| In daily language life,we can easily find that words do not contain only a single meaning but various meanings.That is,words and the meanings are not a one-on-one correspondence,but multiple correspondences.For example,bodypart terms do not have only the original meaning of body parts,but are used t o indicate and understand surrounding objects,space,time and phenomena.Ther efore,this research focused on this concept and studied the similarities and diff erences of the meaning extension processes of Chinese and Korean body-part te rms through conceptual metaphor and theory of conceptual metonymy in cogniti ve linguistics.This is in contrast with previous research on body-part terms in Chinese an d Korean in that first,it had mainly been conducted in terms of idiomatic wor ds.Second,it had been limited to only some body-part terms.Third,it had onl y been discovering correspondence and non-correspondence.Based on such prob lems,this study aims to reveal the characteristics of meaning extension of body-part terms in the two languages.It has significance in that thorough exploratio n on characteristics of metaphor and metonymy phenomena was performed.Being a representative example showing the interaction between language a nd culture,body-part terms are used relatively frequently in any language and made with native words.Therefore,body-part terms are very productive and var ious meaning extensions occur.Comparing meaning extension of body-part terms is important in investigating the universal features of Chinese and Korean and unique linguistic and cultural characteristics and differences.The research presents specific examples of 1)body-part terms having meani ng extension exclusively and 2)body-part terms that combine with other words by acting as component morphemes to extend meaning extension.First,basic m eanings of the terms in Chinese and Korean dictionaries were compared.For w ord usages that are not included in the dictionaries but frequently used in real l ife,the extension meanings were systematically classified through corpus materia ls and newspaper searches.The objective of this study is to explain the difference of meaning extensio n of body-part terms that are important in terms of language and culture based on cognitive linguistic theory.For this,individual body-part terms were explored,with analysis and combination of the meaning extension process of the entire Korean and Chinese body-part terms statistically and quantitatively using inducti on,with an investigation of the overall meaning extension of body-part terms.Chapters 2,3 and 4 are core parts of this study;the meaning extension of each body-part term in Chinese and Korean is compared and analyzed in detai l.Based on research by Heine et al.(1991)on the principle of directions of m etaphoric transition in concept area,it is further segmented;meaning extension i s studied in the order of “man > animal > plant > object > action > space > t ime > quantity > abstraction.” For convenience of classification,Chapter 2 cove rs terms of body-parts pertaining to the head(head,face,eye,nose,mouth,ear and chin),Chapter 3 includes the torso(neck,shoulder,chest,waist,stomach and back),and Chapter 4 deals with terms of limbs(hand,leg and foot).Mean ing extension of words results from expanding meanings of an object that a wo rd indicates and other objects that are similar and close to the word.Meaning extension of body-part terms is a result of naming other objects that have positi onal,morphological,functional and structural characteristics with body parts.As such,the mechanism of meaning extension is explained before the extension pr ocess.Chapter 5 reviews further the meaning extension of body-part terms;base d on preceding research,it explores the universality of body metaphor,as well as a combination of direction words and body-part terms.Through body metaph or,vast areas of concepts with metaphoric meaning are created,and such conce pts form a huge body metaphor system by being connected with different relati onships instead of existing independently.Through this process,the study concluded the following results:First,language is based on physical experience and has a close relationship with our cognitive process.Furthermore,meanings of surrounding objects are e xtended from closer to farther from our body,from specific to abstract,and fro m life to non-life.Second,metaphor and metonymy play an important role in understanding meaning and extension of language.Unlike previous linguistics that considered metaphor and metonymy as deviant language phenomena and special stylistic eff ects,cognitive linguistics sees that they are closely related to our cognitive acti vities and body experience,and uses them as a mechanism of meaning extensio n.In summary,this study analyzed and explained that meaning extension of b ody-part terms is by cognitive mechanism,investigated cognitive properties,char acteristics and regulations in the process of meaning extension of language,and analyzed the similarities and differences of Chinese and Korean speakers' cogni tive process.The research has significance in revealing universality and specifici ty of language;enriching the theory of cognitive semantics;and promoting voca bulary education,dictionary editing,translating and interpreting,and cultural exc hanges between Korea and China. |
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