A Cognitive Study Of Polysemy

As an important and pervasive semantic phenomenon across languages, polysemy has attracted much attention of linguists working in various branches of linguistics. The traditional approach—structuralism is the influential school of linguistic study, while in the structural approach the research on the relationship of different senses of a polysemous word are confined to the internal structure of language without taking account of its underlying cognitive mechanism. Therefore, the traditional research fails to reveal the essence of it and to give a satisfactory explanation of the linguistic phenomenon of polysemy. The development of cognitive science provides a more convincing and, systematic analysis of polysemy from the external world. Based on Lakoff's Experientialism and Langacker's categorization theory, this thesis makes a tentative study on polysemy 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, by introducing Langacker's categorization theory into the study of the internal structure of polysemy, we propose a cognitive model for polysemy, the Prototype-extension-schema triangle. In this model, prototype is the salient member of a polysemy category, which is the primary basis for extension, defining the center of gravity for the category; a schema defines the commonality of the multiple senses of the polysemous item, which embodies the maximal categorization that can be extracted as a characterization of the category membership. This model provides a new way to approach whether a linguistic form is to be regarded as polysemous. Second, we conclude that polysemy is the process of the extension to the other senses from the core by the means of cognitive principles, such as image schema, metaphor and metonymy, which reinforces that polysemy is well motivated. Third, there is also a comparative study between polysemous equivalents in Chinese and English, and the result shows that cognitive universals and variations also exist in polysemy. The similarity and difference can be accounted for in terms of similar cognition and cross-cultural differences, i.e. all the senses of polysemy category are extended by universal cognitive strategies, such as conceptual metaphors and metonymies; on the other hand, all the senses of polysemy category are modulated by culture, for different cultures will trigger the different paths and directions of metaphors and metonymies.