Abstract：Along with the development and maturity of theories on context, a growing interest among linguists has been attracted to explore the cognitive context and make use of it to explain the problem of language comprehension. This dissertation, based on Sperber, D. & D. Wilson’s theory of cognitive context, aims to analyze and comprehend the metaphorical meanings of English animal idioms and then accordingly puts forward five comprehension strategies after the detail analysis. In addition, this dissertation will be carried out System Analysis Approach and Exploratory Research to analyze the DOG idioms which are selected as the analysis examples. It is hoped that the findings of this dissertation will provide insights into the comprehension of English animal idioms and give some inspiration for other fields of language studying.
Key words: cognitive context; English animal idioms; comprehension strategies
摘要：随着语境理论的发展和成熟，认知语境理论以及如何利用认知语境理论来理解语言的研究日渐受到语言学界的关注。基于斯珀泊和威尔逊的认知语境理论，本文将从认知语境的角度来分析与理解英语动物习语的隐喻义，进而将根据分析有针对性地提出五种理解策略。本文将运用系统分析法与探索性研究法，对一些被选作本论文分析对象的有关狗的习语进行了系统性地分析和解释性的探究。希望本文的研究结果能为英语动物习语的理解提供启发和帮助，同时也能够激发语言的其他领域上的探究。
关键词：认知语境；英语动物习语；理解策略
