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The Cognitive Approach Of Study On The Transition From Proper Nouns To Common Nouns

Posted on:2007-07-20Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y D ZhuFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360185493826Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
At present, with the world development and social progress, many new approaches and methods are utilized in the traditional researches, which also bring some new perspectives and discoveries for them. The cognitive revolution brings new approaches and methods in the traditional linguistics, and it has become a general tendency to adopt these methods in the linguistics today. As is known to all, cognition is the foundation for language, and language is a window to cognition. In the final analysis, all the language phenomena are the embodiments of cognitive ability and mechanism of human beings. Cognitive linguistics is the result of the combination of cognitive science and the traditional linguistics. It is an interdisciplinary subject that concentrates on semantic issues. It has widened the range of linguistic research and deepened understandings of some traditional subjects in the linguistics. Furthermore, the research on the language can testify the cognitive ability and mechanism of human beings.Noun is a basic word class in languages and it is also one of the basic components in sentences. So it has been a study for human beings in the linguistics at all times. In the traditional linguistics, nouns refer to names of people, objects and ideas, and they can be subdivided into common nouns and proper nouns. The former have both connotative meanings and referents, but the latter have only referents. One of their differences is that the former stand for certain classes but the latter reflect the feature of uniqueness. The discussion of proper nouns is often found in the lexicology, and the phenomenon—the transition from proper nouns to common nouns cannot be neglected in the research because it exists almost in all languages and it often involves changes of meanings. The usual way to discuss this phenomenon in the lexicology is to seek the historical or social factors that have an influence on the process of the transition. Although these factors can explain the...
Keywords/Search Tags:proper nouns, cognitive linguistics, categorization, the theory of prototype category, metaphor
PDF Full Text Request
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