学士学位论文语一词多义现象的认知研究.docx

学士学位论文语一词多义现象的认知研究.docx

《学士学位论文语一词多义现象的认知研究.docx》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《学士学位论文语一词多义现象的认知研究.docx（58页珍藏版）》请在冰豆网上搜索。

学士学位论文语一词多义现象的认知研究

Acknowledgements

Manypeoplehavemadeinvaluablecontributions,bothdirectlyandindirectly,tomyresearch.Ifeeldeepgratitudetoallthosewhohaveofferedmesupport,helpandencouragementduringmystudyinJiangsuUniversityofScienceandTechnology.

Firstofall,IamobligedtoexpressmysinceregratitudetomysupervisorProfessorZhaoXiawhohasgivenmealotofguidanceinmystudyofcognitivelinguistics,andmadepainstakingeffortstoinstructmeinthethesis-writing.Herkindnessandefficiencywilldefinitelyexertprofoundinfluenceonmyfuturelifeandwork.

MydeepthanksmustgotoProfessorChengShanzhen,ProfessorZhouShujun,ProfessorGeJihong,ProfessorDaiYuqun,ProfessorZhangHongyan,ProfessorXiaGanlinandProfessorJiangWei,fortheirinstructivelecturesthatIhaveattended.

Ishouldalsoexpressmygenuinegratitudetomywife,myclassmatesandroommateswhohavehelpedmeduringtheseyears.

Lastbutnotleast,thethesisowesitsexistence,toalargeextent,toalargebodyofrelatedmaterials.Mybibliography,inthisrespectcanberegardedasthemostgenuineactofthankstotheauthorsofthosematerials.

Abstract

LexicalpolysemyisthemostpervasiveandthemostimportantsemanticphenomenoninEnglish.Therefore,ithasbeenthefocusoflinguists’researches.Thetraditionalstudiesareconfinedtotheexternalreasonsthatcausethechangesofmeaningsofpolysemouswordswithouttakingaccountoftheirunderlyingcognitivemechanisms.Theyfailtorevealtheessentialnatureofpolysemouswords.Thepolysemousphenomenonhasattractedmuchconcernofcognitivelinguiststoo.Someofthecognitiveresearchersfocusedtheirmindstoomuchontheclassificationofthesemanticsystemofpolysemouswords（王德春,2002）.Otherslaytheiremphasisontheanalysisofpolysemousperceptionwordsorbodily-partwordssuchashandorheart.However,theresearchwhichsystematicallystudiesinternalsemanticrelationsofpolysemouswordsandexplainsthenatureofthedevelopmentofthemeaningsofpolysemouswordsisstillrareintermsofcognitivelinguistics.

Thisthesisconductsastudyofpolysemouswordsfromacognitiveperspectivewithintherelevanttheoreticalframeworkofcategorizationandprototype,metaphor,metonymyandimageschema,thegoalofwhichistofindtheformationprocessaswellassemanticextensionmechanismsofpolysemy.Moreover,weintendtomakeasystematicexplanationofthemotivationbehindtheformationofpolysemyanddemonstrateconnectionsoftherelatedsensesofapolysemousword.

Thethesisisorganizedasfollows:

chapteroneistheintroduction,thepurposeandsignificanceofthisstudyisfirstlygiven.Thenthepreviousstudiesarebrieflyreviewed.Chaptertwoisaboutthetheoreticalfoundation,namelythetheoryofcategorizationandprototype.Theinternalstructureofpolysemyislinkedbyprototypeandfamilyresemblance.Inthischapter,acasestudyofpolysemousinterestisalsoattached.Chapterthreeisconcerningthemotivationmechanismsofmeaningextension.Thetheoryofconceptualmetaphor,metonymyandimageschemaisintroduced.Anothercasestudyofpolysemouswindowisconductedtoillustratetheexplanatorypowerofthethreemeaningextensiondevices.Chapterfourismainlyaboutacasestudyofprepositionbeyond.Chapterfiveistheconclusionofthisthesis.Themeaningsofapolysemouswordaretightlyconnectedwithhumanexperienceandthewayinwhichhumanbeingscategorizeandconceptualizetheworld.Inthischapter,theanswertothequestionsofhowpolysemouswordscomeintobeingandhowmeaningsareextendedisroughlygiven.

