1. Introduction

This article introduces the importance of rhetorical language in multiple disciplines and points out the richness of traditional rhetorical research and the shortcomings of certain rhetorical research. The new book by Pe ñ a-Cervel and Ruiz de Mendoza aims to provide a unified explanation for rhetorical language, starting from a review of rhetorical thinking and language, establishing a theoretical foundation, introducing cognitive modeling and operations, and showcasing the latest achievements in rhetoric research by analyzing rhetorical devices such as metaphor, metonymy, exaggeration, and irony.

2. Content Introduction

Chapter One "Introduction" clarifies the framework, research objectives, and methods of the entire book, aiming to deeply analyze common English rhetorical devices and clarify the connection between the target rhetorical device and cognitive linguistics theory, especially Lakoff and Johnson's idealized cognitive model, conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy, etc. The author points out the shortcomings of rhetorical language research and establishes research themes, analytical frameworks, and theoretical perspectives. Chapter 2 "Rhetorical Thinking and Rhetorical Language: A Review of Research Methods" summarizes previous research on rhetorical language, discusses the distinction between literal and rhetorical meanings, and explores rhetorical language from multiple perspectives. It points out the importance of cognitive perspectives in the study of rhetorical language and proposes a "cognitive pragmatic analysis framework". Chapter 3 "Fundamentals of Cognitive Modeling" constructs a composite analytical framework, explaining the fundamental work of cognitive modeling, including the classification and cognitive operations of cognitive models, emphasizing their close relationship with rhetorical language. Chapter 4 "Further Exploration of Metaphor and Metaphor" explores metaphor, metaphor, and some related rhetorical devices, proposes the concept of "metaphor metaphor continuum", and derives new classification results based on five different mapping forms of classification criteria. Chapter 5 "Exaggeration" focuses on the study of exaggeration as a rhetorical device, evaluates the existing classification results of exaggeration, and proposes structural exaggeration and inferential exaggeration. It explores the definition, scope, cognitive modeling, and limiting factors of exaggeration as a rhetorical device. Chapter 6 "Rhetoric" reviews the research perspective of irony, clarifies the cognitive modeling and related cognitive operations of irony, discusses the restrictive conditions of irony, contradictory modification, and paradoxical case, distinguishes the five types of irony, and analyzes the rhetorical devices closely related to irony. Chapter 7, "Conclusion," provides an overview of the entire book and emphasizes the goal of using different types of cognitive modeling rules to help distinguish the similarities and differences in commonly used English rhetorical devices.

3. Brief review

It emphasizes the combination of theoretical explanation and detailed analysis throughout the book, systematically analyzing rhetorical devices through cognitive processes, providing a comprehensive and highly integrated solution for rhetorical device interpretation. The book presents three major features: first, comprehensiveness and universality, constructing the first composite rhetorical analysis framework, clarifying the boundaries and connections between rhetorical devices; The second is cognitive and argumentative. Based on the perspective of cognitive linguistics, a new definition of rhetorical devices has been proposed, emphasizing the endogenous relationship between rhetorical devices; The third aspect is practicality and communicability, using modern inferential pragmatics theory to explore the pragmatic effects and meaning implications of rhetorical devices. Despite the problems of overly detailed classification of rhetorical devices and insufficient persuasiveness of some language examples, the entire book provides new perspectives and analyses at both theoretical and practical levels, which is of great value for research in the field of English rhetorical devices.