and mouse (折磨人的), cock and bull (荒诞的), doves and hawks (鸽派和鹰派), (play) ducks and drakes (挥霍，浪费), fox and geese (狐狸抓鹅游戏), hare and hounds (追逐游戏), horse and cart (马车), horse and feet (骑兵和步兵), mouse and men(一切生物), rattlesnake and polecat (经常吵闹的两个人), lion and unicon (英国王室军队的支持者), loaves and fishes (物质利益), the bull and the goat (比喻忍耐并非无能), the horse and groom (比喻表面关心实际上不关心), the horse and the ass (比喻互相帮助才能共存).

Animal proverbs include many of the more colorful examples, whose formations are based on specific observations from everyday experiences in order to make a general point. These animal proverbs are closely related to people’s living habits. Through careful observations about animal life, people create many vivid phrases, resulting in a photographic memory. Here are some examples:

A cat may look like a king.

All lay loads on a willing horse.

Better be the head of a dog than the tail of the lion.

Fine feather makes fine birds.

He that steals an egg will steal an ox.

It is a good horse that never stumbles, and a good wife that never grumbles.

Illness comes on horse but leaves on crutches

Where bees are, there is honey.

The tortoise wins the race while the hare is sleeping.

Old birds are not caught with new nests

One may steal a horse, another may not look at the hedge.

The wolf may lose his teeth, but never his nature.

When the fox preaches, take care of your geese.

Never offer to teach fish to swim.

The cat and dog may kiss, yet are none the better friends.

The cow knows not what her tail is worth until she has lost it.

The frog in the well knows nothing of the great ocean.

Dumb dogs are dangerous.

Many a good cow hath a bad calf.

You can not sell the cow and drink the milk.

Chapter Four The Illocutionary Force of Animal Words in the Linguistic Communication

The speech act theory initiated by Austin （1962） and Searle (1969) is firmly embedded in a tradition of western philosophy. Semantics is the study of the internal meanings of languages. Pragmatics is to study the linguistic performance. In this sense, it can be said that speech act theory is the core of Pragmatics and what it answers is the performative, not the referent.(何兆熊, 1989：67) That the concept of illocutionary force attempts to explore taxonomies of illocution and examples of illocutionary acts inevitably tends to be discussed in terms of an implicitly universalist framework. To be exact, the culture-specificity and cross-cultural diversity of what we would prefer to call illocutionary functions is an issue that can hardly even arise in such a framework. The performative intention behind and embedded in every utterance (in fact, every communicative act) is usually reified under the label of illocutionary force (Searle, 1969:214); that is, the illocutionary force of an utterance—its most salient pragmatic purpose—is the performative intention which the utterance serves.

In accordance with Pragmatics, illocutionary functions are, in the simplest terms, the things that people do in making utterances. There is always something teleological about these functions, and about the utterance serving these functions: to formulate an illocutionary is to express an assessment of the aim or purpose of an utterance (Leo Hickey, 2001:11-12). Therefore, the familiar illocutionary functions of English or Chinese appear naturally in the role of universal illocutionary categories valid for the pragmatics of all human societies. Sandor J. Henvey says: “With the spread of the influence of speech act theory beyond philosophy—into linguistics and into anthropology —came also a loosening of the bonds between illocutionary acts and pan-humanistic theorizing.” (Leo Hickey, 2001:11)

As is known to all, animal words have widely been used in every situation. This chapter focuses on the functions of animal words in terms of illocutionary force in linguistic communication. In recent years the achievements made in the study of linguistics have pointed out that the illocutionary force is the human basic view of concept. To start from the communicating attribute of the application of language, here are some examples:

1) I have made a pig of myself.

2) Don’t be a pig.

3) He is a pig.

4) Ogilvie has piggy eyes, a gross jowled face, an obese body and speaks in falsetto.

Sentences of this sort imply different illocutionary forces if they are spoken between the speaker and the listener.

Illocutionary force is the key conception raised in John L. Austin’s speech act theory. Discourse is not only the combination of several kinds of meaningful linguistic symbols, but furthermore, it can let the speaker’s intention be known to the listener, which is called illocutionary force. The emergence of speech act theory provides a new perspective and theoretic foundation for studying philosophy, sociology and linguistics and is “one of any prop questions for study in common linguistics.”(Levinson, 1983: 226)

It is well known that linguistics is a science concerning the application of language and the purpose of application of linguistics is to communicate. Whether the communication is successful or not depends on whether the speaker’s communicating intention can possibly be understood or not by the listener. And the listener’s understanding of the speaker’s intention depends on the cognitive reasoning from the illocutionary force of discourse in the specified context.