KeyWords:

polysemy;cognitivemechanism;prototype;category

摘要

词汇多义现象在英语中是最常见也是最重要的语义现象，因此一词多义现象历来就是语言学家的研究焦点。

传统语言学局限于多义产生的外部原因而没有重点考虑多义产生的认知机制，因而不能揭示多义现象形成的本质问题。

多义现象同样也吸引了认知语言学家的关注。

一些学者对词汇多义性有过论述，如有的研究过于关注多义词词义体系的划分。

另一些则过多的研究了某些特定词（如感官词和身体部位词）的多义现象。

然而，从认知语言学角度，系统地研究多义词内部的语义关系，从而阐释多义形成的本质的研究还不多见。

本文拟从认知语言学的角度出发，借助原型范畴理论、隐喻理论、转喻理论及意象图式理论等相关理论，对英语多义现象形成过程及其语义延伸机制进行剖析。

旨在系统地探讨分析多义形成的认知机制及多义词相关义项之间的关联性。

全文共分为五个章节，第一章为概述，首先介绍了研究目的和意义。

然后简要回顾了前人对多义现象的研究。

第二章介绍了研究多义现象的理论基础即原型范畴理论。

多义范畴的内部结构是以原型和家族相似性为纽带的。

在此章最后附带了对多义词interest的研究。

第三章主要介绍了语义延伸的认知机制。

多义现象的形成过程是由隐喻、转喻及意象图式促动的。

Window的多义研究充分说明了语义延伸是三种认知机制促动的结果。

第四章为介词beyond的实证性研究。

第五章为结语。

我们认为多义词义项是与人类经验及其对外部世界的范畴化、概念化方式密切相关的。

最后简要回答了多义如何形成及义项如何延伸的问题。

关键词：

多义；认知机制；原型；范畴

Contents

AcknowledgementsI

Abstract（English）II

Abstract（Chinese）IV

ChapterOneIntroduction1

1.1PurposeandSignificanceofthePresentStudy1

1.2ABriefSurveyofPolysemy2

1.2.1TheDefinitionofPolysemy2

1.2.2PolysemyandHomonymy2

1.3LiteratureReview4

1.3.1TheTraditionalApproachestoPolysemy4

1.3.2CognitiveLinguisticResearchesonPolysemy8

1.4Summary9

ChapterTwoTheoreticalFoundationtotheStudiesofPolysemy10

2.1GeneralIdeasaboutCognitiveLinguistics10

2.1.1PhilosophicalFoundation11

2.1.2ThreeApproachesinCognitiveLinguistics11

2.2TheTheoryofCategorizationandPrototypes13

2.2.1CognitiveCategories13

2.2.2CognitivePrototypes16

2.3CoreSensesandMeaningExtensions18

2.4PolysemyasaPrototypeCategory19

2.4.1TypesofPolysemousCategorization19

2.5Summary24

ChapterThreeMechanismsforSenseExtensioninPolysemy25

3.1TheTheoryofConceptualMetaphor25

3.1.1TheUbiquityofMetaphor25

3.1.2TheInternalStructureofMetaphor:

MappingacrossDomains26

3.1.3TheExperientialBasesofMetaphor27

3.1.4TheClassificationofMetaphor29

3.2TheTheoryofMetonymy32

3.2.1TheInternalStructureofMetonymy:

