Abstract:

This paper studies the usage of Chinese homophonic figure of speech from the perspective of Situation-Emotion Correlation Theory(SECT). The choice of homophonic expressions is determined by mental tendency. The SECT is formed under the guidance of traditional Chinese culture and in the light of the academic development of cognitive science. The idea of situation-emotion correlation gives a general rule of language use and reflects the basic principles of language use, which means that in any successful language use, the “feeling” of the speech subject is always related to the “situation” involved in the discourse, and the receptive subject of the speech will feel the same as if he himself experienced it in person. On the basis of this, the communicative subjects can express and understand the given expressions in the situation. This process is represented in language as emotion-scenery-diction correlation, which can be summarized as “Emotion changes with scenery and the diction goes with the emotion”. The expression of homophonic figure of speech means that a pair of homophonic “words” express the emotion of the discourse subject on the spot.

Key words: Situation-Emotion Correlation Theory (SECT), homophonic figure of speech (HFS), mental tendency, emotion-scenery-diction correlation (Emotion changes with scenery and the diction goes with the emotion)