In the course of speech act, intention inevitably turns into illocutionary point, and the latter is projected into the meaning of a specific communication context. Illocutionary force is similar to illocutionary point in essence, and they both refer to the speaker’s ultimate purpose, but they are not totally the same. The former stresses the communicative function of the speaker’s speech itself in the context, while the latter highlights the speaker’s subjective aim. The same illocutionary point may have different illocutionary forces.(何自然， 1997： 90) Different illocutionary points can be produced with different illocutionary forces. For example, “He is a person who will certainly be caught.” and “He is a turtle in a jar.” The latter expression (implicit) has much stronger illocutionary force than the former one (explicit).

4.1 The Illocutionary Force Embodied in Animal Metaphors

Sentences containing metaphorically pragmatic vagueness are called metaphorical sentences. There are a variety of loose talks in people’s speech. This kind of loose talks often leads to different figures of speech — understatement, irony, hyperbole, etc. This kind of sentences could produce illocutionary forces, and eventually have perlocutionary effect on the opposite party — the addressee.

For example,

Mother said to her son: You are a piglet.

The first point that this utterance is a metaphorical utterance has to be made clear, and the utterance is vague in its pragmatic meaning. That is to say: “You” (the son) is a child, not an animal (a piglet), and “you” is not equal to a piglet. According to the cooperative principle, the quality maxim requires that the speaker should not say what he believes to be false. When this maxim is violated, people tend to believe that there is the implied meaning that the cooperative principle is observed by referring to the context and by eliciting all the background knowledge. In this way, the relation maxim functions in the utterance of “You are a piglet.”, namely, you are like a piglet, not a pig. The word “pig”, in people’s eyes, often means “eating too much, being greedy, dirty, or ill-mannered.” The speaker uses the word “piglet” so as to rule out such meanings as being greedy, or eating too much. The following formulae can show the speaker’s aim of using “piglet”, instead of “pig.”

child plus dirty= a dirty child

= a piglet

being dirty, greedy, and ill-mannered plus child ≠ a piglet

being dirty, greedy, and ill mannered= a pig

Another point that must be made definite is, when the form of speech and its literal meaning do not reflect communication intention, what the speaker employs is indirect speech act.(周光亚，1990-2:8) Indirect speech act means that there is no direct relation between the structure and the function of an utterance, in other words, the illocutionary force of an utterance is greatly different from the literal meaning the utterance indicates. A direct speech act, however, reflects the communicative intention of the speaker directly from the literal meaning and the structure of an utterance. In an indirect speech act, there are two kinds of forces, namely, the literal force and the illocutionary force. The illocutionary force is primary while the literal force is secondary, because it is the illocutionary force that expresses the communicative function of an utterance.

The utterance of“You are a piglet.” partially contains the real value. The illocutionary point from the speaker using the word “piglet” will certainly have this illocutionary force, namely, the child is very dirty. It’s better not sedulously to understand the mother’s intention according to its literal meaning. The intention of the word “piglet” used by the speaker can be known through the awareness of the given context in order to understand the metaphorical meaning of the word “piglet” used in the utterance

According to the analysis made above, what this utterance means in a given context is probably as follows:

You are a dirty child.

Or, why didn’t you wash your face, Son?

Except for monologue, any course of speech contains two kinds of participants—the speaker and the listener(s)(or addressee). According to the theory of illocutionary act, it should also be pointed out that listeners are not a single concept, that is to say, listeners are of different types.

goal

listener------addressee----- side-participant

overhearer

If Mother asked the son: “Are you a piglet?” in the presence of Father, the speaker (Mother) uses a direct speech act to execute an indirect speech act. With the utterance of “Are you a piglet?”, the speaker expects not only the simple “yes” or “no” answer, what’s more, she requires the son to wash his dirty face. Although the speaker executes two speech acts (direct one and indirect one), there is only one goal in the speaker’s mind’s eye—the son acting as the listener. This kind of indirect speech act is called linear indirect illocutionary act, for it forms one- to –one linear relation with direct speech act and the goal, namely:

Direct speech act--- indirect speech act---goal (the listener)

Suppose Father has taken the son out for a game and now they return. If Mother says to the son: “Are you are a piglet?” in the presence of Father, the speaker is executing more than two speech acts. That is to say, both the son and Father become her goals. The son has been blamed and required to wash himself, the side-participant (Father) has also been reproached. The indirect speech act executed on Father forms the lateral indirect illocutionary act.

addressee

Direct speech act---indirect speech act---goals

side-participant

So, “You are a piglet” is much stronger than “You are a dirty child” in pragmatic sense, because in the former, an animal word is used. In daily communication, people often say: ”He is the son of a bitch.” to give vent to their anger.

