A Contrastive Study On N+N Compounds In English And Chinese Neologisms-From The Perspective Of Cognitive Semantics

With the development and evolution of the world and society since the beginning of 21st century, lexical items in both English and Chinese which reflect new things, inventions and new concepts keep emerging in our daily life endlessly. The term "neologism" refers to those newly-created words, expressions, or the new senses derived from existing lexical items. Compounding, as a fundamental and productive way of word formation, plays a significant role in the creation of new words, and among these neologisms N+N compounds account for a large proportion.Previous studies and analysis of neologisms or compounds usually focus on the surface structure or formation rules of these words, and cares less about the mental thinking patterns of human beings. To be different from the traditional research, this thesis tries to analyze the N+N compounds in neologisms from a new perspective of cognitive semantics. Cognitive semantic theories hold that meaning corresponds with a concept held in the mind based on personal understanding. It treats linguistic knowledge as being a piece with everyday knowledge. The creation of new words in N+N compounds can show how people realize the reality and experience the world. The author will apply the two important theories in cognitive semantics-conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy to analyze and discuss the construction and understanding of neologisms.Besides, although the process of people’s conceptualization and cognition are similar in English and Chinese, there must be some differences between neologisms in the two languages due to their different language characteristics, culture, society and the way the language users realize the world. The author will try to make a contrastive study on the N+N compounds in English and Chinese neologisms and dig out their similarities and differences by using the theories of cognitive semantics. This contrastive study will definitely help language learners better understand the neologisms in English and Chinese, know more about the working mechanism of conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy in N+N compounds and keep pace with the updating world and society in the 21st century.