Polysemy is the most pervasive phenomenon in semantics.Polysemous words,words with multiple related senses,represent a great challenge for any theory of word meaning.Based on the previous achievements of polysemy and meaning extension study,this thesis attempts to investigate how the cognitive mechanisms function in the meaning extension of polysemous words from the perspective of cognitive semantics.This study will be applicable and useful in practice.Abundant research has been conducted in polysemy and word meaning extension both at home and abroad.On the study of polysemy,traditional linguists distinguish the study of polysemy away from lexicography and etymology and change the focus of studies on polysemy from diachronic perspective to synchronic perspective.However,they still subsume homonymy under the heading of polysemy.Formal Linguistics also holds monosemy view,which restricts polysemy and maximizes homonymy,leading to proliferation of words as a result.Cognitive semantics treats the polysemy exhibited by lexical items as a psychologically real conceptual phenomenon.On the study of causes of word meaning extension,the traditional accounts mainly resort to the facial factors such as social or historical factors.While the cognitive semantics argues that varied meanings of the polysemous words are not arbitrary but developing from a prototypical meaning of a word through specific semantic extending mechanism.Although a number of researches on the cognitive study of polysemous words have been carried out,they seldom notice all of these cognitive mechanisms or concern about the co-working among these cognitive mechanisms in polysemous word meaning extension.According to the cognitive semantic theories,this thesis proposes a cognitive framework for analyzing the polysemous word meaning extension.Image schema,metaphoric mechanism,and metonymic mechanism are the three cognitive mechanisms that motivate the word meaning extension.The theory of image schema is first developed within cognitive semantics and has come to be highly influential in cognitive psychology.Image schemas are abstract and pre-conceptual gestalt structures based on our perceptual interaction,bodily experience,which can help human beings to understand their spatial experience.It is obvious that the image schemas in our experience are pervasive in our everyday language.There are various kinds of image schemas according to Johnson and Lakoff.Our conceptualizations involve transformations of image schemas.The certain very natural relationships among image schemas are believed to give rise to polysemy through out our lexicon.Metaphor has traditionally been based on the notions 'similarity' or 'comparison' between the literal and the figurative meaning of an expression.Cognitive approach towards metaphor differs from the traditional approach.In the cognitive view,metaphor is not the matter of language,but a powerful cognitive instrument for our conceptualization of abstract categories.Metaphor is a means whereby ever more abstract and intangible areas of experience can be conceptualized in terms of the familiar and concrete.It is a type of two-domain mapping,that is to say,a mapping of the structure of a source domain onto a target domain.A basic type of this metaphorical projection is to metaphorically elaborate and extend a basic schema from the physical domain to the nonphysical ones.Like metaphor, metonymy is traditionally regarded as a figure of speech that involves a process of substituting one linguistics expression for another.In cognitive linguistics,metonymy is a cognitive phenomenon underlying much of our ordinary thinking and the use of metonymy in language is a reflection of its conceptual status.Metonymy is taken by cognitive linguists as a cognitive process,in which one conceptual entity,the vehicle,provides mental access to another,the target, within the same idealized cognitive model(ICM).The three cognitive mechanisms are closely related,forming an assembly line in terms of their sequence in thinking.They sometimes co-work in the meaning extension of the polysemous words.Based on the framework of.these three cognitive mechanisms,this thesis then investigate the meaning extension of the typical Chinese word 'Chi'.'Chi' is a word possessing rich cultural connotation;therefore,its sense is far more than the meaning of the action itself.In light of the rich food culture in China,the image-schematic,metaphoric,metonymic use of 'chi' is more rich and varied than any other languages in the world.This thesis collects the corpus about 'chi' from the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese and some Chinese dictionaries.This study analyses the formation of meaning for 'Chi' from the cognitive view,giving a new insight into this complex language phenomenon.Through the analyzation of the polysemous word 'Chi', the three cognitive mechanisms are found to co-work with each other sometimes in extending meanings.This study has the positive guiding significance in practice,especially in the areas of vocabulary learning and dictionary compiling.Although there are still some limitations in the present studies,future research of a comparative study between English and Chinese,and experimental research will also be conducted within the cognitive semantics. |