| The study of polysemy has a long history in linguistics,literature and philosophy.It is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also the result of human cognition.With the development of Conceptual metaphor theory and Conceptual metonymy theory,studies on polysemy also are separated from the traditional formalistic and structuralistic approaches.Body part words are usually polysemic."Heart",one of the most important organs,controls the blood of a body and interacts with all kinds of activities.The cognitive study of HEART and XIN （心） has attracted great attention from scholars both at home and abroad.However,previous studies failed to give a cognitive and systematic interpretation of the polysemic extension and the semantic cognitive mechanisms of HEART and XIN （心） .This thesis aims to study HEART and XIN （心） from a cognitive perspective.It adopts conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual metonymy theory in the study of lexical meaning,polysemic networks,and semantic cognitive mechanisms of HEART and XIN （心） .The data are collected from Chinese and English dictionaries,including Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English（the 5th Edition）,The contemporary Chinese Dictionary（the Chinese-English Edition）,Oxford Idioms Dictionary for Learners of English（New Edition）,A Comprehensive DictionaryofChinese-EnglishidiomswithEnglish-Chinese Translation(the 5th Edition).The thesis collects 170 English HEART idioms and 170 Chinese XIN （心） idioms are the collected data.This thesis has answered the following three questions:（1）What are the polysemic networks of HEART and XIN （心） in English and Chinese idioms respectively?（2）How do the lexical meanings of HEART and XIN （心） expand respectively?（3）What are the similarities and differences between HEART and XIN （心） idioms?The findings of this thesis are as follows:（1）The meanings of HEART and the meanings of XIN （心） in English and Chinese idioms are closely similar,and their polysemic networks are the combinations of radiation and concatenation,which display the complicated thinking modes of English and Chinese people.（2）The number of conceptual metonymies is many more than the number of conceptual metaphors in both Chinese and English idioms.（3）The main cognitive mechanisms of HEART and XIN （心） in English and Chinese idioms are conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy.The theoretical value and practical significance of this study are as follows:（1）This thesis proves that the conceptual metaphor theory and the conceptual metonymy theory have a strong explanatory power in the explanation of HEART and XIN （心） in English and Chinese idioms.（2）it can help English and Chinese language learners understand better the idioms of HEART and XIN （心） and it is of some reference value for English and Chinese language and culture teaching and culture learning. |
