| The study of polysemy has a long history in the philosophy of language, psychology and literature. Although polysemy is rarely a problem for communication among people, it is an intractable issue in semantic research. Traditional linguists (mainly structuralists) tend to focus on the distinction between different meanings of a polyseme and their studies are confined to the internal structure of language, and thus can not reveal the nature of polysemy. Cognitive linguists take much account of the underlying cognitive mechanism and provide a more thorough and systematic explanation of polysemy on the basis of experientialism.This thesis conducts a case study of HEART from a cognitive perspective within the theoretical framework of categorization, metaphor and metonymy, the goal of which is to find the internal structure, semantic extension mechanism as well as the characteristics of polysemy.Cognitive linguists claim that polysemy is the result of human cognitive categorization and conceptualization. They regard a polyseme as a category in which distinct meanings distribute around a central or prototypical meaning. The many distinct meanings gather in the category by means of radiation and chaining, sharing family resemblance to one another. Metaphor and metonymy are two most important motivations of polysemy. As for the word"heart", the central meaning is"the internal organ, human or animal heart"; its metaphorical meanings are constructed through mappings between human domain and other domains, and its metonymic meanings are constructed through mappings within the human domain.In addition, two characteristics of conceptualization of polysemy are found...
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