Chinese English Majors' Acquisition Of English Polysemous Words: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach

Polysemy is ubiquitous in natural language. The study of polysemy has a long history in the philosophy of language, linguistics, psychology, etc. A word with several senses often causes problems for both foreign language' teachers and learners because these senses are seen as unrelated and unsystematic under the influence of traditional linguistics. As for the acquisition of polysemous words, the strategy commonly employed by teachers is either to ask learners to learn the multiple senses by rote or to encourage them to infer the senses from the context. However, rote learning is a time-consuming process. In addition, the findings in some research suggest that inferring the senses of a polysemous word is not so effective as what people expect, and most importantly, it does not necessarily result in long-term retention.Cognitive linguistic research on polysemy has suggested that: 1) the multiple senses of a polysemous word are related to one another by means of such general cognitive principles as metaphor, metonymy, image-schema transformations, etc.; 2) the senses of polysemous words can be organized into prototype structures, family resemblance structures, or lexical networks; 3) the study of polysemy shares many characteristics with the study of categorization for both linguistic and non-linguistic concepts. These insights can be applied to teaching as well as learning polysemous words. The interface between cognitive linguistics and second language vocabulary acquisition has become one of the hottest issues recently at home and abroad. Some applied linguists abroad apply the polysemy theory in cognitive linguistics to the acquisition of English polysemous words for second language learners and obtain satisfactory results. However, the limitations in their research are as follows: First, their research is restricted to the comprehension of polysemous words, negelecting to investigate whether the learner's awareness of the cognitive mechanisms making up the network of meanings can enhance their ability to use the target words; Second, the number of the subjects in their research is small; Third, there is no hard empirical evidence of beneficial effects on vocabulary retention in the long term. The interface between cognitive linguistics and acquisition of English polysemous words in China seldom focuses on empirical studies. Hence it is essential to apply the polysemy theory in cognitive linguistics to empirical studies of Chinese learner's acquisition of polysemous words.With the polysemy theory in cognitive linguistics as the theoretical ground and English majors as the subjects, the present dissertation attempts to discuss the following issues: 1) What is the subjects' overall situation of inferring the senses of polysemous words from context? What is the difference between inferring the senses of regular polysemous words and of irregular polysemous words? 2) What is the subjects' semantic network of polysemous words? 3) Do they know how the multiple senses are related? How do they acquire polysemous words? 4) Will the subjects who know how cognitive mechanisms structure the senses of target polysemous words acquire their senses more easily in the short term as well as in the long term and enhance their ability to use them?By analyzing the data elicited from the instruments, we came up with the following findings: 1) the subjects did poorly in inferring the exact senses of the polysemous words from the context, but they did it better in the case of regular polysemous words than that of irregular polysemous words; 2) the subjects could not fully grasp the whole polysemous networks of the target words, however, they grasped the prototypical sense better than the peripheral ones; 3) they did not know how the multiple senses were related , and they usually learnt by rote the first three senses listed in the dictionary; 4) the subjects who knew how cognitive mechanisms structured the senses of the target words acquired their senses more easily and effectively in the short term as well as in the long term and enhanced their ability to use them.This dissertation consists of eight chapters:Chapter 1 serves as the introduction. In this chapter, the author briefly discusses the notion of polysemy, the classifications of polysemous words, the acquisition research on polysemous words at home and abroard, the research design and the structure of this dissertation.Chapter 2 deals with the types of lexical semantic change, its motivations and cognitive mechanisms. A polysemous word is the synchronic pattern of senses surrounding it, which is itself the ever changing result of semantic change. Lexical semantic change undergoes three stages, namely, innovation→diffusion→result. There are three motivations for the semantic change, which are objective, subjective and linguistic. Semantic change is the result of meaning negotiation between speakers and hearers, in which speakers are the central forces of semantic innovation. Metaphor, metonymy, and subjectification are the major cognitive mechanisms of speakers' semantic