A New Look at Chinese Network Catchphrases

This paper explores how contextual factors govern the meaning making of Chinese network catchphrases. Kovecses’ context theory concerning metaphor studies is used as the theoretical framework to make a research into the metaphorical meaning making in Chinese network catchphrases. According to Kovecses, context in metaphor can be classified into four kinds, namely, situational context, discourse context, bodily context and conceptual-cognitive context, among which situational context can be further divided into physical environment situation context, social situation context and cultural situation context. By careful examination of Chinese network catchphrases from the contextual perspective, it is concluded that the meaning making of Chinese network catchphrases is not just a mapping process between two domains, a view that the traditional metaphor theory has always been adhering to, but a context-driven and emerging process in which various contextual factors have played their roles. And this conclusion seems to be more in line with the new discovery of the nature of human cognition, that is, embodied cognition.