What has been analyzed above explains that utterances with animal words have stronger illocutionary force and rich illocutionary points in discourses.

4.2 Linguistic Vagueness of Illocutionary force Conveyed by Animal Words

Linguistic vagueness exists in every item of language communication. Everything in the world has its unity of contradiction and also opposites. The two contradictory and also opposite parts turn to the opposite side respectively in a given circumstances. The dialectical law is reflected in many aspects of linguistics. For example, one single word may have two opposite meanings, such as “ambition” or “aggressive”, etc. The reasons for this phenomenon are many-sided. One of the reasons is the linguistic vagueness. Vagueness is an attribute of literary works as a matter of fact. It is the attribute that provides many interpretations for literary texts. The reasons for vagueness in literary works come from subjective world and objective world. Language is used to reflect objective world from language property, and meanwhile every object in the objective world has no absolute demarcation line. Besides, the language expressing functions are not all perfect, so existence of language vagueness is of course inevitable. From the subjective angle, many a writer deliberately employs vague expressions such as figures of speech, etc. in order to seek some specific effect. As 赵元任 points out, “A symbol is vague in so far as its borderland cases of applicability loom large in comparison with its clear cases”. Orange and red are vague words. We can compare white and black with orange and red, then we can know a borderland between orange and red. He also says, “in fact, vagueness itself is rather vague, since those borderland cases as whether borderland cases loom large loom large themselves”. (伍铁平， 1999：V)

People’s daily talks often proceed in such a loose way that the sentences, phrases, or expressions with animal words used in them connote the phenomena of pragmatic vagueness, and these phenomena of pragmatic vagueness always transmit illocutionary forces. For example, there are some sentences indicating how animal words obtain the goals in language communication of illocutionary forces:

5) Joe was a lion in the battle.

6) Shelby is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

7) A kid being mounted on the roof of a lofty house, and seeing a wolf pass below, began to revile him. The wolf merely stopped to reply, “Oh, my brave friend, it is not you who revile me, but the place on which you are standing.”

8) Jackson is a whale of a cricketer.

Suppose these four sentences are uttered between the speaker and the listener in a given situational context, the illocutionary points (the following abbreviated “point”) resulting from them can be analyzed as follows:

The point of utterance 5) is that the listener should be as brave as Joe. The point of utterance 6) is to warn the listener against the evildoer who has disguised himself. Utterance 6) shows that the speaker fully knows the listener who has no vigilance of Shelby all the time. The point of utterance 7) is that the speaker wants to tell the listener not to over-believe any sweet words and honeyed phrases, especially spoken by strangers, otherwise he or she would be taken in easily. Utterance 8) has the point that the speaker wants to make the listener know that Jackson really is an extraordinary cricket player and also he himself admires Jackson’s cricket performance.

Through analyses of these four utterances with animal words, the conclusion reached is that every utterance of this kind contains a philosophical theory. Animal words used in utterances can create stronger illocutionary force in the language communication.

What has been mentioned above is only to explain that animal words existing in a sentence are bound to have close relation with this sentence, and this kind of sentence has much richer or stronger persuasiveness when illocutionary force produces perlocutionary effect on the listener.

Any discourse involves two relations: one relation with the form of the topic assignment and the speaker’s idea; the other relation between the speaker’s idea and word meanings used to express this idea. (Sperber and Wilson, 1995:231-233) If the listener wants to understand the discourse in a correct way, he must recognize these two relations. During the course when the form of the topic assignment does not coincide with the speaker’s idea, the word meaning expressing the speaker’s idea is not literal meaning. If the speaker really wants to express his or her exact intention, he or she has to give concrete or enough information to the context. The conversational prerequisite particularly emphasizes cooperative principle. Language performance does not consist of incoherent words or expressions. A successful conversation should be the result of the efforts made by the two parties. In the communication, there has been existing a tacit understanding between the speaker and the listener, which should be observed by the two parties. The quality maxim contained in the cooperative principle requires that the speaker should not say what he believes to be false. When this maxim is flouted, people tend to find out the implied meaning by assuming that the cooperative principle is observed, by activating all kinds of background knowledge he has possessed and by referring to the context in which communication is taking place. For example, Mr. Zhou said, “This is a fox’s tail.”

