An exhaustive study of rhetorical representations of LIFE Metaphors in Shakespeare’ s four ma-jor tragedies reveals that similes, metaphors, and some other tropes manage to convey a greater range of conceptual metaphors, compared with commonplace and everyday expressions. The adoption of tropes fa-cilitates the innovation of the conceptual system in the tragedies by expanding the conventional metaphors and enrolling some novel ones, and thus greatly enhances the artistic and philosophical value of Shake-speare’ s language. The combination of cognitive linguistic theories and rhetorical tradition provides a more insightful and enlightening approach to Shakespeare’ s use of rhetoric and will undoubtedly contrib-ute to the revelation of cognitive functions of the rhetoric devices.%莎士比亚四大悲剧中人生隐喻①的辞格表征十分丰富。莎剧通过使用明喻、暗喻等修辞格，不仅能够增强语言的思想性及艺术性，还能在认知层面将更多的人生隐喻纳入隐喻系统，从而使莎剧中的人生隐喻系统处于持续开放和动态发展的进程中。认知语言学的概念隐喻理论与传统修辞学研究相结合，将有助于全面认识莎剧语言中的修辞现象，深入挖掘修辞格的使用规律及其背后的认知机制。
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