Semantic Extension And Cognitive Motivation Of In And Out

This dissertation makes a relatively comprehensive exploration of the semantic formation, extension and cognitive motivation of two orientational words in and out, on the basis of the embodied philosophy, the prominence view, image schema, conceptual metaphor and orientational metaphor as a fresh perspective in describing language and crucial theories explaining language in cognitive linguistics. In this way, the experiential, evidential and systematic nature of the semantic category of an orientational word is revealed, and the interrelationship between human bodily experience, the cognitive system and linguistic performance is established.The core of this dissertation involves the semantic exploration of in and out from the perspective of human cognition. Meanings of in and out concern basic spatial meanings, and extended non-spatial and metaphorical meanings. Langacker's trajector-landmark distinction and Lakoff's image schema are applied to classify the spatial meanings of in and out into three types tentatively, that is, static inclusion or exclusion, a dynamic process either from exclusion to inclusion or from inclusion to exclusion, and the final inclusive or exclusive status of a dynamic process. Based on the spatial meanings, the non-spatial and metaphorical meanings of in and out are developed through the extended non-spatial trajector-landmark relationship and orientational metaphors. A generalization is made about the contrastive metaphorical indications of in and out in terms of range, state, tendency, the non-spatial metaphorical indications of in in terms of time, mode and origin, and the non-spatial metaphorical indications of out in terms of result, source and degree.The cognitive semantic research into in and out discloses the regularity of their semantic extension from spatial to non-spatial meanings. It is proved that human beings conceptualize the basic spatial concepts of inclusion and exclusion by virtue of bodily experience, construct the spatial concepts in the manner of the CONTAINER schema in the human cognitive system, and accordingly prescribe the spatial meanings of in and out. Depending upon the CONTAINER schema and orientational metaphors, we comprehend and express abstract or complex non-spatial domains in terms of the spatial domain of inclusion and exclusion, and thereby prescribe non-spatial meanings of in and out. On the basis of the semantic extension of in and out from spatial to non-spatial meanings, it is concluded that the essence of thesemantic extension of in and out is a kind of radiation from prototypical to atypical meanings, a kind of mapping from concrete to abstract meanings, as well as a kind of transfer from unitary to diverse meanings. In this way, polysemous meanings of in and out are respectively interrelated to establish two regular semantic systems.It is proved that the semantic classification and generalization of in and out in relation to cognition accounts for the importance of the human cognitive system in the process of the semantic formation of orientational words. Therefore the perspective and outcome of the semantic analysis of in and out are applicable to disciplinary researches into semantics, rhetoric, language teaching and so on.