Suppose there are two listeners: one is a foreign listener; and the other is the listener who is a child and does not have this knowledge.

If the speaker really wants to express a definite concept and literally wants the listener to know his words’ meaning, it is necessary for the speaker to provide more implied information in an explicit way for the listener to indicate that his idea conforms to the form of the topic assignment, for example, the speaker may say, “This is a fox’s tail”, and then add, “that shows its true colors.”

If what the speaker says is aimed at a side-participant, it does not matter whether the listener is a foreigner, a child or a person of no such knowledge, for the side-participant perhaps is the one who did evils. In this case, the listener is only a listener, and the side-participant is the very person on whom the speaker’s words produce illocutionary point, the sentence meaning of “This is a fox’s tail.” is clear enough and there is no need for the speaker to give further information.

Animal words are widely used to communicate illocutionary forces and these words are mainly adopted in the sentences with implicit meanings. People like to use sentences of this kind in communication in an attempt to achieve better illocutionary force. Many examples about animal words can easily be found in Chapter Three of this dissertation. The theoretical stance behind these examples (and my interpretation of them) is that, in every language, there is a set of sentential units whose function and meaning are illocutionary. (Sandor G.J. Hervey 2001: 10) Because the discussion of illocutionary force entails an analytic appraisal of supposed intentions judged by external functional criteria, the performative aspect of utterances may as well be designated by the term illocutionary function (i.e. illocutionary force). According to the granting of a cautious form of universalism, though the illocutionary force of every human act of communication in principle is knowable, incidentally, the same cautious intellectual position would express a degree of skepticism about the knowability of the illocutionary functions of communication acts performed in animal words. In the light of the earlier presumption about human empathy, the conclusion can be drawn that illocutionary force can be comprehended across the most diverse cultural boundaries. This conclusion does not, however, extend to supposing that the cross-cultural appraisal or understanding of illocutionary force is easy. Animal words would make this a very difficult problem, especially when adopted in the cross-cultural communication.

It is obvious that animal words are a barrier in the language communication either in one nation or among different nations, so it is absolutely necessary for people to understand cultural connotations of every animal word used in daily speech, thus effectively conveying ideas.

There has been a disputable problem about the origin of knowledge in the philosophy history, and the human beings must know gene and its internality—the origin of language is equally a problem to be inquired into and pondered over by us. Language is one of the human smart intelligent activities, the inevitable outcome of the process of cognition, and the indication of human ability to recognize things. So if a research is made into linguistics, it should probe into the relation of linguistics to cognition and observe the cognitive features of linguistic structures and cognitive structures in order to reveal linguistic essence, with the further researches on language and the development of some other sciences concerned. At present, more and more philosophisers, psychologists, linguists and ethnologists, attach importance to the internal relations between language and cognition.

Language is an organic composition of cognition. In the description of linguistic structure, the process of cognition must be made clear. Cognitive grammar believes that the language expressions indicate human experiences and cognition. Syntax has a regular system of its own, but is a conventional symbol of semantic structure. Semanteme is the foundation of language, but exists in the human conceptualism, so it can be said that semantic symbols represent the conceptual structures. Meanwhile, it must be pointed out that syntactical structures depend on semantic structures, and the importance of the language expression is not only decided by its conceptual content but also by how the conceptual content is observed, perceived and understood. As is well known, human’s mental experience is the reflection of the objective world in human’s brain and the result obtained from man’s real experiences, thus forming our conceptual world.

5.1 Common Property of Language and Human Cognition of Animal Characteristics

The study of cognitive linguistics based on philosophy and psychology is pursued after idealist conception and objectivism have been thrown away. The philosophic foundation is experiential realism combining subjectivist ideas with objectivist phenomena. Experiential realism emphasizes the importance of experience, human cognition and human language.

5.1.1 The Relation between Animal Images and Syntactical Structures

Science of cognition comprehensively reveals the form and the development of man’s cognitive ability and theoretically generalizes the principle and the mechanism of human cognitive activities with the expectation of bringing to light nature of human intelligent activity.

Image is one of the most basic ingredients of human cognition and the conceptive method so that the conceptual content is formed in human brain. Syntactical principle is one part of language mechanism in the brain and inseparable from human experiences. The description of syntactical structures cannot be done without images, and every expressive method, that is, the semantic structure of an indication, is accompanied by image construction and conceptual indication content. The same scene, because of the different observation methods and angles (which relate to the context and the expressive purposes), forms a different image in human brain, consequently producing different expressive methods. For example:

9) He is like a willing ox.

