Polysemy: A Cognitive Phenomenon Modulated By Culture

As an important and pervasive linguistic phenomenon, polysemy has attracted much attention of linguists in different schools. In the past, people more concerned external reasons which cause the changes of meanings of polysemous words, without taking account of the underlying cognitive basis on polysemy. Therefore, they can not grasp the essence of polysemy.With the development of cognitive science, cognitive linguistics provides a more convincing and systematic analysis of polysemy. Based on the Experientialism and the prototype categorization theory, this thesis makes a tentative study on polysemy from the cognitive perspective, aiming to give a satisfactory explanation of this linguistic phenomenon. This research is conducted at the aspects of its internal structure, semantic extension mechanism and cross-cultural comparison, which can best represent the findings of the thesis. First of all, polysemy is a cognitive phenomenon which is the result of human cognitive categorization and conceptualization. The senses of a polyseme constitute a prototype category, in which distinct meanings distribute around a prototypical meaning and share family resemblance to one another. Second, the formation of polysemy is a process of category extension in ways of the derivation of non-prototypical members as well as the prototype splits. Conceptual metaphor and metonymy are two important and common cognitive mechanisms for that extension. Third, based on the idea that there exist cognitive universals and variations in different cultures, this thesis claims that meanings of a polyseme are characterized by similarities and differences in different languages. Hence two characteristics of conceptualization of polysemy are found through a comparative study of heart in English and Chinese. On the one hand, senses of a polysemous category are postulated by universal cognitive strategies, i.e. metaphor and metonymy. Thus meanings of polysemous equivalents may be similar to each other in different languages. On the other hand, meanings of a polyseme are modulated by culture, for different cultures trigger different metaphors and metonymies. Thus meanings of polysemous equivalents may vary. In sum, polysemy embodies cognitive universals and variations in different cultures.This thesis is somewhat novel in terms of two aspects. At first, it affirms the view that conversion, a way of word formation, is the result of metonymy. This is a view that most scholars have agreed on but given little illustration. This thesis illustrates this view in detail, in terms of the theory of base and profile. The other innovation in this thesis lies in the cognitive study of polysemy from a cross-cultural perspective. Most cognitive linguists in the past have concentrated on the universals existing in human cognition, without taking account of the cultural variations. This thesis makes a comparative study of polysemy with a special case heart in different languages, especially in English and Chinese, and thus reveals that cultural variations result in cognitive variations and hence polysemous variations.All in all, this thesis gives a relatively thorough interpretation of polysemy from the cognitive perspective. It will also provide some inspiration for dictionary compilers, language learners and teachers.