MappingwithinOneDomain32

3.2.2ClassificationofMetonymy34

3.2.3MetaphorversusMetonymy36

3.3MetaphoricalandMetonymicSenseExtension37

3.3.1ACaseStudy：

Window38

3.4ImageSchema42

3.4.1InternalStructureofImageSchema42

3.4.2TypesofImageSchema44

3.4.3CentralImageSchemaanditsElaborations44

3.4.4MetaphoricalExtensionofImageSchema49

3.5Summary51

ChapterFourCaseStudies54

4.1SpatialConceptandPrepositions54

4.2ACaseStudyofBeyond55

4.2.1TheCentralImageSchemaofBeyond55

4.2.2MetaphoricalExtensionoftheCentralImageSchema-beyond-57

4.2.3Summary59

ChapterFiveConclusion61

Bibliography63

PublishedPapers66

ChapterOneIntroduction

1.1PurposeandSignificanceofthePresentStudy

Wordsthathaveanumberofrelatedsensesorinterpretationsarepolysemous.Forexample,paperreferstobothasubstanceandpublicationprintedonthatsubstance.Alargenumberofpolysemouswordsexistinallnaturallanguages,solexicalpolysemyisubiquitousandthemostimportantsemanticphenomenonacrosslanguages.Lyonshypothesizesthat,“itisalmostsurelythecasethattherearenonaturallanguages,andneverhavebeen,inwhicheverywordhasoneandonlyonemeaning”（Lyons,1995:

72）.Furthermore,itisreportedbyBrittonthatmorethanforty-fourpercentofEnglishwordsselectedatrandompossessmorethanonemeaning（Britton,1978:

7）.Sopolysemyisafundamentalfeatureofhumanspeechwhichcanariseinamultiplicityofways.Polysemizingwordsisasimplerandmoreconvenienteconomicwayforpeopletoexpressnewideaswithknownwordsthancoiningnewwordsorborrowingwordsfromforeignlanguages.Withoutlexicalpolysemy,wewouldhavetointroducenewsemanticentriesinthedictionaries.Thenwewouldburdenthelanguagelearnerswiththelexiconexcessively.Therefore,ithasbeenthefocusoflinguists’researches.

However,duetothedifferentresearchmethodologiesandfocusesofmanylinguists,polysemyhasnotbeenexplainedfullyandsystematicallywithintheseveralfamiliartheoreticalframeworksofsemantics.Thetraditionallinguists（mainlystructuralists）weremoreinterestedinthedistinctionamongdifferentmeaningsofapolyseme,whichwasconfinedtotheexternalstructureoflanguage,andthuscouldnotrevealtheessentialnatureofpolysemy.Sincecognitivelinguisticswasformallyestablishedattheendof1980s，thestudyoflexicalpolysemyhasbecomeoneofitsfocuses.

Ingeneral,cognitivelinguisticsinterpretslanguagebyreferencetohumancognition.UngererandSchmid（2001:

36）arguedthat“cognitivelinguisticsisanapproachtolanguagethatisbasedonourexperienceoftheworldandthewayweperceiveandconceptualizeit”.Cognitivelinguistspayattentiontotherelationbetweenlanguageandpsychology.Theyprovideuswithaframeworktoexplainthelinguisticphenomenonofpolysemythroughhumansubjectiveinteractionwiththeobjectworld．Theyproposethatlexicalitemsshouldbeconceptualcategoriesandhavetobestudiedandinvestigatedasreflectinggeneralcognitiveprinciplesratherthanpurelyformallinguisticprinciple.

Thisthesisconductsastudyofpolysemouswordsfromacognitiveperspectivewithintherelevanttheoreticalframeworkofcategorizationandprototype,metaphor,metonymyandimageschema,thegoalofwhichistofindtheformationprocessaswellassemanticextensionmechanismsofpolysemy.Howpolysemycomesintobeingandhowmeaningsareextendedaretwoproblemstobeinvestigatedinthisthesis.Wehopethatthepresentstudywillshedsomelightontheresearchesofpolysemouswords.

1.2ABriefSurveyofPolysemy

Whenitcomestopolysemy,weshallhavetomentionaFrenchlinguist,MichelBreal,whocoinednotonlytheterm“semantics”butalsotheterm“polysemy”（Saeed,2000）.When“polysemy”wascoined,itwasadiachronicconcept,andoriginallyusedtothestudyofchangesofmeaningaswellastherelationshipbetweenmultiplesensesofapolysemousword.LaterSaussureapplieditinthestudyofwordmeaningwithinthestructuralisticframework.Nowadays,ithasbecomeahottopicincognitivesemantics.

1.2.1TheDef