10) A willing ox is like him.

Sentence 9) uses a willing ox as a cognitive reference point or a ground (the background to be described), stressing the word “he” (the figure, i.e., the perceptual prominence), while sentence 10) emphasizes the animal image “a willing ox”. Although the semantic meanings expressed in these two sentences are different and the images formed in the two sentences are not the same, one thing in common is that their cognitive pattern is “something is like something else”, i.e., one thing is similar to another thing, and correspondingly the syntactical structure is S-P-C (Subject-Predicate-Compliment). S is used to describe the figure, or the object to be describe; P shows the process of one relation, tends to be the dependent concept and is to rely on and links S; C acts as the ground to be described, or the cognitive reference point. The prominence view in cognitive linguistics holds that the selection and the arrangement of different pieces of information in the syntactical structure are decided by the varying degrees of salience of the information. Therefore, animal words used as S or C reflect different images in cognitive salience.

Different syntactical structures may produce different images, which symbolize different semantic meanings and lead to different understandings. For example:

11) I gave him my cat.

12) I gave my cat to him.

Grammatically speaking, sentence 11) and sentence 12) are synonymous sentences, but cognitive linguists think that sentence 11) is semantically different from sentence 12) for these two sentences respectively adopt different images to ponder the same observed scene. In sentence 11), that “him” is parallel to “cat” indicates the close relation between them, the perceived salience is the result of the shift (his possession of the cat); in sentence 12), “to” is perceived as more prominent to show the direction of the shift. Owing to different cognitive perspectives, the speaker chooses different expressions, thus forming the conceptual content with different syntactical structures.

Psychologically speaking, human beings have formed the image schemas about the cognition of things in contact with nature. Man has come to know that a willing ox is a person who serves the people wholeheartedly, does things with no complaint, and wants to get no return from what he has done. Human beings always like to compare animals (here referring to animal words) to a certain kind of persons only because they know animal behaviour from the characteristics of animals of every type. Human observation of animals increasingly augments human cognition of animals. Nearly all of us know:

13) Sheep are docile and goats are vicious

14) Snails move very slowly

15) Foxes are crafty or cunning

16) Crocodile tears are merciless

Such examples with animal words are too numerous to enumerate. From examples listed above, further cognition of these animals can be obtained as follows:

17) The sheep are good persons and the goats bad persons, and the sentence of “we should separate the sheep from the goats” means “we should distinguish the good from the evil”

18) The old man walked along at a snail’s pace (Chambers).

19) When the fox preaches, take care of your geese (prov).

20) Never trust such false phenomena given by crocodiles.

The reason why people get such cognitions as the above examples is that human beings always carefully observe animals of every kind existing in the nature, and then compare human behaviour with what they have observed. Animal words used in human language are closely related to the human cognition of them. People’s mode of thinking is the same as their cognitive procedure, i.e., the diagram of animal image = the object to be described→the description. Any sentence with animal words implies such a complete psychological structure. All the sentences from 13) to 16) and from 17) to 20) indicate psychological structure of this kind.

In this sense, the sequence of subject, predicate and compliment, as a structural feature of human common cognitive psychology, is a reflection of the pattern of human basic cognition in language.

5.1.2 The Influence on Human Cognition from Animals in the External World

Human experiences come from the interaction between mankind and nature, between people, between human beings and animals, etc. Every experience follows a certain law and has a certain structure. It is the multidimensional structure that forms an integrated structure. Therefore objective realities reflected in human brain form a cognitive world or cognitive structure. According to the attentional view held by cognitive linguists, the expressions conveyed by words only reflect the sections arresting people’s attention. Therefore, people’s understanding of animals is the major concern of theirs. Consequently, animal characteristics revealed either by appearances or by their temperaments would be represented through human language.

It is well known that crabs move transversely. Through the observation of crabs’ movements, the idea could be formed that transverse moving is likely to be an obstacle to traffic. So there are associative images of some incorrect human behaviours preventing things from advancing, or people who like to act at random. Subsequent cognition of crabs enables people to realize this fact that the concept of someone riding roughshod is compared to crab’s transverse moving. So this cognition enriches linguistic expressiveness in images. Therefore, cognitive linguistics is to study the influence on which the cognitive structure and its law have exerted.