innovation.Chapter 3 comments on the polysemy research in structural linguistics, pragmatics and psycholinguistics. Structural linguistics regards polysemy as the unusual case, monosemy and homonymy as the norm, treating the various senses of a polysemous word as contextually determined realizations or instantiations of a general definition. However, a general definition cannot cover all the senses of a polysemous word. With regard to many lexical items, polysemy is an irrefutable fact. Polysemy research in pragmatics focuses on the regular polysemous words, neglecting the irregular polysemous words. Psycholinguistics investigates the mental representation and access of the senses of the polysemous words, which offers some implications for both teaching and learning polysemous words. But unfortunately, the vast majority of psycholinguistic studies on polysemy ignore the important developments from cognitive linguistics. Moreover, they often target only two senses of a polysemous word and thus incorrectly equate polysemy with ambiguity. Finally, they rarely note any relationship between polysemy and thought.Chapter 4 discusses the polysemy research in cognitive linguistics. A polysemous word in cognitive linguistics is regarded as a complex category, in which the senses of the word (i.e. the members of the category) are related to one another by means of such general cognitive principles as metaphor, metonymy, image-schema transformations, etc. The senses of a polysemous word are represented in the form of radial networks, in which one sense is more salient than the others. By analyzing the semantic networks of some polysemous words, it is found that metaphor, metonymy, image-schema transformations can adequately elucidate their sense relations.In Chapter 5, with 105 sophomores in school of foreign languages of Southwest China University of Political Science and Law as the subjects and English-Chinese translation, Chinese-English translation, and questionnaire as instruments, we investigated the current situation of the subjects' acquisition of polysemous words. By analyzing the data elicited from the three tasks , we came up with the following findings: 1) the subjects did poorly in inferring the exact senses of the polysemous words from the context, but they did better in the case of regular polysemous words than that of irregular polysemous words; 2) the subjects could not fully grasp the whole polysemous networks of the target words, however, they grasped the prototypical senses better than the peripheral ones; 3) the subjects did not know how the multiple senses were related , and they usually learnt by rote the first three senses listed in the dictionary.Chapter 6 is an empirical study of applying polysemy theory in cognitive linguistics to teaching English majors polysemous words in the classroom. Two hundred and twenty sophomores from Southwest China University, Southwest China University of Political Science and Law, and Chongqing Normal University participated in the experiment, and they were divided into two groups randomly, namely, the experimental group and the control group. The subjects in the experimental group were presented with senses of the target words, and the cognitive motivations between senses were illustrated and explained, while the subjects in the control group were required to learn the senses of the target words by rote, and the cognitive motivations between senses were not given. Shortly after the presentation, subjects in both groups were required to do a test consisting of English-Chinese translation and Chinese-English translation to investigate their short-term acquisition of the target words. Half a month later, without notifying the subjects in both groups in advance, they were asked to do the same test as above. By analyzing the data, it was found that: 1) learners in the experimental group acquired the senses of the target words much better both in the short term and in the long term, and their productive ablity was enhanced, compared to their counterparts in the control group; 2) for the subjects in the experimental group, there was significant difference between their short-term and long-term acquisition of the senses of the target words.Chapter 7 is an empirical study of English synaesthetic polysemous words. Synaesthesia is a kind of special metaphor, which has effected synaesthetic sense extension. In this experiment, the methods and procedures were the same as described in Chapter 6, while the difference was that there was only one instrument, namely, Chinese-English translation. By analyzing the data, it was found that: 1) learners in the experimental group acquired the target words much better both in the short term and in the long term, and their productive ability was enhanced, compared to their counterparts in the control group; 2) for the subjects in the experimental group, there was significant difference between their short-term and long-term acquisition of certain senses of the target words.Chapter 8 serves as the conclusion and discussion. The major conclusions and limitations are summarized, and the implications for English vocabulary teaching and suggestions for future research are offered.