| Chinese taste words are the essential terms in Chinese vocabulary.These words are typical polysemous words,which are not only used to express the characteristics of gustatory perception,but also those of other perceptions and non-perception.Through the retrieval and analysis of the existing relevant studies,we find that the researches of Chinese taste words are mostly contained in those of sensory words and mainly focus on the descriptions of their meaning extensions,with few classification on the meanings of Chinese taste words and few interpretations on the cognitive mechanisms and motivations of the meaning extensions,and the meaning construction of these words is also rarely involved.Therefore,based on the existing studies,within the framework of cognitive linguistics,this research takes "suan","tian","ku" and "la" as the research objects to make a systematic analysis on the meanings of Chinese taste words.This research mainly concerns the following issues:(1)the meaning classifications of Chinese taste words;(2)the meaning extension rules of Chinese taste words and the cognitive mechanisms in their meaning extensions;(3)the motivations of the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words;(4)the meaning construction of Chinese taste words.First of all,on the basis of meaning interpretations in some popular Chinese dictionaries,such as the Modern Chinese Dictionary,the Ancient Chinese Dictionary and the Grand Chinese Dictionary etc.and the data in the corpus,the meanings of Chinese taste words "suan","tian","ku" and"la" are collected,and these meanings are classified according to their cognitive domains.It is found that the meanings of Chinese taste words can be mainly classified into two categories:perceptual senses and non-perceptual senses.The perceptual senses can be further divided into:the sense of gustatory perception,the sense of olfactory perception,the sense of auditory perception,the sense of tactile perception,the sense of visual perception and the sense of mental perception.Secondly,based on the relevant diachronic data,this research investigates the rules of meaning extensions of Chinese taste words.It is found that the meaning extension rules of Chinese taste words mainly include:the meaning extensions from senses of gustatory perception to other perceptual senses of visual perception,tactile perception,auditory perception,olfactory perception and mental perception respectively;and the meaning extensions from senses of gustatory perception to the non-perceptual senses.Then,from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,this research explores the cognitive mechanisms in the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words.It is found that the cognitive mechanisms in the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words mainly include conceptual metonymy,conceptual metaphor,mental scanning and profiling.On the one hand,by the cognitive process of metonymy,human beings use the object to refer to its typical feature,which makes the meaning of Chinese taste words extend.For example,the original meaning of the Chinese taste word "suan",is "vinegar",which is the conceptualization of a specific edible substance on the basis of human beings' gustatory perception,and its conceptual base is the base of gustatory perception.Therefore,the original meaning of "suan" is the sense of gustatory perception.By the cognitive process of metonymy,human beings use the object "vinegar" to refer to its typical feature“sour tasting",which makes the meaning of "suan" extend from the sense of gustatory perception "vinegar" to a new sense of gustatory perception"sour tasting".Therefore,conceptual metonymy is a cognitive mechanism in the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words.On the other hand,based on the similarity of perceptual experiences,human beings project the image of gustatory perception from the domain of gustatory perception to other perceptual domains by the cognitive process of metaphor,such as the domains of tactile perception,visual perception,olfactory perception,auditory perception and mental perception,which makes the meaning of Chinese taste words extend from the sense of gustatory perception to sense of tactile perception,sense of visual perception,sense of olfactory perception,sense of auditory perception and sense of mental perception respectively.Moreover,based on the similarity of things,human beings project the taste concepts from the domain of gustatory perception to some non-perceptual domains by the cognitive process of metaphor,which makes the meaning of Chinese taste words extend from the sense of gustatory perception to some non-perceptual senses.Therefore,conceptual metaphor is the main cognitive mechanism in the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words.In addition,mental scanning and profiling are also cognitive mechanisms in the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words.For example,the mentally perceptual senses of "tian",include mentally perceptual sense1 "happy" and mentally perceptual sense2 "to make sb.happy".The mentally perceptual sense2 "to make sb.happy" is extended from the.mentally perceptual sense1 via mental scanning the conceptual content of the mentally perceptual base of "tian" in different ways.Besides,human beings,different profiling of the conceptual structures in the mentally perceptual base of "tian" makes these two mental senses have different grammatical attributes.Therefore,mental scanning and profiling are also cognitive mechanisms in the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words.Thirdly,under the guidance of Embodied Philosophy Theory,the motivations of the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words are explored.It is found that the Chinese taste words are formed by language encoding on the basis of human beings' interactive experience and cognitive processing of the external things,and the development of the meanings of Chinese taste words is not only closely related to external objective factors,but also closely related to the cognitive factors of human beings.Therefore,the motivations of the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words include both external motivations and cognitive motivations.The external motivations mainly include the objective motivation of social development,the functional motivation of making up the expressive vacancies,and the pragmatic motivation of achieving special expressive effects.These factors can fully explain the inevitability and necessity of the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words.Besides,there are also cognitive motivations which determine the directions of the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words.These cognitive motivations mainly include:(1)Human beings' cognitive pattern of synaesthesia metaphor motivates the meaning of Chinese taste words to extend from the sense of gustatory perception to the senses of other physiological perceptions,including the sense of tactile perception,the sense of olfactory perception,the sense of visual perception and the sense of auditory perception.(2)Human beings' cognitive pattern of Mind-as-Body metaphor is the cognitive motivation for the meaning extension of Chinese taste words from the sense of gustatory perception to the sense of mental perception.(3)Human beings' cognitive pattern of understanding the external things with physical experiences is the cognitive motivation for the meaning extension of Chinese taste words from the sense of gustatory perception to the non-perceptual senses.Finally,from the perspective of dynamic construal of meaning,this research has explored the meaning construction of Chinese taste words.It is found that the meaning construction of Chinese taste words is a process of on-line dynamic construal.The generation of the meanings of Chinese taste words depends on the effective mental activities and cognitive construal of the interpreters involved in the discourse communication.Linguistic contexts and the related background knowledge of the interpreters play a very important role in the meaning construction of Chinese taste words.The interpreters obtain effective information from the specific linguistic contexts,and through their mental activities,the effective information obtained from the linguistic contexts is cognitively processed,and the important information,such as the conceptual domain,conceptual base and profile of the meaning of the Chinese taste word is derived.Then,based on the background knowledge of the conceptual content and related meanings of the Chinese taste words stored in their cognitive contexts,and combining the relevant information derived from the linguistic contexts,the interpreters construct the specific meaning of the Chinese taste word on-line through their effective mental activities and cognitive processing.In a word,within the framework of cognitive linguistics,this research makes a comprehensive and systematic semantic analysis on the Chinese taste words.In this research,the meanings of Chinese taste words are classified,the meaning extension rules of Chinese taste words are probed into,the cognitive mechanisms and the motivations of the meaning extensions of Chinese taste words are explored,and the meaning construction of Chinese taste words is analyzed.This research provides reasonable cognitive interpretations to the semantic phenomena of Chinese taste words,and validates that human beings' cognition has an important influence on the meaning extensions and the meaning construction.It provides significant support for some of the theories and views in cognitive linguistics,such as the Conceptual Metaphor Theory,Conceptual Metonymy Theory and the dynamic construal approach to meaning,etc. |
PDF Full Text Request