The fact that cognitive linguistics is affected by psychology can be explained with such an example: Dragons and tigers are very ferocious and terrible. Anyone who enters dragon’s pool or tiger’s den would face life-and-death danger. In general, most people fear death, which is people’s psychological reflection. Afterwards, a dangerous place of any kind is referred to as dragon’s pool and tiger’s den—a danger spot, and at the same time it is also taken as a psychological reflection. This shows that human cognition of things gives an impetus to the changes in human psychology and promotes human cognition of animal words used in the communicative language. In a sense, cognition is the result that human beings have brought in perceiving and experiencing the outside world, and is the inevitable outcome of the interaction between human beings and the outside world.

5.1.3 Gene’s Role in Human Cognition—the Source of Cognition of Animal Words

In fact, one of the achievements made in the study of linguistic common property should be that linguistic common property is the internality of gene. The research indicates that language is a physiological phenomenon controlled by gene, and all the genetic types of human language are almost the same. This is the physiological source of linguistic common property. The close relation of language to thought cognition provides a branch for us to study the linguistic common property. On the one hand, language is so inseparable from thought that language will ever carry traces of thought. The common cognition of animals’ characteristics and the adoption of animal words in every case are in fact the cognitive sources of studying linguistic common property. Monkeys are very familiar to people. They are clever, capable, intelligent, and somewhat mischievous. Since human beings evolved from apes millions of years ago, people are all like monkeys to a certain extent. So in the Chinese culture, monkeys are used to show one of the twelve animal years in which people are born. The existence of this consciousness proves that human common cognition of the animals of this kind directly comes from the changes in human gene. And on the other hand, the consistency of human genetic types and the similarity of human basic cognitive pattern are unity of opposites in a sense. Both the consistency and the similarity are thought of as a gene as a result of the internality of human cognition. This kind of gene is formed by the interactions of millions of years between human body and mind and outside surroundings. It can be seen in diagram Ⅰ：

Diagram Ⅰ

Change

Reflection in human gene

Common cognition

Combination of animal words with many other things

Thought

Enrichment of researching into linguistics

The study of linguistics has methodically opposite sides. One is to study language by the observation of language use. The other is that language can be taken as a part of human genius and an indication of human rationality, so language can be studied from human mind’s intelligence. Nowadays the prevailing cognitive linguistics, based on human body experiences, is to study human cognition as well as human mind’s intelligence, and therefore such a study contains both empiricism and experientialism. Concepts are formed through body and mind’s embodiment of the world and are understood through body and mind, too. (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999: 497). Concepts, concrete or abstract, cannot be autonomous, and they are constructed in a metaphorical way. And meanwhile the concepts can not be independent of mind’s capability. They are based on human bodily experience.

5.2 Cognitive-semantic Conceptions of Animal Words

The research findings in animal words reveal the fact that semantic origin of animal words come into being through comparison between human’s mentality on animal words and human’s ontological consciousness. In the semantic structure of all languages, there exist two aspects: one is that the distinctive correlates between mankind and animals are ignored; the other is that the distinctive correlates between them are stressed from a certain perspective. Different languages have different strategies in designation of cognitive-semantic correlates of animal words, while a similar designation takes place within a language. The ontological consciousness is responsible for the formation of the binary opposite attitude of mankind reflected in the strategies of designation. In the following part, three elements that greatly influence the strategies of designation of cognitive-semantic correlates are to be discussed. They are the attainment of cognitive–semantic conceptions of animal words, linguistic universality embodied in cognitive-semantic conceptions of animal words, and the cultural universality embodied in cognitive-semantic conceptions of animal words.

5.2.1 The Attainment of Cognitive-semantic Conceptions of Animal Words

The cognitive-semantic conception of an animal word is mainly attained through so-called “covert category”. The covert category tells of the semantic features that covertly exist under the surface meanings of a relevant word, and it is the commonest mode of realization of the cognitive-semantic conception of an animal word. They are opposite features that express themselves in the symptomatic or paradigmatic structure. Here “opposition” is a key word. It is “opposition” that realizes the concept of semanteme. Linguistic opposition may happen between nouns, verbs, adjectives or numerals while biological opposition is certainly between mankind and animals as a whole. The biological opposition is attained by the covert categories of animal words in terms of meaning, coexisting, and source.

(1) meaning

The mode of opposition between mankind and animals can be classified into two types: conjunctive and disjunctive. The sub-conceptions of animals form the disjunctive opposition with the semantic component [+ HUMAN]. The sub-conceptions of animals, according to Berlin (S. G. Pulman, 1983), can be topdownly set in five levels:

① unique beginner, for example, “animal”

② life form A, for example, “beast, bird, insect, fish, etc.”

