自考论文论英语词义的变化Word格式文档下载.docx

1、 学生姓名：指导老师：武汉大学外语学院制On the Meaning Change of English Words 论文摘要 语义学是关于意义的学问，它旨在研究语言单位，特别是单词和句子的意义。词是语言中具有意义的，最小的能够独立运用的单位，所以关于词的意义（即词汇语义学）在语言学中占用重要的位置。单词一直处在不断的变化过程当中，形式上的或是内容上的，常常是后者发生变化。正像Quirk在1963年指出的那样，“几乎我们现在使用的每一个词与其在一个世纪以前的意义稍有不同,而一个世纪以前的单词又和它在一个世纪之前的意义稍有差别” 。宽泛的讲，意义的变化指的是现行词义的变化，或是对现行词语添加新的

2、义项。这种变化随着时间的流逝而产生。本论文探究了英语词义变化的方式、类型及原因。希望本论文可以帮助英语专业的学生更好地学习英语词义。关键词：词义; 变化; 方式; 类型; 原因 AbstractThe subject concerning the study of meaning is called semantics, which targets at the study of the meanings of linguistics units, such as words and sentences. A word is the minimum free form with certain

3、 meaning, thus the study of word meaning （lexical semantics） occupies an important position in linguistics study. Word has been constantly undergoing the process of changes，either in forms or in meanings, with the latter being more frequent. Just as Quirk said in 1963, “ almost every word we use tod

4、ay has a different meaning from the one it had a century ago, and a century ago it had a slight different meaning from the one it had a century before that”. Broadly speaking, meaning change refers to the alternation of the meaning of existing words, as well as the addition of new meaning to establi

5、shed words. This change occurs along with time. This thesis explores the approaches, modes, causes of word meaning change. Hopefully, it may help us English majors study English word meaning better. Keywords: meaning；change；approach; mode; causeContentsI. Introduction 1II. Approaches to meaning chan

6、ge of English words 22.1 extension approach 22.2 figurative approach 32.3 merger approach 3III. Modes of meaning change of English words 43.1 generalization 53.2 specialization 63.3 elevation 73.4 degradation 7IV. Causes of meaning change of English words 84.1 extra linguistics factors 84.2 linguist

7、ics factors 10V. Conclusion 11Bibliography 12I. IntroductionAs a branch of semantic study, the lexical semantics has been long regarded as the focal point. And the question as to what is the meaning of word becomes the first inquiry for language leaners. The objective matters, which exclude human mi

8、nd, including all the living creatures, unanimated objects, events and their behavior, state and characteristics, etc. are reflected, thus sensation, perception, representation are produced first. Human mind then will generate the abstract preliminary products into concepts. Then man fixes the conce

9、pts in the vehicle of language, enabling us human beings to exchange our thoughts through these signs with certain meaning individually. Thus, words come into being. In other words, the meaning of words is endowed by men. As British linguist Eric Partridge once pointed out, “words have no meanings,

10、people have meaning for them”. This process is generally agreed upon by all linguists. However, different people may hold different opinions on the sub-structure of word meaning. One difficulty in the study of meaning is that the word “meaning” itself has different meanings. In their book The meanin

11、g of meaning written in 1923, C.K Odgen and I.A Richards presented “a representative list of the main definition which reputable students of meaning have favored” （Odgen & Richards, 2003: 186）. There are 16 major categories of them, with sub-categories totaling up to 22.The edifice of any language c

12、ould be observed as a grand project composed of three elements: sound, lexicon, and grammar, among which sound is the physical shell of a language; lexicon serves as the “brick” and “concrete”; while grammar functions as the ways and principles by which linguistic elements are organized and oprate.

13、So word meaning above all can be divided into two big categories: grammatical meaning and lexical meaning.Grammatical meaning corresponding with grammar signifies the grammatical aspect of a word. For example, “girl” is a single form, while “girls” represents the plural form in meaning.Lexical meani

14、ng, on the other hand, is the study of word meaning at its content level. For example, in the group of words “go, goes, gone, went, going”, each word has different grammatical meaning obviously, but their lexical meaning is the same, namely “to move or travel from one place to another” （Longman Dict

15、ionary of Contemporary English, 1998:746）. Foreign linguists have different classifications on word meaning. Geoffrey Leech, a world famous British linguist, categorizes seven types of meaning, as follows: conceptual meaning, connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning,

16、 collocative meaning, thematic meaning, with conceptual meaning being the center of word meaning. And connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning, and collocative meaning and thematic meaning can be brought together under the heading associative meaning（Leech.,1981）.In the following