Metaphor is an important mode of human thinking and plays a crucial cognitive role in the constructing and construing of puns. Both puns and metaphors are cross-domain mappings based on the similarities between two conceptual domains, thus sharing a homogeneous nature. “Hamlet”, the most important dramatic work of Shakespeare, is, at the same time, also the work in which the rhetorical device of pun is used most frequently. This thesis analyzes the cognitive mechanism of different types of puns in “Hamlet” from the perspective of metaphor theories of cognitive linguistics, explores their patterns of mapping from surface conceptual domain to deep conceptual domain and ultimately reveals their cognitive laws.

Zheng Min, Xie Shijian. The Metaphorical and Cognitive Mechanism of Puns in "Hamlet". Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2025), Vol. 8, Issue 8: 108-117. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2025.080817.

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