③ life form B, for example, “livestock, beast, poultry, wild bird, etc.”

④ basic level, for example, “pig, cow, sheep, monkey, etc.”

⑤ species, for example, “buffalo, zebra, magpie, etc.”

This dissertation focuses only on the two “life form” levels, because they are in the middle place of the five, and it will be easy for topping-down or bottoming-up the research on the other levels if the following discussion is proved to be tenable.

Different life forms of animals have different correlative words when compared with those of mankind. For example: “mouth” of the beast is called “muzzle” and it is called “beak” when used to describe the bird. Similarly, the biological counterpart of human’s “arm” is called “foreleg” to the beast and “wing” to the bird. This disjunctive opposition gives the demarcation that the cognitive-semantic features at a particular level of life form of animals are compared with those of human beings.

Another kind of opposition is the conjunctive opposition in which cognitive-semantic features of animals as a whole are compared with mankind. For example, as far as a particular feature GENDER is concerned, Chinese people rarely use “男/女” to describe animals, instead, “公/母” or “雌/雄” is attributed to them.

(2) coexisting

Coexisting here refers to the corresponding existence of words between mankind and animals. There are three modes of opposition in terms of coexisting: equilibrium, disequilibrium, and absence. When correlates are found both in mankind and in animals and they are called in different terms, such phenomenon is called equilibrium. For example, “dinner” of mankind will be “prey” to meat-eating animals or “forage” to grass-eating animals. In classic Chinese, when going to a higher place, “登” was used to describe such an act performed by mankind while “爬” was applied to animals.

As has been seen, some correlates are applicable to both mankind and animals. For example, 尸体(body) can be applied to both human beings and animals, but遗体 (remains) can only be used to describe the body of human beings. The same phenomenon also happens in English, which never uses “carcass” (of animal) to replace “corpse” (of human beings). The common word “body” forms disequilibrium relation with its subordinates like “remains” and “carcass”. The uses of “remains” and “carcass” should never be confused.

Absence of coexisting refers to the phenomenon that a certain correlative feature of either human beings or animals is lexicalized while it fails on the other side. This is best shown among those emotional verbs, for example, “think, suggest, lament, etc.” On the contrary, animal correlates like “tail, horn, etc.” find no corresponding terms in human beings.

(3) source

The opposition of correlates can be categorized into the natural opposition and the cultural opposition in terms of source. The natural opposition is a kind of opposition in which the similarity of nature plays the key role. For example, the English verb, “hiss”, is originally an onomatopoeic verb describing snakes or lizards. However, this verb later is frequently used in describing an act in which hostility and disapproval are fully expressed, as in the following sentences:

21) The cat is hissing to a dog.

22) She is hissed off the stage.

The cultural opposition also plays a very important role in the categorization of animal-correlative conceptions. One of the most obvious cultural elements is the influence originating from the husbandry economy. Since the development of the nomadic society, human beings have begun to raise herds and more and more kinds of wild animals have been domesticated. They have become increasingly closer to the human life. What is more, people are likely to put them under a rough class out of the motivation of economy of effort. For example, the cognitive response to the difference between wild geese and wild dogs is much broader than that between geese and dogs in the barn, though the differences between these two couples are biologically the same.

5.2.2 Linguistic Universality Embodied in Cognitive-semantic Conceptions of Animal Words

As can be seen from the aforesaid modes of realization, the opposition universally exists between the conceptions about mankind and animals. Out of the purpose of economy, people in all language communications are inclined to emphasize the opposition in some aspects but ignore the opposition in others.

The opposition between mankind and animals realized by the covert categories pervades many fields, such as parts of body (tongue, mouth, bone, flesh, etc.), daily life (feed, eat, drink, live, walk, etc.) and measure words, etc.

The universality of linguistic opposition of animal words shows its separating tendency within some domains. For example, nearly all parts of the bodies of livestock and some wild animals can be divided into an opposite pair: [+edible] and [-edible]. EDIBILITY is a distinctive feature of these animals. However, no such semantic feature as [edible] is attributed to the parts of a human body. Therefore, the opposition of EDIBILITY between mankind and animals is “strong universals”(a term introduced by G. Leech along with “weak universals”, see the following). But “strong universals” is a phenomenon based on the principle of entirety. It is not always applicable to a particular part. In English, “flesh” can be used to describe both mankind and animals while “meat” can only refer to animal flesh for mankind’s food. Therefore “meat” reflects “strong universals” between mankind and animals. However, “meat” in a concrete case, say, of cow, sheep, pigs or deer, will be subdivided into “beef, mutton, pork, or venison” respectively. These words do not correspond to each other.

