A Cognitive Comparative Study Of The Semantic Extension Of English And Chinese Human-body-part Terms

With the development of society,language,as the communicative tool,also develops all the time.As a result,semantic extension phenomenon has come into being and it is ubiquitous in all kinds of languages.Semantic extension phenomenon leads to polysemy which is the inevitable result of human being's cognition.The process of semantic extension is realized mainly by metaphor,metonymy and their interaction while among them,metaphor and metonymy are the basic tools of cognition which play essential roles in the process of people recognizing the world.Metaphor contains two domains: one is target domain and the other is source domain.Target domain is abstract and strange for people;on the contrary,source domain is concrete and familiar for people.Metaphor is a cognitive process,in order to understand it better;the characteristics of source domain are mapped to the target domain.Metonymy mapping includes one domain in which people tend to use more highlight,more easily cognitive and memorial parts to replace the whole or the other parts of the whole.Metaphor and metonymy always interweave with each other and function together in people's cognitive process.In daily life,the author finds people create a large number of polysemy,especially related to human being's body-part;for example,“??”,??”,“??”,“??”,“head of a table”,“face of a watch”and“eye of a needle”etc.Therefore,human-body-part terms are the ideal objects to study the semantic extension phenomenon.The thesis adopts both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods.As for the data collection,with the help of Chinese Language Material Database,English and Chinese dictionaries which are published by authoritative publishing house and the internet,the author has collected enough phrases,idioms,slangs about “HEAD/TOU”.The thesis mainly employs the theories of metaphor,metonymy,image schema and metaphtonymy to study the semantic extension phenomenon,with the purpose of revealing the cognitive mechanism of polysemy and exploring the way of applying the theories to the process of semantic extension.At first,the thesis mainly introduces the related semantic theories,and then analyzes the relationships between different items of “HEAD/TOU” and how it produces the polysemy phenomenon in detail.In Chapter One,the author introduces the related research findings in human-body-part terms and the limitations.In Chapter Two,the author introduces the related theories and methodology.In Chapter Three,the author analyzes the semantic extension of “HEAD/TOU” based on the cognitive theories and sums up the similarities and differences of semantic extension of “HEAD/TOU” between English and Chinese.In Chapter four,it is about findings,implications,limitations and suggestions.By analysis,the thesis draws the following three findings: first,metaphor and metonymy are the main cognitive means which are perceived in the semantic extension phenomenon and image schema is the basis of understanding metaphor and metonymy.Second,in the process of semantic extension,metaphor and metonymy always appear at the same time,and work together.The study finds that metonymy is more basic than metaphor.Third,there are both similarities and differences between English and Chinese semantic extension of “HEAD/TOU”.The reasons for the similarities are that both English and Chinese share the same body structures and experiences;the differences mainly result from such factors as different cultures,customs,and thinking patterns,etc.The study has a positive guidance for teaching and learning foreign language vocabulary.However,the thesis also has a lot of limitations that require the author to keep studying to broaden research perspectives further.