The universality of linguistic opposition in most of the domains shows its “weak universals”, as it is in the measure word domain. For example, in Chinese, “只” can quantify a cow, a sheep; a hen, a goose; a deer, a tiger, etc.. Unit words like “只” can be used to quantify an animal of almost any kind, but it is never used to quantify human beings.

5.2.3 The Cultural Universality Embodied in Cognitive-semantic Conceptions of Animal Words

Though linguistic opposition between mankind and animals seems to be very complicated, the cultural opposition between mankind and animals is much more prominent. Designation strategies of particular animal conceptions may be different, but the basic cultural framework of conceptual formation of opposition between mankind and animals is basically the same. The demarcation line between mankind-related and animal-related conceptions clearly indicates that the formation of linguistic conceptions is based on the anthropocentric ideology. Or, in other words, human beings are “selves” while animals are “others”. The interest in animals is ignored and the nature of animal will be despised. In language use, the anthropocentricism is mainly reflected through the following two aspects:

(1) Degradation will happen when an animal word is correlatively applied to a person.

Degradation universally exists in many cases of human’s languages. All the animal metaphors mentioned in 3.3 fall into this category. Besides, in Chinese, “一窝” always refers to one hatch of young birds, or young cubs out of birth, for example: “一窝小鸡”, “一窝狼仔” etc.. However, when “一窝” is used to describe a group of people, its derogatory meaning is very blatant, for example: “一窝蠢材”, “一窝狐朋狗友”. Its counterpart in English, “a brood”, is a little mild in emotional color. But the basic tone remains unchanged, for example:

She brought the whole brood of her family to the party.

(2) Animal words are never mentioned along with mankind on the same base.

People always use numerals to substitute the number of persons out of the purpose of economy. For example, in a headline of a newspaper, “车祸造成两死一伤” doubtlessly means that two people died and one was injured in a traffic accident, though these three people might bring a lot of dogs and many of them died in this accident, too. No people will take that “两” and “一” in this sentence as referring to dogs.

All in all, people can not conceptualize the animal words and their correlates at random. A certain perspective brings about the attainment. First, people’s anthropocentric ideology circumscribes the cognitive-semantic response to the images of animals; second, such an ideology underlies the formation of linguistic meaning and structure; third, such an ideology explains the universality of animal words and their correlates

Chapter six Conclusion

Human beings always have inseparable relations with animals, some of which are human friends, and some of which are human enemies. In the long period of time when man is in harmony with animals, he has come to realize that all animals, whether they are friends or enemies, contribute much to man’s living. Thereupon, animal words come into human communicating language one by one. It can be said that human language always reflects human acts. Of course, human acts always have countless ties with the outside world, and such acts are mainly incarnated in human speech act. For the purpose of their effective communication, human beings constantly revise and supplement languages so as to increase the quality of what they are going to say. Animal words play a very important role in human linguistic communication.

It is because of this reason that the study of animal words should not be carried out only on the surface but in a cognitive way (pragmatic and semantic) or from the angle of psychological position. The present study normally remains in the domains of Contrastive Linguistics, translation in Pragmatics and cross-cultural communication. This dissertation does collect many animal idioms for the analysis of the functions of animal words, whereas what is out of the ordinary is the illustration of the reflections of animal words in the scientific, political and cultural fields. Furthermore, the breakthrough of this dissertation lies in the study of illocutionary force embodied in animal words. It develops from animal metaphors and the linguistic vagueness conveyed by animal words. The better knowledge of animal features and words will certainly contribute to the cognitive-semantic concern of animal words in linguistics. As important factors, syntactical structure, human prominence view, attentional view and human genetic traits will inevitably reflect human cognition of animal words. To realize the cognitive-semantic conception of an animal word, the covert category is the commonest mode, and the biological opposition modes take place in terms of meaning, coexisting and source. The universality of linguistic opposition indicates that: between human beings and animals there is “strong universals ” in edibility and “weak universals” in measure words. The demarcation line between human-related and animal-related conceptions clearly expresses the cultural universality of cognitive conception of animal words characterized by the degradation resulting from the anthropocentric ideology.

Finally, it should be pointed out that this dissertation, especially the part of the exploration of animal words from illocutionary and cognitive perspectives, is only the author’s attempt, with which the author hopes to devote a share of effort to the theoretical study of animal words.

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